Customs by

Mike – Minesurfer (on-line)

e-mail

ginngrr@juno.com

Web Address

none

Recipes
Belts and pouches: Made from elastic bought at fine fabric stores everywhere. A snap was sewn on to the elastic. The elastic was colored with pens. The pouches were made from the same elastic then sewn into place on the belt with gold strands from a curtain tassel. Legion symbol was printed from a CAD program and glued to the belt.

Legion Flight Ring: Made in a CAD program and glued to the appropriate finger.

Paint: All figures were primed with Krylon gray primer. Areas to be finished in bright colors were then primed again with white primer. Acrylics were used and the figures sealed with Dulcote. For shiny finishes, decoupage glue was used as a sealer.

Stands: All stands were treated the appropriate icon. The symbol was made in CAD and decoupaged to the stand. Stand was sealed with Dulcote.

Brainiac 5: An Animated Avengers Ant Man’s placed on the ole reliable Quicksilver. I plan on making an Omnicon Scanner (future detection device) to cover the well-documented anemic left hand. The lab coat came from a Lizard figure and I singed the edges because we all know how Brainy is always blowing up his lab. I think I’ve seen this head used in this application but I can’t remember where. I can assure you that I came up with it separately independently though. Koko the monkey is something my wife found online. I got him and spray painted him with white primer and sealed him. I gave him a “dusting” with pastel chalks for a little texture (read blowed up in lab). His tail is bendy too. I hate to call him a custom because more work went into finding the right monkey than went into the finished product.

Catspaw: I wouldn’t have done this one unless I had the perfect base. I know very little about the character but Wolfbane’s figure seemed to be a perfect match. I ripped the hair off of her legs and sanded them smooth. Otherwise this is a repaint.

Dawnstar: Toy Biz silver fox head snap jointed to a Ninja Force Lady Deathstrike body. The paint scheme is a little off model, but I thought the yellow she normally wears is hideous. I added gray to the wings because I wanted to have a feeling of texture. Her boot frills are craft leather and someday I’m going to figure out how to make her sleeve frills.

Dragonmage: The base torso and head come from a Shang Chi figure. I couldn’t bring myself to use the legs from that figure since they had normal bare feet. I switched the legs out with a Quicksilver figure. You can’t see it because of his hand-sewn karate shirt, but the left arm has a green dragon tattoo on it.

Karate Kid: A Spider-man Bug Busters was used as the base. The head is from an Animated Avengers Ant Man. His karate outfit was hand sewn. His left hand needed more of a karate look, so I lopped it off (apologies to Ash) and replaced with a Six Pack Sunfire left hand. I was planning on putting a black border around his shirt at one point, but decided not to, hence the large stitches. The belt came from a Ninja Wolverine and the sash is a black satin ribbon material.

Kinetix: The base is from a Marvel 2’s American Dream figure. The head is from an Animated Avengers Wasp. The skirt was made from bow making ribbon and sewn directly to the belt. Artistic license was taken with the final paint scheme; given the character’s need for change I thought it was appropriate. The Kinetix essentials are there.

Matter Eater Lad: The body is a Marvel Most Wanted X-Man’s that had the details sanded away. The head is from an Animated Avengers Wonder Man. The cheeks and neck were dremelled and sanded down considerably and his neck peg modified to fit the base. Chest tooth was glued in place (there’s a sentence I bet you never thought you’d read).

Polar Boy: Nothing too special about the base, just a cheap KB Ice Man figure. I filled in his torso with putty and his lower “coat” was made from dried acrylic paint and glued to his Subs belt. The coat’s fur was made from cotton balls, and his forehead gem is made from a colored rhinestone. It’s hard to tell, but his lips were painted pink with a little bit of blue still on the brush for a slightly cold, cyanotic look.

Shikari: This was a real “Frankenstein” piece if ever there was one. The head and arms are from a MMW Blink’s. The arm pegs were epoxied to the inside of a Jean Grey torso. The head is held in place with a snap joint. The legs from the mid thigh on up are the Jean Grey legs. From the mid thigh down, they are the legs from a Water Wars Storm figure I had laying around. The wings are from a Marvel 2 Stinger figure. The kneepads were donated from a MMW X-Man. I wanted to give her shoulder pads with long spikes, but in the end they wouldn’t play well with the hair so I scrapped them. The mask is just cured Premo clay. Considering all the parts that came together, and my overall lack of talent J, I’m fairly happy with the final result of this custom. Most of all, I am pleased that she can actually stand on her own.

Sunboy: For those of you that don’t recognize it, the head is from a Razor Skate Robin figure from one of the Batman movie lines. I couldn’t bring myself to use the rest of the figure even though it is fairly generic. I HATE the “t” crotch and lack of articulation on RSR figure. Since the MMW X-man figure was so cheap and available at the time, I used it. The collar and shoulder pads are toothpaste tube.