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

I was almost able to sneak this batch into 2017, but just missed it, so, it's now the first of 2018. I wasn't planning to have this batch done already but I was able to knock out most of the non-sculpt figures incredibly quickly this time around. Since I wasn't planning on having these done already, I haven't even looked at picking up anything new for the collection. In comic news I've moved on to reading Maximum Carnage which is pretty damn dull so far. I've taken to just skimming through all the blather to try and finish the story but it's looking grim at this point. I don't know what it is about Spider-Man stories but they can be very hit or miss in the execution. Speaking of, Spider-Man is there because I needed to fix his lines up. I redid just about every webline on the figure. A couple are still off in the picture, but I've fixed those last few since taking the group shot. The older Excalibur figures are just there for the team shot. So, anyway, onto the rest...


Battlestar - Years ago I had most of the Silver Sable run of comics from #1 up thru 14 or 16...something like that. Anyway, even with having read those issues I totally forgot that Battlestar joined the Wild Pack and ran with Sable for a while. He's just one of those characters that never had a lasting impact on me over the years. He was pretty easy to make. He was an ionic Wonderman with swapped lower legs and a modified collar. It's a little tall, but I'm ok with it. Other than sculpting his belt he just needed a paint job. I also added straps to his shield. It originally had one of those horrible wrist clips but it also had the four strap holders already on it. So I cut off the wrist clip entirely and added the straps. Much better than that clip. I'll have to see if I have any more shields with these on them. I also learned while researching the character recently that he was part of Project Pegasus. I'm stopping his history there in my view of the MU and am leaving him in Pegasus serving under Blue Shield. In my MU he now heads security in the wing that used to house super-powered individuals prior to construction of the Vault. Currently the wing is in use as testing facilities for weaponized energy experiments which has recently drawn the attention of both A.I.M. and Dr. Doom.

Spider-Girl - I've had parts set aside to make a Spider-Girl for a while now but I just never got around to the figure as I just didn't care much when I made her. I'd long ago vowed to ignore anything related to MC2 and that included Spider-Girl. But I never lost sight of her popularity even if I didn't understand it. Having read Spider-verse recently it put the May(day) Parker character back on my radar so I dragged her parts bag out of the drawer and started painting her one evening while I was bored. Her design is no more intricate than most other Spider-Man designs, but putting on the weblines is always a chore. I don't even know which Spidey head I used for this one, but I enlarged the eyes and gave them the little 'points' her mask design has. To finish up I sculpted on her bracers. She's a welcome addition to the stable of Spiders on the shelf. Still need to add a version of Kaine.

Blackwing - I've been waiting to make this guy for a while. I first ran across Blackwing in an old Captain America issue (#396) where Cap went up against Jack O' Lantern with Blackwing popping up during the story at some point. Ya know, I really need to re-read some of these issues that I'm creating characters from. There's some classic storylines that I've forgotten over the years. As far as villains go, Blackwing can't really do a whole lot. He trains bats or some shit, I dunno, but I really liked his outfit and thought it was a very cool design. Making it into a 3-D figure was a tedious task. Not only did I have to make his stupid mask (any guess on what material I used for it?) but I also had to make his weird ass wing/cape thing which doesn't work as well in reality as it does when drawn on a page. So, had to be a little creative with this. I wasn't even going to bother trying to sculpt on scales as small as the design 'should' have. Turns out Blackwing has a really interesting backstory and he's the son of Silvermane. That opens a world of story telling possibilities right there. In my MU Manfredi is still using the Blackwing persona and, partnered with Jack O' Lantern, is creating a new criminal syndicate to rival the Hood's Gang.

Captain Britain - I wanted to wrap up the original Excalibur team quickly once I got started on them. With Meggan, Night Crawler and Rachel already set, I just needed an accurate Kitty and first team costume Captain Britain. The first thing I had to do was gather some art of the Captain's outfit from that period then figure out how to translate that onto a figure. Fortunately, other than the design, the outfit is entirely the same as the Captain Britain from Hasbro, so all he needed was painting. Easier said than done and I'm not going to undersell it, it took some work but I'm thrilled with the results. I like the paint job so much he's in the top 20. Only two spots left. Once I have the last two set I'll take a pic of my Top 20 favorite customs.

