Goaliejack Luongo! aka Go Canucks Go!

This is the tale of how one unassuming little warjack grew up to be one of the best goalies in the world. Warning: this post contains conversions, sculpting, hockey talk, and may contain traces of Canucks fanaticism.

As well as being a miniatures enthusiast, I’ve been a Vancouver Canucks fan for 18 years now – as long as I’ve been watching hockey. Shortly after I started following the Canucks, they came within spitting distance of the holy grail of hockey: the legendary Stanley Cup.

They were exciting times in the city of Vancouver, as it was only the second time the Canucks had ever gotten as far as the finals. When the Canucks lost by 1 goal in game 7, it was devastating.

Thousands of ‘fans ‘ jumped off the bandwagon, but I stayed true. Through 17 years of more disappointments than victories, I stayed true. Now, at long last, the Canucks are in the Stanley Cup finals once more. For the first time ever, the Canucks are the favorites to win it all. I decided that I must honor this achievement in my own way, by creating my own personal mascot for my team.

The original inspiration for this project came while I was watching a game in the second round of the playoffs. I happened to have an unpainted Avalancher heavy jack sitting in front of my TV at the time. I also happened to have a migraine that day, so I was suffering from extreme sensitivity to light and squinting a lot (watching hockey under such circumstances is not recommended – it’s painful!). Maybe it was the squinting, or maybe it was a side effect of the pills I had taken for my migraine, but I found myself thinking that the Avalancher really kind of looked like a little goalie in front of the game like that.

I instantly knew that I had to make my own little Goaliejack Luongo! For those who don’t follow hockey, Roberto Luongo is the #1 goalie of the Canucks, and he’s been having a stellar year. I thought about making a warjack version of one of my favorite Canucks goalies from years past (Kirk MacLean, because he was the man when I started watching, or possibly Corey Hirsch, because I always loved his mask), or going with the current backup, Corey Schnieder. Now, Schnieder is an amazing up-and-comer, and I think he’s the first backup we’ve had in years who could easily be a starting goalie. I love the guy, and I think he’s going to be one of the greatest goalies in the NHL in a few years. I had to go with Luongo, though, because when you get down to it, he’s our go-to goalie. More than any other player on the team, the 2011 Canucks cup run rests on his shoulders.

My initial thought was to convert the Avalancher that had inspired me. I quickly discarded that idea, however, in favor of using a Talon. In part, I made this decision because I thought that the Talon had a good basic goalie pose, and that the spear could easily be converted to a stick. The main reason why I decided on a Talon, however, is because I only own a single Avalancher, while I own six (yes, that’s right, half a dozen) Talons. Why do I have so many Talons, you might ask? Because I like them, dang it! I’ve always thought that they just look cool, and I’ve already got one that’s converted into a laborjack with a shovel.

In order to turn a Talon into a Goaliejack, I knew I would need to do a little sculpting. Most miniature gamers will be familiar with the two-part epoxy putty known as greenstuff. To those who aren’t familiar with it, I would compare working with it to sculpting using bubble gum. When you mix the two parts together, it is very soft and squishy, as well as being quite sticky. After a few hours, it cures into a slightly flexible, but generally hard consistency.

I’ve been using greenstuff for years, but I’m not exactly an expert with it. Usually I’m just using it to fill tiny gaps, or to sculpt incredibly easy things like sandbags. I knew my greenstuff skills wouldn’t really be up to the task, but I was determined to see my vision through anyway.

Actually, for the most part, the sculpting proved to be pretty easy. For the pads, the blocker, and the stick, I simply mashed up the general size and shape of what I wanted, placed it in between two sandwich bags (plastic wrap would have worked for this too – the key is that it prevents your tools from sticking to the uncured greenstuff, and you can simply peel it off afterward), and squished it down with a tool to get a uniform thickness. For the pads, I then used the back of a hobby knife to gently score vertical lines into them.

