If you’ve ever seen actors playing with themselves — er, action figure versions of themselves, we mean — you already know that many of the action figures and dolls for our favorite movie characters look very little like we remember them. Thankfully, artist Noel Cruz has rectified this with painstaking re-paints of the dolls based upon some of his favorite characters, including actors from Lord of the Rings, Harry Potter, Twilight, Pirates of the Caribbean, comic book adaptations, and classic movies. His whole oeuvre is impressive, but we wanted to focus on the ultra-realistic repainted dolls from the movies most relevant to what we enjoy (or mock) on a regular basis.
Cruz uses acrylic paint and ultra-fine brushes to make factory-standard dolls look more true to life, sometimes yielding uncanny results. Many of them have sold on Ebay for over $500.
“As with all my creations, I completely strip the original factory paint on each of the dolls and completely repaint the facial features in, paying attention to accuracy of likeness and lifelike expressions. [...] Repaint is a new form of pop art, wherein the doll’s face is treated like a three dimensional canvas, with the added challenge of painting within a very small area . Since dolls are basically miniature pieces, brush strokes and shading have to be very controlled and precise.” — Noel Cruz
All pictures via Noel Cruz, and you can view (or buy) more at his site. Hat tip to ONTD (via Jezebel).
Cate Blanchett as Galadriel (Lord of the Rings)
Viggo Mortensen as Aragorn (Lord of the Rings)
Liv Tyler as Arwen (Lord of the Rings)
Emma Watson as Hermione Granger (Harry Potter)
Daniel Radcliffe as Harry Potter
Ralph Fiennes as Lord Voldemort (Harry Potter)
Kristen Stewart as Bella Swan (Twilight: New Moon)
Pirates of the Caribbean dolls
Lynda Carter as Wonder Woman
Partial rework of Hot Toys’ Christopher Reeve Superman
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