Kitty Pryde - I'll be honest and say I never much cared for the Kitty Pryde character. Kitty has long suffered from what I call the "Jean Grey Syndrome" in that she is more commonly referred to by actual name as opposed to codename which just irks me for some reason. It doesn't help that she was given really lame codenames to begin with, including: "Sprite" and "Shadow Cat". I think this costume was during one of her Shadow Cat periods, but who knows. I usually just refer to the character as Kitty. Speaking of her costume, I had to make her first outfit from her Excalibur days so I could complete the team. Custom wise that outfit isn't too involved, but the ridiculous sleeves were annoying to make. Good for art, bad for reality, but that goes for a LOT of comic costumes. Other than the sculpting she needed a collar added and the sash (flexible straps) attached. Fortunately this custom doubles roles in that I can put her with either Excalibur or the Mutant Massacre era X-Men team, same with Nightcrawler. All depends. For now she's with Excalibur which finishes off the core team. I'll get to some 'expanded roster' team members in the future. No more Prydes for the collection though. This one and the Hasbro fig are enough.

Kazar - I don't have any affinity for Kazar - A.K.A. Marvel's Tarzan - as a character. I really only made him at all because I already have the Shanna from Hasbro and there was no point in having her just by herself. Kazar is super simple and shows just how lazy Hasbro got with the MU line and how simple some new characters would have been to make. Kazar is a repainted Doc Sampson with a cut up waist piece from Shanna and that's it. I did sculpt over the boot tops because this is the look I wanted for Kazar, but even without that, it would have been a super easy figure/character for Hasbro to make with almost all profit on the sales since there would have been nothing new at all. I'm sure there's a decent enough waist piece already in existence they could have used too. Just one of many missed opportunities by Hasbro. Anyway, I have Kazar for the Savage Land portion of my collection. I probably won't get to any other SL characters for a bit. But then, now that I think about it, I might get to some sooner rather than later. Regardless, I now need to find a decent Zabu.

Molten Man (gold) - I have to credit Lord Mudd for making me take another look at this character in terms of custom potential. I dismissed him at first because it was just a gold paint job. Easy and boring. However, in researching Molten Man art I found a wide range of designs that would make for interesting customs. So I'm doing Molten Man in the same way that I tackled Volcana, Hydro Man and some others in making two versions of the character. So with that in mind, I was ok with making an all gold version since the flame version was a sufficient challenge to take on. Not much else to say...I modified the head to fit on the body and painted the whole thing gold. Pretty simple.

Molten Man (flame) - I already mentioned why this custom was being made with the gold version. Not only was it a sufficient custom challenge to take on, but it gave me another Spider-Man villain to add to the collection and another display option when I finally make some little dioramas. I saw a very interesting 5" (I think) custom of a flame covered Molten Man when researching art. Once I saw the custom in addition to the art I knew what I was going to do for the figure which meant sculpting. A lot of flame sculpting. Because I had to put sculpt on so many pieces of the figures I sculpted in several stages taking several hours (mostly drying/curing time). After the sculpt was all done I had to go through the laborious paint job. Bit of a time consuming chore this guy was, but I like the end results. In fact, he came out so well I'm adding him to the Top 20 as well which only leaves 1 spot to go. A worthwhile challenge this guy, though I have no idea why the left leg seems so much longer than the right. I'm pretty sure it's not longer, but it certainly gives that visual. Like with my Volcanas I wanted to have a sharp contrast between the two versions, so a flamed up 'molten' version was the perfect opposite to the smooth and simple gold version.

