I don't like the "metallic" grey plastic Hasbro has used as of late. it feels cheep and soft. I like my robots looking steel and hard. this light grey un painted chewing gum there sticking us with is to soft (in both look and feel) to pass for metal, plus the low quality of the plastic gives the sculpts a softer organic look that doesn't fit well with machines.

I don't know why anybody at Hasbro thought it was acceptable to release a BAF with unfinished paint.

Because it came with an Ant Man wave of all characters. Honestly, without a BAF we all wanted, that wave wasn't going to be bought by anyone except for a figure here or there to round out a collection. Even I was guilty of buying a figure or two I didn't really want just so I could finish that BAF, as underachieving as it was. They had most of us the minute they said "MCU Ultron".

I'd pump the brakes on some of the aforementioned sentiment regarding the Antman/Ultron wave in its entirety.

While I was dismayed to learn that I would have to continue to wait for a proper comic version of Ultron, I did build the movie fig and found its articulation and faithfulness to the character's film design noteworthy. If you want to complain about the plastic used for the fig, or the paint application, then I can appreciate where you are coming from. However, when the hater-ade spills over into the line as a whole, I certainly cannot cosign on that broader condemnation.

Most of that line was wanted by many fans. Tiger Shark, Bulldozer (on the strength of completing the wrecking crew alone), and the Grim Reaper were all considerable wants in my book and looked forward to by loads of collectors when pics were first released. Even the modern Wasp update, replacing the sub-par M.O.D.O.K. series modern Wasp (*talk about under-achieving?* while better than the Spider-Woman on the same buck, the fig was still quite fugly), was greatly needed to create a decent Mighty Avengers line-up.

Everyone's entitled to be enthusiastic (or less than so) about whatever they choose, but I would caution against disparaging an entire wave based on the strength (or lack there of) of a BAF. I'm not a movie fig guy, nor am I that impressed by AoU the flick in general, but I can still see some of the positive things they pulled off with the BAF...enough to merit my keeping it...hey, it was better than that Groot non-sense ;) see how subjective 'kneejerk' commentary works? lol

All that said, I was only into that wave for (in ranking order): 1) Tiger Shark, 2) Bulldozer, 3) Grim Reaper, 4) Wasp....and even the human sized Giant-Man was ok. It was the movie based BAF and the movie based Antman that were 'throw-ins' for me...

Additionally, for those that only want the BAF of a wave and not the other figs, the current crop of legends aren't holding their value as they did in the past (the exception being some exclusive stuff from sdcc and hard to find stuff Storm/Frost etc...), just wait six to ten months and grab it for $20 to $30....delay the gratification and save yourself the aggravation...

I dunno... if I'm not happy with how a figure I purchased turned out from the factory, I just repaint it or mod it till I'm happy with it. =) Learn to customize, people, and liberate yourselves from being a slave to Hasbro's factories and their manufacturing shortcomings.

I agree, but there are people that don't have the skills, and it's a bit aggravating when the company doesn't put in an effort. I shouldn't have to pay 20+ dollars plus materials for an art project! also some hard core collectors would consider a "customized" piece ruined and garbage.

Sorry, but no. I shouldn't have to pay $20 for a toy I need to customize myself. Plus, I've tried customizing and they come out as ****. I've tried every brand of paint recommended to me and it doesn't do anything. Not to mention there is no way I can get the finer details like eyes and stuff.

So I guess practicing and getting better at something is no longer cool? After being unhappy with certain figures and getting tired of waiting for specific characters to MAYBE get released officially (in addition to seeing the crazy aftermarket prices for characters I wanted but missed out on at retail), I bit the bullet and decided to just learn how to make, repair, and mod figures myself. Yeah, I wasn't any good initially and am still learning to this day, but the thing is even though most of us feel like we shouldn't have to mess with something we paid $20 or more for, the reality is we ARE paying $20 or more for stuff that we're frequently not happy or satisfied with. The choice is to learn how to do something about it, or sit around and hope for things to get better, which is something I don't care to do.
I acknowledge that it isn't for everyone; I'm a very DIY type person that enjoys designing solutions for things. I also am weird in the sense that I've got a high pricing threshold for stuff I won't hesitate to cut up or alter to fit my tastes, because I barely think of toys in terms of their cost or worth... I personally don't care if Emma Frost fetches $90 or more on the secondary; if her crappy heels mean she can't stand for sh*t, then I'm drilling holes and gluing magnets on that hoe without a second thought... lol. Immediately after taking a brand new toy out of the box, my first thoughts go to what sucks about the figure and whether it's something within my skill set to improve. Usually it is, and if it isn't, I hit the forums and websites to see if someone else has come up with a solution that I can use.
Toys are a crappy, expensive hobby, but we all obviously wouldn't be here if we didn't love the stupid things. =) For me though, I love the toys more than I love the collecting aspect of them, so their dollar value is secondary to how fun a given piece is to play with. If some pricey Legends figure turns out to be crappy but fetches top dollar among more "collector" minded toy buyers, I'll sell it to one of them for what they're willing to pay, then use the money to buy the parts I need to make a better toy of that character.

