Saturday, November 30, 2013

SAY MY NAME


Walter White. Heisenberg. Like Dexter Morgan or Don Draper, one of the most complex, real, and best characters to appear on television in the past 25 years. I came to Breaking Bad very late-- like the final season late-- and was introduced by my girlfriend... the person this piece was made for. While I had built her Doctor Who figures in the past ( http://strangelabs.blogspot.com/2013/06/you-will-be-upgraded.html , http://strangelabs.blogspot.com/2013/02/the-doctor-who.html ), I wanted her to have a Heisenberg to celebrate her birthday and the end of the series. 


Completed in October 2013, Heisenberg is primarily a mix of 25th Anniversary GI Joe pieces (upper body) and GI Joe movie pieces (legs, coat), topped off with a random head I found amongst my customizing fodder. It was already primed white and looked like Walt, so I ran with it. 



That is, indeed, a tiny, in-scale plastic baggie of Sky Blue meth. It was a random figure accessory literally chopped up and put into a real plastic baggie from the Strange Labs Kitchen that I hacked up. It's also the weirdest accessory I've ever made for a figure. 


While watching the first season of Breaking Bad and new episodes every Sunday simultaneously, it was fascinating to see how so much ties together, and how so many details from earlier episodes really come into play later on. I was struck by how much Walter White reminded me of Dexter Morgan-- the normal demeanor, solid job as an authority figure, dual identities, illicit activities, etc. Like Walter, Dexter is aware of his Dark Passenger. What I wonder is if, like Dexter, White's dark side Heisenberg has always been there, lurking in the shadows...

NEXT TIME: HOLIDAZE BEGINS