Words by Steven Hastings
Photos by Harvey Smart
Some children dream of being footballers, princesses or even astronauts but two brothers from Clydebank had a dream to make their own toys.
When David McGurk and his older brother Stephen were kids in the 1980s, they loved playing with action figures.
Star Wars had just come out along with the action figures.
David said: “We were skint, didn’t really have a lot of money. We thought it would be a really good idea to make our own figures, which was just a bit of a pipe dream.”
One day his brother tried to make their dream a reality.
David explained: “He basically put a thing together whereby it looked like a figure. He did it with soap and PVA glue, just peeled it out and it looked like this figure.
“He was a really talented guy. Super talented!”
Tragically, Stephen died in 2012.
Bolt of Lightening
It was at his funeral when the idea of making action figures struck David like a bolt of lightning, while reminiscing with Stephen’s pal.
“I went ‘aye one time he tried to make this action figure’ and straight away I thought – not a bad idea.
“So that was really it and I just went for it.”
At first David bought old action figures and moved the heads around to make new ones, which is called ‘kit bashing’.
He then pushed himself to make them from scratch.
As a tribute David made a figure of Stephen and was kind enough to bring it along to the interview to show me.
He has been making bootleg action figures by hand for five years now and created many characters in that time.
Most are one-off commissions, and he makes just one or two of each figure.
First Likes
His first figure was from Steven Spielberg’s 1971 film ‘Duel’ and he put a photo on Instagram to see what would happen.
Not many people pressed like on the photo, but it was the person who contacted David that gave him the boost he needed.
That was Adam Goldberg, creator of the American sitcom the Goldbergs but David didn’t know who he was at first, “I totally dingied him,” he laughed.
Adam later bought the figure and a few more including one from the film ‘Ghost’ which was used in his other sitcom ‘Schooled.’
David added: “So that was really it, it was knowing they weren’t really rubbish, that was the inspiration to keep going.”
David is a big Beatles fan and made a figure of their producer George Martin.
George’s son Giles saw it on Instagram and asked David to make him one.
From this he got to work with Abbey Road Studios to create a limited edition to sell in their shop.
The figures were so popular they sold out in four minutes.
David said: “That’s the ultimate. That’s the dream. That’s when you know you’ve really done something.”
Inspired by All
It’s not just figures inspired by music and movies David creates; he makes anyone from Eastenders’ Frank Butcher to the weatherman Michael Fish.
There are lots of people who make and sell action figures in America but only a few in the UK.
David thinks he may be the only one in Scotland.
It takes him about a day to make each figure.
He also creates the packaging himself and puts his son’s first name and age to remember when the figure was made and includes ‘Stephen and David’s Toy Cupboard’ on each box to honour the dream they had as children.
Check out David’s action figures on his Instagram: @lightning_boltz_action_figures
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