^
Sounds fair enough, to me...especially given the fact that I also hate the unnecessary and impractical heels adorning many heroines and villainesses! :p Simply put, it's stupid. An aesthetically pleasing (to some) trend that comic artists and concept staff insist on perpetuating...foolishness that would surely get all but the most powerful female heroes killed SMH...it's a pet peeve of mine that ranks up there with capes on agile heroes...but that's me I guess...

True, but if you are not one of those types of collectors then who cares? The one thing I cannot stand about this hobby are people telling me what I have to do with my figures. Hey, if they are into some kind of hardcore mentality about it, good for them. Me, not so much. I will open ones I want to open and keep ones MOC that I want to keep MOC. Mod the ones I feel like or keep them original.

Honestly, that's one thing that is great about Toyark and this thread in particular. We have members of every type but they get along. Take Zoffy who will cut up and modify anything he wants to make it better for him (and his magnet system is genius) or Raf who tends to keep most of his stuff mint and pristine. Yet despite their obviously different views on their collections, they also happen to be two of the nicest people here and don't disparage others for their views. People seem to get too caught up in what others think of their collections or worry about a value of their collection down the road. To each their own, but I would rather enjoy what I have in the way I want to enjoy it. Everyone else be damned. If I decide to sell it later and people will buy it, cool. If not, oh well, I got enjoyment from my collection.

As for customizing, yeah, it's not for everyone. That being said, I have no artistic talent and even I have managed to customize a couple items. My biggest suggestion is read the dedicated customizing forums, watch tutorials (Anthony's Customs has a great video where you just watch him paint a Lady Deadpool) and really look at customs from some of the greats like Jin, AC and Anthony. Also, if you can find some figures on the cheap, use them to practice with. Get your techniques down on some figures you do not care about ruining and once you have it down, apply the knowledge to one you want to keep.

Speaking of customization, what are some good paints for customization? I tend to stick with some Testor's acrylic paint from Michael's for simple touch ups (like touching up paint defects on certain figures) but I'm not sure how it'd fair for doing full on repaints.

Ahhh paints... it took a while to find out what worked well for me, and everyone has different preferences, but at the moment, Duplicolor vinyl and fabric spray paint in conjunction with testors model master and P3 paints is my system. I completely disassemble the figure, then basecoat each piece with the duplicolor spray, then use the testors and p3 paints for everything else. If possible, stay away from Tamiya and Vallejos acrylics... In my experience, they have crap adhesion and durability.

While I can appreciate where you stand on that particular wave, I won't apologize nor backtrack on what I said about it. That wave, at least IMO, was not my favorite wave to come out this year, and I thought was one of the weakest waves of Legends released yet. I honestly had no clue who Tiger Shark or Bulldozer were outside of being bosses on Marvel Ultimate Alliance, and I couldn't have told you anything about Grim Reaper other than he is Wonder Man's brother, and was an annoying boss character on the Avenger's arcade game back in the late 80's.

While I'm glad that many others who are avid comic book readers and fans finally got the characters that they wanted, we also must take into account that not everyone is well versed on every character in the Marvel Universe. I like to consider myself as someone who has a slightly better knowledge of characters and goings in the Marvel Universe than the average casual fan out there, but I know that I can't hold a candle to your knowledge Blue Marvel, and some of the characters that I see people better versed than me in comics here suggesting for figures leave even me scratching my head sometimes, because I have no clue who they are. And if I'm struggling with it, I can only imagine what goes through the mind of the average person as they are prowling the Marvel Legends aisle when they see the likes of Tiger Shark (which was actually a figure that surprised me, thanks to the awesome head sculpt) and Grim Reaper. Those figures are clogging shelves like crazy here, with only some of the recent and more obscure characters from the Hulkbuster wave (Blizzard, Thundra, and the oversaturated Iron Man) keeping pace.

