[Mordiganne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MUfan97

So like, catch me up, fam, do people here generally LIKE the "retro" figures, or not?

I don't, but I'm not in the target market for them anyway. I can see the appeal to character collectors though. Lord Mudd does some interesting work with them.

[Il Cattivo]

we love them

[Il Cattivo]

found fortnite brutus. just need a tombstone head.

[The Creator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Il Cattivo

found fortnite brutus. just need a tombstone head.

Try a modded Colossus noggin like this. Don't know if you care for this look Cattivo but with the Brutus beefy upper body should work. And forgot Brutus has small legs.

[Il Cattivo]

perfect. and i have the non-metallic version too (two pack with juggy) so i only just need to paint the hair.

[kostej]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MUfan97

So like, catch me up, fam, do people here generally LIKE the "retro" figures, or not? I'm considering getting Ice Man, Magneto, and the Human Torch just because they don't have better versions for the price, and I wasn't gonna pose them much anyway.

I do not like them at all. Not only less articulation but also that retro aesthetic does nothing to me. I just compared MU and Retro Ms. Marvel figures and MU wins decisively on all fronts. Not to mention Hasbro distribution of retro wave in Europe is non-existent.

Quote:

Originally Posted by MUfan97

Got a little conspiracy theory going that someone at Hasbro is trying to bring back interest in this scale of Marvel figures with them, but I can't be certain...But of course, I only really got to that point by doing a lot of overthinking while writing an MU retrospective in the background of other projects, and realizing that Disney's generification of the Marvel brand around that time might've been a big factor in MU's slow decline and death, so I could just be crazy.

This is the favourite conspiracy theory here. I started thinking this after Hasbro introduced limited articulation movie lines in baffling 3 inch scale and 5 inch scale. It was like saying "Forget about MU. We will be pumping out Marvel figures in all imaginable scales but 3.75 inch one. Screw you!" Also Hasbro producing ML Ultimate Riders wave with vehicles after years and years of them telling us that there is no possible way for retailers to find the place for MU vehicles? That was like slap in the face.

[Il Cattivo]

mech strike 6" thanos

[Mordiganne]

Quote:

Originally Posted by kostej

I do not like them at all. Not only less articulation but also that retro aesthetic does nothing to me. I just compared MU and Retro Ms. Marvel figures and MU wins decisively on all fronts.

I find that surprising since those early female figures are trash. But in comparison it's better trash than the retro trash so... yeah, I see your point.

[Il Cattivo]

[The Creator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Il Cattivo

I can dig it just paint the hair.

[Madame Warlock]

Aside from Mystique, what would be the best figure base for Blink?

[Il Cattivo]

Quote:

Originally Posted by The Creator

I can dig it just paint the hair.

[Ninjinister]

I'm so confused as to why my local comic store has the retro line for $24.98 per figure when you can get a 2-pack on Hasbro's website for $19.99.

[LordMudd]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninjinister

I'm so confused as to why my local comic store has the retro line for $24.98 per figure when you can get a 2-pack on Hasbro's website for $19.99.

Cost of doing business.


CCC.

[Mordiganne]

The Universe is expanding.... (pics to follow in next post)

Wandavision was pretty great. I enjoyed every bit of it and am looking forward to Feige building a comprehensive Movie and TV universe like he tried to do in the early days of the MCU. FatWS is off to a solid start already. I read elsewhere that the runtime of the actual show totals in around 2hrs. Basically Marvel just serialized an entire movie which seamlessly meshes with the established MCU continuity. Pretty impressive. In comic news I’ve started to branch out from pre-read digital material and have gathered a few new Omnibi? Omniboo? Reading/re-reading thru all of these stories is maintaining my interest in custom making beyond finishing the list. I haven’t yet run across any new characters/designs to make yet, but that will change I’m sure. Anyway, I’m looking forward to revisiting the Guardians of the Galaxy era from the 90’s. Not sure why, just remember the issues being fun. The Frank Miller Daredevil omnibus is a great read. You can read the genesis of so many elements of the Netflix series and it should still be affordable. I also started reading the Excalibur omnibus. I’m not too far in but I’m enjoying it. I missed nearly all of these issues growing up. Same with New Mutants, but I’ll start that Omnibus after I finish Excalibur. The two Steves are there because after getting the clear shield from the gift set I decided to make the Secret Avengers version into its own figure alongside the Old Man Steve figure. I’ll have to take a pic of all the Rogers together. I’ve made a fair bit of customs of that character. Mockingbird is there because I had to do a repair job on the hair (she fell over and landed right on her dome - broke the loose tendril right off). Jean is there because I was making some uniform tweaks. I’m still planning to remove that ponytail and reattach it but I’m worried about shattering the resin if I do. I’m still in the contemplative stage. So, anyway, onto the rest...


