The Last Action Figure Hero

At 6-foot-4 and 240 pounds, with a shaved pate and a demolition-machine body seemingly engineered for gladiator combat, Phil Ramirez doesn’t seem like someone who would spend his days playing with toys. But toys are his livelihood. Ramirez, 28, is one of the biggest names in the action-figure sculpting world; recent projects have included the “X-Men” feature and the upcoming “The Lord of the Rings” films.

Working as a freelancer for the past six years, he has sculpted more than 300 figures from 2-D drawings. The sculptures, which he creates with wire skeletons, clay and shaping tools, are twice as large as the finished plastic product.

Lacking a formal art education and armed only with a love of cartoons and drawing, Ramirez began doing odd jobs at a commercial art studio when he was 20 years old. Given a shot at sculpting, he showed promise. Soon he was undertaking assignments such as designing and sculpting sausage-shaped nunchaku for a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle character. Seven years later, Ramirez’s talent has propelled him to the highest echelon of action-figure sculptors, an elite fraternity of “about 100” artists worldwide. He is so inundated with work that he spends most days and nights in his home studio cranking out sculptures at a clip of about one a week, a relentless pace that laps the industry standard of two to three weeks per sculpture.

Ramirez’s work is in the hands of millions of children and collectors around the world, but he savors his success from an anonymous distance. “Generally, you’re not name associated with the work,” Ramirez says. “I don’t like having a fan base. I don’t want one.” Now that he’s established in the action-figure world, he’s taking what little free time he has to work on fine art sculpturing. His shelves, crammed with art books on everything from pinup girl illustrations to the works of Stanislav Szukalski and Rodin, are a testament to his intentions. Wherever his art takes him next, Ramirez has already generated an almost indestructible legacy. “I don’t know if these things biodegrade or not,” he says. “But there’s going to be a lot of my figures around for a long time.”