At this point, the sculpted pieces were still largely blobby and unshaped around the edges. Ideally, I would have waited for the greenstuff to cure, and then used a sharp knife to carve the edges as I wanted. For a more realistic effect, however, I needed to shape these somewhat to the legs and forearm of my goaliejack, which had to be done before the greenstuff was cured. I carefully cut around the edges, making sure that my knife was lubricated to try to avoid having the greenstuff stick to it.

The trapper glove took an entirely different technique. I just used sculpting tools to kind of squish a blob of greenstuff into more or less the shape I wanted. It didn’t really turn out that well, but without a lot more practice, it’s the best I can do.

I had attached the blocker, pads, and glove to my goaliejack before the greenstuff had fully cured, in order to get a better fit, but that wouldn’t work for the stick. I left the stick to cure fully overnight. The next day, I suddenly realized how stupid it was to sculpt the stick out of greenstuff. I could achieve a much sharper and better looking effect by simply cutting it out of a piece of plasticard! For the uninitiated plasticard is simply a stiff styrene plastic sheet. Making the stick this way was also much easier, and only took a few minutes to cut and attach. I quickly realized that plasticard was the way to make his skates, too.

Now the only problem I had was the mask for my goaliejack. I was tempted to just leave the Talon’s head as-is, because it almost looks like a goalie mask anyway. That wouldn’t leave me with enough surface to properly paint Luongo’s mask on it, however, so the only thing I could think of was to sculpt greenstuff on top of the head. It turned out about as well as my attempt to sculpt a trapper glove, which is to say not well at all. Oh well, the important thing was that I now had the real estate to at least try to make the mask look like Luongo’s mask.

I promptly undercoated my completed goaliejack with the intent of painting it up in time for the Western Conference Finals. Well, that didn’t happen. I often suffer from a condition I like to call Painter’s Procrastination. Yeah, I just procrastinated and didn’t put a lick of paint on it through the entire best-of-seven series of the Canucks vs. the San Jose Sharks.

With the Sharks eliminated (yay Canucks!), I decided it was time to get down to it, and make sure my mascot was ready for the Stanley Cup Finals! Unfortunately, because of my earlier procrastination, that meant that I had to rush the paintjob somewhat. Combine that with my not-so-great freehand, and the result isn’t nearly as good as I had hoped – especially the almost completely unrecognizable Johnny Canuck logo on the mask. Oh well, I’m still proud of it.

About an hour before the start of game one of the finals, I was putting the finishing touches on Goaliejack Luongo, which basically just meant sticking him on some ice (more plasticard cut to fit inside his base), when my friend suggested that he should have a puck. Well of course he should have a puck, why the heck didn’t I think of that? The best way to make a puck would have been to cut a disc off a round plastic rod, or perhaps a wooden dowel. I had neither on hand, and no time to go and get one. I could have sculpted one out of greenstuff, but it would have been terrible, and it wouldn’t have cured in time for the game anyway. The only solution was to sacrifice one of my rare earth magnets, which just happened to be just about exactly the right size and shape anyway.

A little black paint on the magnet, a little super glue, and Goaliejack Luongo was complete, and making a great glove save! I promptly put the little guy in front of the TV, right where the Avalancher had been several weeks earlier, which started me down this road in the first place. The end result? The Canucks win game one by a score of 1-0. Yeah, that’s right, the real Roberto Luongo got a shut-out. Yup, I’m totally taking credit for it, too. Lu can thank me, or his steam-powered counterpart, later.

Edit: here’s Goaliejack Luongo (and his real-life counterpart) in action for Game 2 of the finals! Lu gets the win again!

2 Responses to “Goaliejack Luongo! aka Go Canucks Go!”

1. Subhedgehog says:

   2011/06/03 at 08:33

   I keep coming back to take a peek at the goaliejack. I’m lovin it. :D

   Needs a pic of the goaliejack in front of a screen with Lu on it though. That would be the icing on the cake. ;)
   • Ben says:

     2011/06/03 at 10:10

     I’ll have to get a pic of that on Saturday…