Get your own, personal superhero action figure made by Bellevue’s You Kick Ass

If you grew up idolizing superheroes, you might have fantasized about being one yourself. And now you can be thanks to a new Bellevue-based company called You Kick Ass.

“We make personalized superhero action figures,” says Keri Andrews, Chief Ass Kicker at You Kick Ass.

Andrews’s super power? Using a 3D printer to turn any person into a superhero action figure.

“You upload a photo of yourself, or whoever the superhero in your life is, into our website,” Andrews said. “We will take that photo and we’ve made some software that will actually convert that photo into a 3D model of your head which we then 3D print and attach to the superhero body that you choose.”

The bodies come in all sorts of poses, of course, in tights and a cape.

“This one is wearing a green, skintight costume with a cape. She’s in a classic pose with her hands on her hips,” Andrews said. “You think of the superhero genre as being maybe male slanted? We sell almost 50 percent to women.”

And almost entirely to adults.

“We’ve been hearing from people who are ordering one for their spouse for being a Super Mom, for somebody who has survived cancer, for employees to recognize them for doing a good job,” Andrews said.

Besides the photo of your face, send Andrews your superhero name and your super power, and she’ll send you your character’s origin story.

“This guy’s power is shapeshifting and elasticity,” Andrews reads off an order. “His hero name is Super Fabulous!”

Before she started making superhero dreams come true, out of a nondescript warehouse in Bellevue, Andrews worked at Microsoft. But she grew up watching Wonder Woman and Greatest American Hero and always dreamed of being a superhero, herself. In her early 20’s Andrews even drove a Batmobile.

“It wasn’t the kind of Batmobile that you’d expect Bruce Wayne to drive, unless Bruce Wayne was a poor, recently graduated college student,” Andrews said. “Basically I took a little beater of a car and painted the Batman logos on the side of the car. I had a glow-in-the-dark Batman antennae ball and Batmobile floor mats.”

You Kick Ass had a very important sidekick that helped the company get off the ground: the reality TV show Shark Tank. Andrews, and her partner, asked for a $100,000 investment in return for 10 percent of the company. Three sharks made offered, and Mark Cuban was chosen to invested.

“I’ll give you the 100,000 for 10 percent but I want to know now because I don’t want to deal with these guys,” Cuban said on the show.

The action figures cost $60.

“I think everybody has a little part of them that wants to be a superhero,” Andrews said.