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The ruthless Egyptian Pharaoh En Sabah Nur. He was once worshipped as a god and believed to be the harbinger of the Apocalypse. Now in present day, he’s been ressurected by the sinister Nathaniel Essex for the same means.

Like the story? I think it’s good. Anyway, my friend made a point that the Bobby Lashley figure would make a good base for a movie style En Sabah Nur figure. He was right. I started off this figure by painting the head. What I wanted out of the custom was to make him resemble Apocalypse without having him look ridiculous. So what I did was I drybrushed his head with a grey color and had it fade off down his neck and shoulders, giving it a “war paint” look. The blue lips with the lines coming off as well as the black points on the top of his head I wanted to give a tattoo look to. The same goes for the design on his torso. I wanted it to have an “alien tech tribal” look to it, just to add something more to the overall design. When I finished that and whited out the eyes I could tell it was going well.

The next part came when I had to add Egyptian garb to him. Luckily McFarlane just made a new line of Spawn toys that feature ancient Egyptian characters. I used the one called “Soldier of Ra” and chopped him up to get all the pieces. He came with a headdress that had this oni-looking mask and some weird antennae things on top so I cut both off, dremmeled down the inside so it would fit on Lashley’s head and voila. A removable headdress. Then I took the beard, glued it to his chin and added apoxie to blend it together.

Then I cut off the neck piece he was wearing and fit it to Lashley’s body and painted it gold. I also took the shoulder armor and glued it to the body because I thought it looked cool. Next, I took some cape straps from Sinister (even in figure form he works with Apocalypse) and cut one in half, length-wise to give En Sabah Nur these straps that went from the front and crossed over on the back. Just a way to make it appear as if the armor is connected. And it just looks cool. Another cape strap was used for his belt, and the belt buckle-thing as well came from the Soldier of Ra figure.

Now for his Egyptian skirt-thingy…the Soldier of Ra figure came with one but it wouldn’t fit the body I was using. So instead, I just the front piece from it and luckily I had a Dr. Strange figure with a cloak I didn’t need, so a snip here a glue there add some paint (painted the fringe black and dry brushed black everywhere), and voila! And before you ask, no it doesn’t hinder his leg movement. I glued it in two pieces to ensure such a thing wouldn’t happen.

The feet were a challenge…because the figure wears combat boots, but they just didn’t have those back in ancient Egypt…so I had a stroke of genius (which turned out to also just be a stroke). I cut off the Soldier of Ra’s feet mid-shin, dremmeled that part down into a peg, and shoved it into the legs. Added some paint to match the flesh tone of Bobby Lashley and there you have it. I also added apoxie to smooth over the boot laces, painted it gold and now it just looks like legging armor. I also painted his wrist bands gold, and I went over every gold piece he wears with gold. McFarlane had it looking more like bronze which I didn’t like. So I painted over everything gold, with gold and dry brushed some black to give it an aged look.

Then I painted over this tattoo Lashley had on his left arm, and I used this cool scythe-like weapon the Soldier of Ra figure came with, painted it gold with a black dry brushing, and now he’s got a weapon worthy of his greatness. It also has this glass eye thing in the middle of the scythe part that reminds me of the Eye of Ra from Raiders of the Lost Ark.

So there you have it. A lot of time and patience went into this, and I don’t like to brag (actually I do) but I think this is a very original custom. Nobody has ever done a movie version of Apocalypse and I think I succeeded.