Gizmodo:How did you come up with the name Sillof?
Sillof:I am a high school history teacher and Sillof was a fake name a few students and I came up with years ago. I used it as a running gag for giving generic examples; such as in the ancient kingdom Sillof, the loyal Sillofites, the might god Sillof, etc. When I began to look for an online alias I chose it.

I primarily use it to keep my personal and professional lives separated.

Gizmodo:When did you start customizing figures?
Sillof: Well, I did it a little when I was a kid, by cutting off Luke's hand or 3PO's arm, or putting Luke's head on the x-wing pilot's body. I later got more into it in the early 90's and then really started to make it a long term hobby. I met guys like Alex Newborn who inspired me and then the internet was just taking off and it really opened my imagination to the possibilities.

Gizmodo:What made you decide to take on this hobby?
Sillof: Initially I just wanted figures that they never made. The driving force was I had always loved The Cantina scene and Jabba's Palace scene in the Star Wars films and I wanted to recreate those scenes. I had built these miniature sets called dioramas, which are on my site, and wanted to fill them with all the movie aliens.

Gizmodo:Where do you get your ideas for themes and figures?
Sillof: Initially I just made the figures that I wanted but had not been made. I eventually got tired of just recreating existing designs and wanted to do something more creative. I am currently planning a line that is all original designs of my own original characters right now.

As for my process I just visualize a general idea in my head. I am always going for a figure that is very unique, yet recognizable as the intended character. Then I concentrate on the key elements that make the character recognizable - these are the elements I will try to represent in the new figure. I do a few sketches, one just straight ideas, and others that are a little more practical with regard to parts I could find and things I could make.

I then go about collecting pieces to use as parts and begin to combine them all. There is a fair amount of sanding, and dremeling, and cutting. Then use the parts like a skeleton sculpting my own designs using apoxie sculpting compound and then gluing any number of odds and ends to the figure. Then I paint the figure and give it a wash of diluted dark paint to antique it.

Gizmodo: Where do you source your materials - do you buy action figures as is or get them second hand?
Sillof: I have a large collection of toy "parts" and other miscellaneous found items that are not toy related. I buy some figures new and cut them up, I buy figures on eBay in large lots of played with toys, and there are some toy dealers in my area that pull things aside for me as they buy them.

Gizmodo:Has any company ever contacted you to work for them, doing this full time?
Sillof:I was approached to build replica props for a major company, but the idea of machining metal for a living, which was my father's job, did not seem that appealing to me. I was also approached for my diorama building by a new company in England, but moving was not an option as my wife was 7 months pregnant at the time.

Gizmodo:Would you want to do this full time if you could?
Sillof:I would love to try to make figures for a toy company full time. My dream job would be designing original props, costumes, or sets for movies. I do this on the side as another hobby for local films. My career actually gives me a sabbatical where they hold my job for a year and would allow me to explore the career. So I am always open to the idea to attempt this on a full time basis.

Gizmodo:If there was one piece of advice for aspiring custom action figure hobbyists that you wish someone had told you when you first started out, what would it be?

For a new customizer, I would just tell them to just keep making figures, practicing, and trying new techniques until they find what works for them, and never stop on a figure until you are 100% happy with it.

Personally, I would like go back and tell myself not to waste my time making figures of existing designs and just start doing my own original works.

[Sillof's Workshop]

Paul's iPhone Custom has a gold TiN Apple logo and a black TiAIN black front covering a variant of the TiN process described below. The back covers are replaced with black anodized aluminum to eliminate the contrast between the antenna cover and the usual silver colored backing. Another project involved a more minimalist black logo. Either way, they look stunning.

