Custom Manga Style Gaara Funko POP• | Funko POP Repaint |

BOOM :boom: Manga Gaara!

This custom has been in the works since early April, I’ve just now finished him in the middle of May :flushed: , I kept pushing the project aside due to a plethora of reasons, reasons that I won’t get into. Nonetheless, I’m proud to have finally finished him. Not gonna lie though when I say that Gaara was my most difficult character to paint, granted that I only have painted two characters before him but you get the idea. He’s by far the most detailed character I’ve done so far in this little custom manga series. That’s one of the many reasons why it had taken me so long to finish this little fella. Painting all the little details was painful, and the amount of white paint that I had used was criminal. I’ll go into more detail on the whole painting process here in a bit. If you’re even interested in my journey to get this guy finished.

Man, I didn’t think that I’d ever get to post this blog. Amino had been bugging out so badly! “New” bugs kept coming out of the woodwork almost every week, And it stopped me from posting regularly. Team Animo just needs to leave the app alone sometimes🥲. Anywho, I’ve been working on this project for a little while now, I worked on him on and off whenever my time and mood allowed me to focus on it. Regardless of just how long it took me to finish this art project, I’m still very pleased with how Gaara turned out. He’s just so cool to look at, one day I’ll get around to painting their boxes. But for now, here are the progress photos of my journey of painting this Gaara Funko Pop.

I obviously don’t own the rights to this Funko Pop or Gaara himself. I just paint strictly for fun and enjoyment, So all rights go to the original owners. I just wanted to throw that out there due to the overwhelming amount of theft and AI art. Just an FYI before we continue on with this blog.

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The progress photos + The Materials Used For This Project.

Waterbased acrylic Paints, Packs Of Paint Brushes, A In-Box Gaara Funko POP, Patience, And Water.

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At first I painted all the parts that needed to be painted black, (Like I did with Kawaki And Shinki), as I did not want to deal with fixing any mistakes that might occur after painting everything black once I finished painting everything white. White is VERY difficult to cover up/correct any mistakes. Tbh, I’m debating whether to purchase a pint of white gesso to skip the headache of building up layers of white paint. As we all know, white paint is a very difficult material to work with whenever you’re trying to build up the layers to become opaque enough. The type of acrylic paint that I use (More Specifically The White Paint), is pretty good. But it’s still a pain in the neck to build up even layers. Unfortunately, Gaara was a very difficult character to evenly cover completely without nasty patches. I lost count of how many layers of white paint that I had applied to the figure before it eventually started to even out and become opaque.

Painting the sand was AWFUL, all of the small nooks and crannies were SO difficult to paint. I had to use a denser brush and a tapping motion to get the paint into the small gaps and grooves. Luckily, it worked well. I wouldn’t recommend using that tapping method for anything else due to the risk of getting a patchy and bumpy paint job. So I was really careful about where I applied the paint as I didn’t want to accidentally touch a spot on his body. I’d HATE to clean up that mess. It wouldn’t be pretty. The hardest part was painting the sand and Gaara’s hair, it took a lot of coats to fully cover the redness of Gaara’s hair. Tbh, his eyes weren’t that easy either. The gourd was a tricky part of this process, The paint job was really patchy at first, it took a few coats to make the tan color fully disappear.

The amount of details that I had to repaint was pretty daunting, the first thing that I tackled was the tattoo on his forehead. Instead of using paints, I decided to use a pen to “Paint” the Kenji more accurately. I think it turned out well, it’s not perfect by any means of course but, I tried my best. Next, I worked on his eyes, they were a little challenging and I’m sure they aren’t perfect. But they definitely could look worse. A whole lot worse.

The cleanup was SO satisfying, I obviously had to be very careful and patient with my cleanup job, as I didn’t want to accidentally get black paint all over the white parts. (Spoiler Alert, I Did Just That). The details on the gourd are HIDEOUS, honestly, it’s terrible. I’m trying not to dwell on it too much as it’s too late to fix it. It’s a very messy paint job, it was difficult to paint the fine and dainty details. Just don’t look at it for too long, haha, then you won’t notice the terrible kanji. The cracks in Gaara’s gourd were fun to detail with paint. I had to go back in and fix the rough edges. I’m so thankful for my thin detail brushes :sob:

Boom, Here’s the finished figure! I’m so proud to have finally finished this little fella, I’m proud of myself. I want to eventually paint his box just for aesthetic purposes, Plus it would look sick on display. Who knows, I might end up sharing his finished box sometime in the future. I’d LOVE to make a proper display shelf for all of my custom Manga Funko Pops, I’ve only got three so far but I’m planning on painting more in the near future, Kakashi is definitely on my list. But for now, I’m going to enjoy a little bit of free time.

Spoiler Alert, Jigen is next.

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More Photos.

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