Stan Lee – I don’t consider this a full on custom or anything. I made this based around a statue that I’m waiting on and shield as homage to the ML figure. I’ve shown the head before and the body is straight Marauder with magnets added in so Stan can hold the signed shield along with every other shield. “Signing” the shield was a complete pain in the ass. I had to make two of them trying to match up the signature correctly. (I can’t believe how many shields I’ve modified to some degree. This one makes 17 that are finished.) He’s also got a Thor hammer and an Iron Man helmet (hammer’s a Hasbro original, but the helmet is painted - going to paint it again, really don't like the metallic red I have). At some point I’ll add something Spidey related, just not sure what. I’ve always viewed superheroes as larger than life, so the Marauder figures are perfectly scaled for civilians in my MU worldview.

Spider-Woman (SHIELD) – Spider-Woman is another character that I associate with SHIELD first and foremost. So I wanted to have a figure of her in “SHIELD gear” to hang out with the rest of the agents. This is a concept design to make her superhero attire into a practical SHIELD outfit ala what I did with Mockingbird. I sculpted the harness, straps and knee pads. Used Marauder pouches and holsters. The head was a cast from Avacslab, but I’m not sure which one. I had to make some trims to the hair in places so it sits on the body properly.

Black Widow (SHIELD) – I’ve made mention before of making one final Black Widow to add to the SHIELD section and this is it. Widow’s design is as basic as it comes so I gave her dual holsters to carry her guns and some small pouches to carry whatever other spy gear. And I’ve used up a bunch of Marauder pouches with this batch so really need to order more now. I did use the Gamer 2-pack head as is. It works for me after a quick spray to remove the plastic shine. And the Widow character is finished! No more widows needed. Another off the list.

Misty Knight – Misty Knight is a complete redo of the previous custom I made. Took her off the Valkyrie body that I used back then for some female diversity. Unfortunately, she was way too tall as a result, so this gave me a chance to make her right. I went with another concept design and made a mash-up, of sorts, of her various costumes and sculpted over her mechanical arm and painted it w/ three metallic shades. I didn’t sculpt the harness on her this time. I took that from a Lady DP figure. In addition to sculpting the knee pads I did some light sculpting around the belt which I added a Marauder holster onto. And the boots got a light gloss to set them apart from the jumpsuit. I’d credit where I got the head cast but I’m not actually sure since this head has become so ubiquitous among the various casters and I’ve had it for probably a year now. Nice to get the character re-done so I can put her back with the street heroes.

Madame Masque – Not much to say about this one. Madame Masque is another redo but her design is Black Widow level basic. I took her head off the Valkyrie body and gave her outfit some design elements this time around. Mostly Marauder add-ons. Pretty simple. I still have to redo Titannia as part of this redo side-project. She's the last one I've got slated for a complete redo.



Cable series: I’ve got mixed feelings on Cable, but he’s long been a mainstay of the X world so he deserved a decent figure representation. So I made a bunch of Cables and wrapped up another “character series,” crossing all the versions of Cable that I care to make off the list in one go. All of these Cables use the same base Hasbro "Cable" figure. The only part changes I made were swapping the left hand on two of them.


Cable (90’s X-design) – While I tend to bang on the 90’s comic era – and deservedly so in most cases – I do like bits and pieces from that era. One being the yellow and blue scheme that I attribute to Ian Churchill but I’m not sure who actually created it. Anyway, the design was pretty straight forward. Other than some Marauder pouches the rest of his outfit was sculpted. I also sculpted the blue part of the tunic that covers his shoulder left. Lastly I swapped out his left hand since he wore gloves. It’s definitely not perfect, but it’ll do for now until my OCD kicks in and demands I fix the errors. Until then… Love this design.

Cable (90’s concept) – I wanted a version to refence his early big shoulder pad phase from the 90’s without it being completely ridiculous. To that end I based this figure off an Iron Studios statue that I bought. I had to get very creative to get his look right. From the bottom: Added pouches and sculpted on shin armor. Sculpted on knee pads. Added a pair of ammo pouches and a regular pouch with sculpted straps to the left leg. Added a couple additional pouches to the belt. On the torso added four more pouches and sculpted harness straps on front and back (w/embedded magnet and another on gun). Also added the collar design element that the statue has. On the head sculpted on the ear piece w/ antenna. And the finishing touches were the shoulder pads. I used a cardboard base to provide a stable surface to sculpt around. From there it was a matter of building several layers both above and below the cardboard until the base was done (the brown “leather” layer above the silver). On top of them I added the blue cylinders on the right pad with a hold down ‘strap’ and on the left added whatever that orange block would be and some silver tubes. Not sure what they’re supposed to be either…the 90’s had some odd designs too.

