Custom Glyos: The Electric Light Delphi

The Electric Light Delphi.

It's much easier to blog when I have interesting things to talk about, for example, the Electric Light Delphi, pictured above.  It's my latest and greatest custom Glyos toy.  Build details and overlong write-up after the jump.


One of the most fascinating Glyos designs are (is?) the Delphi.  A race of cetacean-looking time travelers.  The Delphi have only been released as hand-cast urethane resin, for the ultra-fast selling Glyos Custom Corps.  They're very tough to get first hand, and ofter command triple digits on ebay.  Last October though, awesome toy blogger, and Steve Jackson Games honcho Phil Reed, convinced Matt to let him do some pewter casts of Glyos heads, the Delphi included.  These too sold fast, but I was able to nab one each of the Delphi designs available, and several others.  What wasn't included, was the very nifty art-deco Delphi Helmet:  

Custom Corps Armored Delphi.

BUT, another Glyos collector had one up for trade on the official Glyos Forum.  I proposed a trade.  I would do a custom Delphi of his choosing, complete with LEDs, and airbrushed with Monster Kolor.  He went for it, and I set to work.

Delphi with Phase arm removed.

We collaborated on the colors, and parts used for the design. Using an LED from the indispensable Sciplus.com, and components from Radio Shack, I wired up a battery pack with a switch and wired an LED into the phase/device arm of the toy. The rest of the figure was built completely from Glyos parts.  Though I had to glue the two pieces on the back of the arm together to keep the wiring and LED in place,  I made sure to leave most of the pieces free to be swapped around, in traditional Glyos fashion.  I also sculpted a Glyos-compatible peg into the backpack so the entire works could be removed without issue.

Finished Build with light on, battery dying.

Once the basic sculpt was finished, I worked up a cover for the exposed battery.  The fist two I tried were way to bulky, so I ended up simply covering the battery with a disk of epoxy putty, with a few sculpted detail lines.  The battery can still be swapped without to much difficulty, with the compromise that I didn't cover the pack completely.  It's still a bit rough.

Color Sprays.

The recipient requested the body in metallic blue, with a red-highlighted yellow head.  Monster Kolor had me covered, I used a mix of Bottle Blue, and Blue Moon Micrometallic sprays.   For the head I basecoated with MK yellow, then layered up with Lemonade,  Over Easy, Fleshless, and Reddy.  I also highlighted the head with sprays of Orange Pearl, which gave the finish a nice depth.  For the arm, I gently sprayed some Silver Metallic, and used a generous does of MK Color-Change flakes.  Everything was finished with the magical, ultra-glossy, Monster Kolor two-part clearcoat.

Finished sprays.

With a big pewter head, and lots of backpack, this guy was incredibly top-heavy.  I whipped up a stand from a miniature base.  No more toppling!  The custom was finished by painting in the detail lines, wires, eyes, and base with Reaper MSP acrylic.  The flat gray gives a nice contrast to the ultragloss.  Finished pictures follow.  Sorry for my crap photography.




Huge thanks to Matt Doughty, for continuing to make awesome toys, that are in turn, an awesome canvas  Phil Reed for making so many hard-to-find Glyos heads available, and being a great Toy Blogger.  Matt Walker for creating the best paint ever. Finally to a certain NY Glyos collector, who now has the brightest Delphi ever!