Ok, as I mentioned the other day, I'm still churning out customs at a pretty decent rate despite not caring to show them off with any regularity. I was on a superhero kick for so long, that even
I got tired of my constant Non-Joe Customs posts on JoeCustoms, so it was time to knock it off. And since I don't post on any other sites, there was no reason to showcase these anywhere.
But again, this is the Custom Celebration - the Celebration of, uh, customs or something...
So in no particular order --
Battle Damaged Spidey. Got a second Spidey/Sentry pack for fodder (you'll see why tomorrow) and figured I'd do something fun with Spidey. To date, this is my favorite Spider-Man figure - the only problem is the height, which is easily fixed by shortening the lower legs a bit. He's 1000% better than the single-pack red & blue Spidey and just about the only character for which this particular sculpt actually works.
BadAsh requested a close-up of the face a couple of months ago, but I hadn't quite tweaked it right -- I think it's about where I want it now, though (DTC Mutt for the head):
Huh - for some unknown reason, his hair has been "battle-damaged" as well - didn't notice the paint scraped off until these pics. Oh, well - we'll just call it flesh-colored debris or something
Battle-Damaged Dance-Off, yo!!
Phoenix -- used my Dark Phoenix head for my Black Widow custom, and decided to put a different head on the Dark Jean body and make her a bad guy. But once I got the head painted up, I started messing around and before I knew it, painted the rest of the figure green. And I have to say, I like how she turned out, so she's back with the X-Men. Don't know why the eyes look so messed up in the pic - she's fine in-person.
Psylocke - this was an aborted .... damn, I can't even remember what the original custom was supposed to be. But somehow one of my older Lara Croft heads made it onto a Ms Marvel body and it just said "Psylocke" to me.
"Room-temperature" Iceman - another one that I've been sitting on for a long time. I like how he turned out.
And now the compulsory "Original X-Men" pic:
Hank Pym -- got the idea for this after watching the new Avengers cartoon (which is effing awesome, BTW - really well done and a lot of fun.) I love the way they portray Hank and Jan in this iteration - Hank's not a whiny-ass "poor me" wife-beater, he's a super-smart guy who prefers to be a pacifist but will step up and kick ass as needed - without the drama of being socially inept. Jan's pretty badass, too - a fiesty go-getter instead of a ditzy rich girl. Very cool.
So with Hank's improved personality, he deserved a decent treatment in my custom collection. The 12" Giant-Man/Goliath that Hasbro gave us is great, but way too big to be practical for day-to-day superhero-ing. I went back and re-read a lot of the early Avenger comics from the 60s and realized that as Giant-Man, Hank usually hovered around 10-12 feet tall. So it was pretty easy to convert a 6" DC Commander Steel fig into a new Giant-Man. Then instead of a costumed 1:18 version, I decided to go with labcoat Hank (with Ant-Man costume underneath) - again, inspired by the new 'toon. Add the mini Ant-Man fig that came with MU Yellowjacket, and you've got a complete set.
Black Adam - nothing much to say about this one - finally upgraded my crappy old Microman version. The head is a BBI WWII guy with sculpted ears.
Crap - just noticed that Marvel's missing his "bracelets" (donated them to another custom) - guess I'll be working on fixing him this weekend.
Darkseid -- funny thing is that a few months back, Iron Will posted
his Darkseid within hours of me finishing mine -- that's like the second or third time that's happened. Mine uses basically the same formula as his (even the same type of ribbon for the belt - which is extra-freaky
), but I kept the JLU lower legs (had to bulk them up) to give him some height.
Taskmaster - I had a "mercenary" Joe-based version, but wanted to go with the traditional look, goofy as it is. Then of course, Hasbro comes up with its own version finally -- although there are aspects of mine that I still like better, so I imagine there'll be a "hodgepodging" of parts once the MU version hits the shelves (definitely replacing my shield with Hasbro's.)
Night Man -- a character about which I knew nothing other than he looked pretty cool. --I had the 5" figure from the 90s that I bought to go along with my Toy Biz Marvel stuff at the time. I don't remember much about his bio other than what was on the cardback, so that leaves the character pretty open for my own interpretation. I do know that he was featured in Malibu comics (later bought by Marvel and featured in some crossovers) which I never read, and apparently had his own TV show, which I never saw. -- Although, after I finished the figure and did some internet surfing, I found that the head I used (TDK Batman with Rex Lewis hair) looks almost EXACTLY like the TV version. Weird. In my 'verse he works with Moon Knight on occasion -- and I'll probably change the name, because "Night Man" is just dumb. Maybe "Mid-Knight"? - nah, that's just stupid.
With the original figure that inspired the custom:
Leader - I don't think I've ever seen a 1:18 Leader custom. I've always considered him the Hulk's greatest foe, but I may be alone in that (hell - drbindy didn't even know who he was
) . A free "No-Prize" to anyone who can figure out what base figure I used for the head (drbindy is ineligible
)
Thunderbolt Ross - again, the eyes look wonky on-screen, but not in-hand. One I've been sitting on for a while - all I had to do was sculpt a 'stache & eyebrows, but it took me a year to finally knock it out. Not a huge fan of the whole Red-Hulk storyline now that they've revealed who Rulk is So I'm probably gonna toss the whole concept out of my 'verse and just keep Ross as the a-hole overzealous douchebag that he used to be. I was a little upset with the first Hulk movie because they had Sam Elliott play Ross - which sucked, because I could never dislike a Sam Elliott character or see him as the bad guy. Luckily, they got William Hurt for the decent Hulk flick, so I was able to hate Ross on film once again
Amadeus Cho -- put a Luke Skywalker head on a Harry Potter body and slapped some paint on him. I need to find a 1:18 Vespa -- I used to see them everywhere when I wasn't looking for one, but now they've disappeared. I'm sure I'll find one soon enough.
And the two "families" (I've always considered Samson a douche, too, so I'm glad he's more of a bad guy in the comics lately):
Check back in tomorrow for the thrilling conclusion of the "What the hell has Chief been up to?" showcase!
Tomorrow's theme: Sci-Fi/Fantasy customs.
Thanks for looking -- Cheers!