TiN is applied using a plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition tool. There is a block of titanium placed into a mahoosive machine similar to the one you saw above, nitrogen gas is flowed in, plasma is formed, things get ridiculously fast, atoms get embroiled in a turf war and fallen atoms end up providing the basis for the amazing coating. What does that mean? We have no idea; we were paraphrasing, my limited education only got me so far in high school. Fortunately, we know a spanking gorgeous iPhone when we see pictures of it, and the iPhone Custom is the best example we have seen to date. No figures were thrown about, but the mods were said to cost "a lot of $," which pretty much means we cannot afford it. We still want. We really, really, really want. Oh, our want hurts so bad. [Gigapascal via gen[m]ay]

Although the body will look exactly like the phone shown here, the internals are up for debate; GPS, 7-megapixel camera, 4GB internal memory, stereo speakers and Windows Mobile (or equivalent) operating system aren't out of the question. It even has two SIM card slots so you can keep your work and play in the same phone. Prices are variable, obviously, but they start at a quite reasonable $149 for a 3-megapixel version with Windows Mobile and a 3-inch VGA display. [zzzphone via Computerworld]

You are looking at a very special auction for a 6" tall Transformers Custom Master Chief (AKA Spartan Prime) APC 117 Armored Personnel Carrier. This figure has been repainted to match Master Chief himself. He has multiple points of articulation and has also been sealed, meaning you can pose him in all sorts of awesome poses. Instructions are included because these figures can be hard to figure out. This guy also comes with an assortment of weapons just like the ones in the game. He also comes with a miniature version of Master Chief and an alien. Master Chief has two hidden missile bays along with some hidden grenades and pistol. But keep in mind this is a custom and no custom is perfect so be careful when posing him. The details really bring the character to life and must be seen in person, Plus I am not a vary good photographer so the pictures do not do this custom any justice! Master Chief will look great on your shelf next to the rest of your collection as an accurate portrayal of the character.

As far as bikes go, it is pretty badass—and it would be the perfect chariot to whisk Chinese food to hungry customers. Unfortunately, this bike is a one-of-a-kind, so my dream of starting up a restaurant with an army of delivery guys equipped with flaming Dragon Bikes died before it began. [Rock the Bike via Laughing Squid]

Choose from T-shirts, sweats, hats and knit shirts, and then go to town with your design sense, if you have any. You can even upload graphics or photos and designate transparent areas. The only catch so far is, there's a minimum order of six shirts if you're doing screen printing, but you can order just one embroidered item at a time. Pricing depends on color and shirt selection, but for a cotton T-shirt, they're around $11.25 each. – Charlie White

Product Page [BlueCotton]

You probably can't get your hands on this one, but if you pay the maker a couple thousands bucks he may create one just for you. – Jason Chen

The Villainizer [CarbonChamber via BoingBoing]

Pimp your laptop the easy way! [T3]

Product Page [via boingboing]

ColorWare's finally gotten around to adding the MacBook Pro to their line-up of color customizable machines. Only the 15" for now, $2449 for the 1.83 GHz model and $2949 for the 2 GHz. Each one can be painted in your choice of 24 standard colors and ships in two to three weeks after you order.

MacBook Pro [ColorWare]

Providing protective printed skins for iPods isn't exactly a new business model, and we've so far been immune to their charms as far as our own device is concerned, but we might just break down when it comes to these two particular skins from GelaSkins. Should our Nano be touched by His Noodly Appendage or covered in The Garden of Earthly Delight? Oh, the pain of an impossible choice.

$14.95 for a skin for the iPod Video, Nano, Mini or iPod 4th Gen. They have currently have thirty designs to choose from and are always looking for more, if you feel like submitting.

GelaSkins

If you've ever wondered what would happen if you took a 1967 Moog Modular Series III and rehoused all the modules in backlit plexiglass, now you know! The groovy gentleman in the photo above is Don Preston, and his plexiglass Moog was previously owned and custom-built by Pat Gleeson. The Moog was used on the synth-heavy soundtrack of Apocalypse Now in 1979.

Synths used on the soundtrack to "Apocalypse Now" [Vintage Synth Explorer, via Music Thing]

A friend of ours had a very one of his intricate drawings laser etched onto his Powerbook last year and we've been extremely jealous of him since, even though he probably totally voided his Apple Care. If you can't afford a $7k+ laser cutter, or don't know anyone with access to one, perhaps you should try wheedling your way into Nike's Lasarium, a room at their Oregon campus where they do all their laser work; the three photos above were posted by designer Jeff Ng of Staple Designs over the weekend, of things his friends have had etched there. The Blackberry 8700 with the Jordan XX all-over print belongs to Justin of Dime Magazine and both the RAZR and Sony Cybershot T1 with the hot skull Mark Smith pattern on them belong to Jamie of Juxtapoz Magazine.

