When people ask me what the favorite custom I've made is, I always have trouble conjuring up an answer. Upon completion of this Triple H custom though, I don't think I'll have any problem saying this is one of my favorites. All the work I put into it really shows with the completed project. Everything just seemed to click with this custom.

I started work on this figure in late-June as my second major TTL custom. I tried some new techniques for this custom that I've never used before and some I've never seen used in customizing wrestling figures. Most notably, I sculpted the knee pads and knee brace without losing the articulation at the knees. Every TTL custom I had seen with sculpted knee pads prior to this one just had the knee pads sculpted over the knee joint as if it weren't there, thus eliminating the bending knee. I wanted it to be fully functional and to look good. So I drilled the pins out of both knees to separate the upper and lower legs, sculpted the top and bottom halves separately, and put them back together with a small screw replacing the pins. Also fully functional is the wrist articulation, which was done by taping his wrist and fist separately.

Ooooooh......pedigree on The Rock.

The WWF title in Triple H's hand looks so much better than in The Rock's.

"Who cares about all that technical stuff; what did you make it with?" you ask. Well...I swiped the head from a DS4 Triple H, the lower legs came from a DS3 Hardcore Holly, and the rest of the figure basically consists of the parts that make up a Smackdown 2 Triple H and about a dozen other TTL figures.

If you're curious about the trunks, I decided on the trunks Triple H wore at King of the Ring and Fully Loaded because of two reasons. The first being that I think they look cool, and the second being that I couldn't get the design he wears most of the time to fit properly on the figure.

On top of the knee pads and brace, I also used Sculpey to add some additional bulk to "The Game." As you can see, the pecs have been modified to look more accurate and I added some more size to his arms. I expect to take a lot of heat for not sculpting over the chiseled abs, but I modeled his physique after Triple H's ads for Metaform workout supplements and various press photos where he was flexing like crazy (see image below).

The image above is a scan I took of the figure when it was approximately 60% finished. Since this scan, I've added a few more coats of flesh-colored paint and changed the color of the knee brace.