Decide who you want to make and find as many photos of them as you can. Google and eBay searches are great ways to find pictures, as well as old magazines, sports cards, and posters.
Decide which McFarlane figure that you want to paint. A good place to look at pictures of all the figures is on the McFarlane site. Try to match special features like the style of helmet they wear, wrist bands, shoe styles, and anything else that might cause you excess work to add or remove.
Purchase the figure (start with SportsLizard's search to help you find the best deal).
Open the figure and clean it with a mild soap and water.
Decide what you are going to need to disassemble to be able to paint the figure. This varies from figure to figure. You want to make sure that you will be able to easily paint every visible part of the figure. Sometimes this requires a lot of disassembly (head, helmet, facemask, hands, etc on a football figure) and sometimes there is no disassembly at all (a basketball figure).
Soak the figure in very hot water to soften the rubber and take off any parts that need to be removed. An Xacto knife can also come in handy here to assist in the removal of parts.
Add to the sculpting (if necessary). If you want to add longer sleeves or a leg brace, for example, there are several good options: you could use Apoxie Sculpt, a paper mache technique with tissues (here's a tutorial from Jomo's site), or Magic Sculpt (check out CLM Designs for some great pictures).
Prime the figure with a few thin coats of white or gray primer. Remember to mask off any parts that you aren't going to paint over.
Paint the figure from light to dark, leaving a white patch in any area that will need a decal. You usually need to do about three coats of paint to get it to look good. If you need more, do more. A lot of it depends on the color of your primer and the color you are painting.
Find numbers and logos for decals. The best place to locate numbers to work with is the 'Logos and More' section on Jomo's Customs. They have templates for all NFL teams and many teams from other sports. If they have the team you are looking for then you are all set. If not, look on LogoServer to find your teams logo and use Jomo's to find a team with similar letter/number font to the team you are looking for. You can also check our decal exchange to see if someone has posted decals for the person you are looking for. If you're particularly adept at photo editing software, you can download NFL Fonts, NBA Fonts, MLB Fonts, and NHL Fonts and make the decals from scratch yourself (fonts courtesy of Eriq Jaffe).
Create decals. Use a photo editing software like Adobe Photoshop to size the images and change colors if necessary. Be sure to print once in black and white on regular paper to make sure they are the proper size before using the decal paper.
Coat the decals with Liquid Decal Film. Make sure to do two or three coats to ensure that the colors won't run when the decal gets wet.
Cut the decals out, leaving as little room as possible around the image.
Apply the decals. Coat the area on the figure with Micro Set before applying. Wet the back of the decal paper (either with a brush or by dipping in water) and slide the decal into place. Coat the decal with Micro Sol to soften it and carefully push the decal into any folds or irregular surfaces.
Paint around the decals to blend them in.
Put the figure back together. Use an Xacto knife to trim the joints to help them fit together better. Use the crazy glue when necessary.
Add dirt or grass stains to your figure if you want. The best method is to brush it with "dry paint." This can be done by letting paint dry on your brush and then brushing the dry paint on to the figure. Make sure to use an old brush when doing this.
Apply a few light coats of the Flat Clear Acrylic to all surfaces except decals and helmets.
Apply the Gloss Clear Acrylic to the decals and helmets. You can spray this on with a spray bottle or gently brush it on.