That's not to say that I'm against getting obscure characters for a wave of figures. I actually like that. It was one of the things that I most appreciated about the DCU line when that was up and running strong, and the last thing that I want is yet another Wolverine or Iron Man. However, I also cannot deny the fact that the Ant Man wave was one of the only BAF waves that I resorted to actually buying loose parts off of Ebay to complete the figure as opposed to buying each individual character.

Thanks for the advice! Where do you usually get your paints?

I haven't found any nearby retailer that sells those types of paints in my area. Not opposed to purchasing from online, but I'd rather go into the store and look at the paints in person, then purchase them and go home and get right to customizing.

I think the Ultron wave was the weakest wave this year, but I'd also like to add that the overall execution of the wave played into that as well. The only figures that truly stood out as "good" to me were Wasp and Grim Reaper. Bulldozer is a good figure too, but he doesn't work that well as a standalone character I feel, so for some of us who don't have the rest of the Wrecking Crew, he's just "meh". The other figures either suffered from shoddy paint apps or from being completely inaccurate to the character they were trying to depict (Movie Ant-Man), which defeats the entire purpose of a movie-based figure.

Really though, the whole wave just felt like a throwaway wave, an excuse to give us figures that were announced years ago, using the hype surrounding the Ant-Man/Age of Ultron movie as a way to push the figures. It didn't really seem as carefully planned out as the other waves from this year, where we had a nice mix of obscure and popular characters. I don't mind getting a bunch of B-listers, even as somebody that hasn't followed the comics in years, because it exposes me to characters that I otherwise wouldn't know about. In fact, collecting all of the Legends this year has made me want to look back into reading the comics.

I have used Testor's Model Masters and Games Workshop Citadel paints. Both work well.

I tried practicing but I never got better. Sometimes you just suck at something no matter how many times you do it.

I always get paint bubbles, splotches, lines that I can never get to stay straight because my fingers constantly shake, sometimes the paint is way too dry and feels brittle, streaks, brush strokes, etc.

It could be a case of using the wrong paint/brushes for the job. I've also heard that the key to painting is to do multiple thin layers, waiting for each layer to dry out, rather than doing one thick paint job. That way you can avoid all of the clumpiness, paint bubbles, splotches, etc.,

As for line work, maybe doing some sort of masking might help?

Marvel Legends RARE Unreleased Exclusive Blade Low $6 Start Look | eBay

I suck at doing custom work, but dammit...If I could just get my hands on that head..., or anything similar to his current look, I'd just do it myself!

Jeeze...the least this guy could have did was thrown in the original Daywalker sword and a gun or two. To think people are gonna drop the cash on a kitbashed Fury...which now I am finding myself in sudden need for another one without breaking the bank.

@Trivial Psychic

No worries, man. No one is asking you to apologize for or retract your comment. That would be absurd, there is no arbiter for what is or isn't allowed on these threads. My point was that your consideration of 'weak' (which sounds more like 'unfamiliar') may not be the case for many collectors (even the more casual ones).

You made a point of distinguishing between our varying levels of comic knowledge (I'm not an avid reader by the way), but I don't think one has to travel too far down the rabbit hole to have some passing knowledge of these characters. Bulldozer, Grim Reaper, and Tiger Shark have all had Marvel Universe figs for some time now. A fact that I'm sure had much to do with fan requests for 6" inch versions. Additionally, Grim Reaper and Bulldozer had appearances in the far too short run of the Avengers Assemble 'toon with the former featuring pretty heavily in a story highlighting Wonderman. While they may seem left field-ish, these characters are representative of the current zeitgeist of Marvel comics/toons/toys/fanfare. And to boot, they were done well.

As far as the reasons for the peg warming or the notion that lack of familiarity may or may not be the cause. I'm not sure there is a direct cause/effect relationship there. The reasons could be numerous; late distribution (some of those roll-outs were pretty janky), overstock, or a missed window of opportunity (i.e. not aligned with consumer purchasing habits: beginning of summer/end of summer/too close to back to school etc). The Ultron figs aren't actually peg warming in my section of the NY tri-state. It's the Rhino and Thanos waves. However, that bit of info is pretty anecdotal and there could be some regional factors playing into both of our observations.

