A.C. Farley Leonardo Busts
 

Ok, so the story on these things is that they're pretty damn rare due to production problems. They were supposed to be painted bronze, but the paint on most of them was flaking terribly, so most of them were released unpainted.

Awhile ago I acquired some of the pieces that had been rejected due to flaking paint and never sold at retail. It was my intention to strip the paint and give it a go to try painting them into color (or more probably, hiring someone to do it for me), which is why there are larger areas of white in places.

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2610/...7f860f4950.jpg

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2508/...eff74a4791.jpg

(Click any picture for a bigger close-up.)

Well, times change and it's best if I part with these. There are three bust pieces and two bases. The extra scabbard pieces are not included, but you really can't tell it's missing just looking at the front (and if it bothers you, you could probably fashion your own pretty easily). And it'd probably be pretty easy to make some sort of base for the Leo that doesn't have one.

Not really sure what to ask for these given their condition so I'll take offers. However, the production run on these was REALLY small, so while I'd really like to sell these, I'm not desperate enough to virtually give them away. So please, serious offers only. These will take a bit of work, but I expect they can be cleaned up and looking awesome with some time.

Thanks!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2537/...51163a8b1d.jpg

Oops. Bunny not included. :)

NO bunny, no deal!:evilgrin:

Seriously though, looking them up I've gotta say I'd never heard of these. Amazing stuff. What kind've bronze paint was used? Also, are we talking Vinyl or Resin? It looks Resin, but you never can tell...

Well, that would be knowing something about paint, which I really can't say that I do. It's bronze and has a bit of a metallic shimmer to it, but that's the best I can tell you.

Hrm... and these were (according to the comment on GGM.org) resin. Would be alot of work to strip without damaging, but possible.

I actually had a lot of success stripping the paint with REALLY warm water and a toothpic. It just requires a lot of elbow grease and the water has to stay as warm as you can tolerate. When it cools it's no good.

Rubbing alcohol?

Just cause you mentioned the post on GGM I thought I'd paste it here for potential buyers to see. This was a comment that A.C. Farley had made on the blog directly:

Hi,

Here’s a few facts about this bust… It’s one of the few sculpts I’ve ever done and the ONLY sculpture I’ve ever done professionally. It’s very rare, since it was planned to be a 500 run limited edition, but only around 80 were made. I have two of them… the one that I assembled and painted as an example for the guy that painted them, and one in a box unpainted. There are some painted and some unpainted out there in the world. I don’t know how many were painted.

We at Mirage had originally wanted to do full figure ‘Mirage type TMNT’ sculptures of all four Turtles, but Mirage had a contract with Playmates that included rights to any full figure TMNT product. We ran into a lot of this kind or brick wall because of licensing. We couldn’t even make our own Mirage T-shirts with TMNT on them for awhile, because a company had purchased exclusive rights to make TMNT clothing. Weird, huh? So the best we could negotiate with Playmates was permission to do a limited edition bust, instead of a full figure. The model making company that contracted to cast the busts COMPLETELY dropped the ball on this project and so there were only around 80 made, cast in plain resin, instead of the 500 bronze filled resin busts that we had planned for in the beginning.

So the busts are even more rare and even more limited than anyone planned at first.

That cover photo is the actual unpainted, Sculpey build. I gave that to Pete Laird after the casting.

Later,
A.C. Farley

Rose....

The bunny is awesome! His name isn't Usagi, is it?? I had no idea of the release issues of these busts. I hope you do very well with these! Of the two that I have, neither have any of the flaking.

Jerry

Do these not come with swords?

Haha, no. His name is Owen. :)

Yup, that's what I said.

I will never stop kicking myself for not picking up one one of these from Farley himself at TurtleCon in '92.

Right there...they were right there! A whole pyramid of them!
*hangs head in shame*

Besides the swords missing, do any of these extra busts you have their old boxes? I've always wanted one of these. I might be interested in one.

As these were never sold at retail, they never had boxes. So, no.

I have one bust+base combo left as well as the solo bust. I can sell the combo for $75 + $10 shipping within the US (PM me for international), and I can sell the solo bust for $30 + shipping.