Juztapoz/AJ XX/Blackberry [Jeff Staple, via Cool Hunting]

Austrian company Fluidforms sells pepper and salt mills, vases and bowls, but with a twist—their website lets you design certain products to your specifications, within certain limits. The finished product will be made either completely by machine, or mostly by machine and then hand-finished.

The Shockwave design interface for making a pepper mill (at right) is intuitive but be warned, it might cause your browser to hang. The product we're crazy about is the fruit bowl (seen above), which from what we can make out is milled from a topographical landscape, in this case the area around Stuttgart. We'd like a New York City bowl to put some apples in.

Fluidforms [via Charles & Marie]

SKYN has two lines of ultra girly laptop covers, the floral prints in the Eva Collection go for $40 and come in pink (as you can see on the left), blue or purple, and the bright solid colors which are currently Lilac, Pretty Pink, Lime Green & Ocean Blue and cost $35. You can also choose to get a monogram of Swarovski crystals on any of the solid colors; that'll run you an additional $5.

All of SKYN's covers are glossy, attach to the surface of your laptop with an adhesive and are reusable, and they have a sizing chart to help you pick the one that's right for your device.

Laptop Covers by SKYN [SKYN]
Laptop as Canvas: Smooth Creations Custom Airbrush Art [Gizmodo]
PolyGFX Custom Laptop Skins [Gizmodo]

Notice that they also paint on the embossed text (where it says Menu ) and transport indicators as well. From the looks of it, the larger iPod is painted with a contrasting racing stripe, while the nano has a contrasting color for its click wheel. We would assume they leave the chrome back of each iPod untouched.

You'll pay dearly for this privilege, though, because just for the painting alone you'll shell out between $210 and $341, and even at these prices, the store insists that you buy your iPod from them—they won't let you bring your already-purchased iPod for them to paint. So let s see, for a 4GB nano, that ll be $522, or for the 60GB iPod, it s $861? Never mind. We're not spending nearly a grand for a painted pony; let the spinning wheel spin. Might as well wait for Bono s red iPod.

Men's fashion store offers custom-coloured iPods [Reg Hardware]

For $9.95 you get a DIY silicon kit which you pack into your ear and let it harden and shape to the exact mold of your ear canal. Sounds lovely, doesn't it? It should, as it allows comfort while wearing earbuds and since this goo is packed into your ears, you eliminate a lot of unwanted background noise. Too bad they don't actually include any good headphones in the kit. And, honestly, this would work with any set of buds, which means that using "Pod" in the name is just another way to ride the iPod gravy train. And, uh, I guess in this case it worked again.

Custom-molded iPod earbuds stay where they belong [Mac Merc]

Sidekick2Go [Sidekick2Go]

Apparently, the service answers the many requests that Wrappers has had for bespoke covers. "People have been asking if they can have their own picture on covers. Now they can and we must say thank you to customers for the idea," said a spokeperson. I'd rather not comment the idea of going around with my own picture on an iPod cover.

Arty[Arty]

Ever wish you could ditch the guitar amp and assorted paraphernalia and plug directly into your computer? You're clearly dreaming of the iUke, a custom ukulele that routes audio directly to your computer via USB. The instrument was built by Brian Moore Guitars as a one-off for Mac maven Andy Ihnatko, but if guitar's more your style, the company's upcoming iGuitar.USB will have both analog audio for your amp and USB for your computer. Unfortunately, MIDI is trickier: the iGuitars route audio signal via a specialized 13-pin connector to hardware for MIDI conversion, so you can play your soft synth with a guitar instead of a keyboard. More details at CDM, for those interested.

iUke USB Ukulele: More Details, USB Guitar is Coming Soon [Create Digital Music]