I find the dynamic of 'knowing what you are buying' to be a marketing mechanism that we have internalized (sadly) as consumers. When I was a kid, if something looked cool and I knew nothing about it, I was inspired even more to find out what the hell it was (because anything that cool looking had to become a part of my world). I think much of that phenomenon remains true for today's toy aficionado, but 'brand recognition' does play an important role. Neither kids nor adult collectors have any idea who these new characters are for the upcoming Star Wars movie. Yet that lack of knowledge isn't stopping anyone from snatching up what appeals to them. It's enough to know Star Wars as the brand and the rest falls into line. Marvel works in the same way.

In any event, as I said in my first post, you can like whatever you like. Initially, I thought you were approaching the situation from the perspective that if the BAF sucks, then so does the wave. Now I get more of an impression that you just didn't like the characters. I didn't see much of a difference between the Ultron and Hulkbuster waves specifically regarding strength of character selection. The only difference was that the Hulkbuster wave had three Iron-men. A fact that I knew would make it more popular...because? well, because Ironman...However that made it slightly weaker in my eyes...at least Ultron came with four villains...But hey, whatever floats your boat...

Sorry up front for the long post... It kind of turned into a mini customizing tutorial.

Paint can play a HUGE part in how your custom looks. Using the wrong paints can really cause issues for sure. Good acrylic paints are the way to go for Marvel Legends customs. As mentioned, Testors and Games Workshop make great paints. Others have recommended Tamiya and a few others whose names escape me at the moment. I am too lazy to go look up the Toyark rules about mentioning other sites but do a quick search for customizing action figures and you should find a site dedicated to it.

As for painting techniques, seriously go look up the Anthony's Customs video where you just watch him paint his Lady Deadpool. If you have read some of the customizing stuff and picked up technique names and ideas, you will be able to recognize a lot of the techniques he is using.

The other thing you will learn about a lot of customs is that the figures do not have stale, flat paint jobs like a lot of the stuff from Hasbro. Instead, as SymbiSpidey mentioned, there are layers. It creates depth and realism to the figure's paint job. This is often achieved using a base coat and then dry brushing over it. Sometimes multiple layers of the base and the dry brush. It all depends what you are trying to achieve.

Quite honestly, once you get the ideas for a technique, make a Deadpool. The great thing about him is that his costume changes so much, you can make one that fits, even if it was never exactly one from the comics. Base coat it black and dry brush a red of your choice. You can get head casts of Deadpool from any of the casting vendors. He's a great figure to make as a new customizer for the simplicity and forgiving nature of his costume. Best of all, then you have a Deadpool and you do not have to spend $150+ on the Legends ones on Evilbay.

Here are a couple quick and dirty pics of the Deadpool I made for myself a few months back and the 3 paints I used to do it. He's by no means perfect but for my second ever custom I was pleased and it was really satisfying knowing I made it myself.

Testors Model Masters Flat Black and Leather and Games Workshops Citadel Mephiston Red. The formula I used is pieced together from one from Chris at Happy Day Customs and another from a video from USAgent27.

Main body: Bucky Cap - The actual figure, not just the mold although if you do not want the belt, it will work
Feet: Ultimate Cap
Harness: 3 pack Cap
Heads: 2 different purchased casts
Big gun: purchased cast

Base coated everything in a light layer of black. Dry brushed it all in the red. Went back and used a fine tip brush to draw the lines in black. If your hands shake some, keep them braced on the table to minimize it. Filled in the black spaces. I also used a flat white (not pictured) on the eyes.

Flat black then leather on the harness and belt. Flat black then a silver (also not pictured) on the big gun.

I hope that helped some. I am by no means a seasoned customizer but am happy to share anything I can.

Forgot to add the images to the last post.

so that "Model Masters" paint is good for figures?

Testors Model Master acryl is probably the best paint I work with. As a brand, the only issues I've run into with them is their comparatively small color selection (brands like Citadel and Games Workshop have huge color palettes, but their paint sucks), and also, sometimes different colors of theirs have different properties (their pinks and purples seem very watery, and their light flesh tone paint tends to dry out in the jar easily).
No matter what brand is used though, surface prep is very important... thoroughly wash the figure/part first with warm water and dish soap. I also prefer to do a base coat of duplicolor vinyl and fabric spray paint on customs which helps adhesion and is very durable.
Honestly, I could go on and on about all the techniques and tricks I've learned the past 4 years of doing custom work, but I don't want to spam the board... Lol. If anyone has any questions, pm me and I'll be happy to try and help! At this point, I've pretty much got a solution for everything someone would want to do for a custom. =)

Thank you for clarifying the Model Masters type Zoffy. I forgot the enamel uses the same name.