Group shot:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4689/...001d75f4_z.jpg

Captain Britain:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4645/...923f0a9c_z.jpg

Spider Girl:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4647/...edd6ef54_z.jpg

Kitty Pryde:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4590/...a78d9fb0_z.jpg

Kazar:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4681/...af2603b7_z.jpg

Battlestar:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4644/...aa90fc0a_z.jpg

Molten Man (gold):
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4592/...08459b6c_z.jpg

Molten Man (flame):
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4737/...29fdfe79_z.jpg

Blackwing:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4638/...893b0080_z.jpg

Bonus shots:

Captain Britains (the mini guy will be customed up into an appropriate scale eventually):
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4640/...5c3a8101_z.jpg

Excalibur:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4727/...3e76e00e_z.jpg

Kitty & Colossus:
https://farm5.staticflickr.com/4680/...9c94555f_z.jpg

Nice. Molten Man for me was a set up for doing a Lava Man. This will require swapping feet since they all run around barefoot. Been wanting a Battlestar for a while. How did you do the hair?


CCC.

It's a Falcon head that I had to modify. Sanded off the mask lines on the cheeks/jaw and cut off that thing from the front of his mask.

I just pulled up GameStop online. They have 4 4" action figures which are currently NOT available online including blue Beast, Grey Beast, Hawkeye, and Daredevil for $2.97 new, chosen AT RANDOM.


CCC.

Wow! You Excalibur looks great! You're paint work looks to be improving or just a good batch this time

And I quoted the photos just to trigger you ;)

All thats needed is touch ups of blue and black and his eyes... Anybody got any easy techniques on how to paint eyes

Hey pal
i used to paint the eyes totaly in black and then cover the black with white paint leaving only a small line above the eyes painted of black. I think is a easy way to make the eyelashes. Then its just a spot por the pupils.
Hope to Help

Thanks i saw this pic of someone else's custom of this guy ... But i will use ur advice for sure later

I really want one of theae. Can you get me one

Just out of curiosity, what did you used to paint the web? Did you used a brush or a toothpick?

Fantastic stuff Mordiganne!

ah yes I was reading someone's review they left
he got 4 of the same character!
it makes me wonder if the Gamestop that had some in stock before Xmas might still have some
maybe they were buried in their bin & missed

For all you 80s geeks, 2 former Marvel titles shall soon collide in 1 comic. Visionaries vs. Transformers is now available. The new character designs are a finely detailed update. Yet when they make 3.75" figures for the new film, I hope they also do simple classic "Marvel" designs / figures, too. The redhead in classic Marvel issue #4 is rocking a green design similar to the Enchantress.

https://d1466nnw0ex81e.cloudfront.ne...600/618487.jpg

http://news.tfw2005.com/wp-content/u...onaries-00.jpg

Off topic a bit, but we gotta keep the thread alive, right? Funko is doing 3.75 Classic Perez era Titans. Look pretty good. They are previewing them in one of their boxes and then a line is coming. Video over in the DC 3.75 thread if you are interested.

That's a cool looking Visionary. Wish Hasbro still made 3.75 figures of their own properties.

Perfect timing. We might not get a lot of 3.75 figures from the Perez-inspired Infinity War. So for sure I'm buying all the Perez-inspired Teen Titans figures by Funko. Their nostalgic card art is really something.

Nice pics, Lord Marvel. Nice custom Wasp, too!

A pen. Not like a Bic or ball point type pen.

A paint marker might work, too, but I'm not recommending something like that since I don't use them and have no idea if they'd actually work or not.

I'm not sure what art/craft store you have in your area, but there's pen sections in some of the ones here which is where I'd look first and find what's best for what you want to do. I went to A.C.Moore - a craft store in the area.

Yea i got mine from here
https://m.aliexpress.com/s/item/3282...EEjdl#autostay

I hope we get an official thanos figure that fits in our scale but until then here is 1 more update on this bootleg thanos im working on ... If y'all get him I'd also love to see the way y'all paint him or even give him more articulation

.....

I've never ordered from ali express before.. whats it like. Can you use paypal. Are you protected if it doesn't arrive etc?