Cable (X-Tinction Agenda) – Cable was barely shown in this outfit. In fact, the only reason I made this version was due to the way Jim Lee drew the character in the Uncanny issues of X-Tinction Agenda. It was a perfect 'page to figure' candidate. To that end I sculpted the right arm band, glove cuffs and the various add-ons to the left arm. In addition to that, sculpt the leg bands, the weird vest design and the eye glow. This is the only Cable I made with a 3D eye glow again because of the Lee artwork that really accentuated it in certain panels. Oh, and I sculpted the boot detail. I did a lot more sculpting on this one than I realized.

Cable (Messiah) – I pretty much left this one alone. I’ve never read the story the costume appeared in so have no idea if it’s accurate or not. However, I wanted all the skin tones to be consistent so I couldn’t leave this figure entirely alone as originally intended. I added some shading to the harness and all of the straps. I don’t know if it will come out in the pic, but I added subtle wear to the chest plate. And gave the metal arm a once over. The Hasbro coloring is too dull. Did a quick gloss on the logos to enrich the colors and finished him off with a matte spray to take the sheen off the rest of the figure that I didn’t paint. Now I’ve got a matched set of Cables to round out the series.

[Mordiganne]

Group shot:


Cable (early concept):


Cable (90s X-team):


Cable (X-Tinction Agenda):


Cable (Messiah)):


Cables (all):

[Mordiganne]

Stan Lee:


Black Widow:


Spider-Woman:


Agents of SHIELD:


Misty Knight:


Madam Masque:

[Mordiganne]

It didn't come out in the pic but there's some red eye shadow on Misty Knight. Shame it didn't come out, it looks nice.

I'm planning on taking some new pics of the custom wall once I put it back into order. Figures are spread out all over at the moment. But that's entirely dependent upon how lazy I am over the rest of the weekend. I'm a notorious procrastinator, so, we'll see.

[Harbinger]

Xtinction cable and stan lee are my favorites from this batch mordi. Lookin’ forwards to more.

[Kernel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordiganne

Group shot:


Cable (early concept):


Cable (90s X-team):


Cable (X-Tinction Agenda):


Cable (Messiah)):


Cables (all):

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordiganne

Stan Lee:


Black Widow:


Spider-Woman:


Agents of SHIELD:


Misty Knight:


Madam Masque:

Damn those all look fantastic! Especially love Stan the man.... I wish you worked for hasbro Mordiganne!

[MUfan97]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordiganne

Stan Lee:


Black Widow:


Spider-Woman:


Agents of SHIELD:


Misty Knight:


Madam Masque:

Perfect as always.

[MUfan97]

You know, if that retro line gives us a proper, in-scale Ant Man helmet, maybe even make it removable so we can put it on whatever we want...The whole line would be worth it. I am growing increasingly tired of that weird Ultimate one they gave us.

[Kernel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Ninjinister

I'm so confused as to why my local comic store has the retro line for $24.98 per figure when you can get a 2-pack on Hasbro's website for $19.99.

They started charging WAY too much for action figures. Rarely find a good deal on any toys there

Quote:

Originally Posted by MUfan97

You know, if that retro line gives us a proper, in-scale Ant Man helmet, maybe even make it removable so we can put it on whatever we want...The whole line would be worth it. I am growing increasingly tired of that weird Ultimate one they gave us.

I wouldn’t mind a kingpin or spiral or doppelgänger, any figures that would be a pain to make that could use for my MU collection. I’ll pass on everything else that’s already been done far better when Vonner ran the line

[The Creator]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mordiganne

It didn't come out in the pic but there's some red eye shadow on Misty Knight. Shame it didn't come out, it looks nice.

I'm planning on taking some new pics of the custom wall once I put it back into order. Figures are spread out all over at the moment. But that's entirely dependent upon how lazy I am over the rest of the weekend. I'm a notorious procrastinator, so, we'll see.

Everything is AWESOME!!!!

[Autobot_Goldbug]

Cool customs!

Falcon & the Winter Soldier has reminded me to ask if anyone has done a Battlestar?