Customs by

Mike – Minesurfer (online)

e-mail

ginngrr@juno.com

Web Address

none

Custom 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.

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.

Chuck: Head was one of those Nascar racer figures with limited to no articulation. I turned the hat around and gave him a “tuft” of hair made from kneadatite to stick through the front of his hat. The body is from a Star Trek: Next Generation Capt. Scott.

Condo: The base figure was salvaged from one of my first customizing attempts. This was originally a Dr. Fate that I had made before DC Direct went on their quest of making obscure characters. The old MMW X-Man was used for the body and the head is a cast I made of a Jurassic Park figure.

Dev Em: Standard MMW X-Man body with a Peter Parker head. Basically this was a throw away figure, I experimented with epoxy while putting the PP head on the figure and when it didn’t look right, I let it sit for a couple years. My original plan was to make this into Magno, but I felt that a Legion custom deserved better execution so I made the peripheral character with the junk piece.

Impulse: What can I say…? I hate the Total Justice/JLA figure line. It’s not that they are horrible works or anything like that; it’s just that I don’t like the exaggerated sculpting style and lack of articulation. Having said that the head, forearms, and hands came from the JLA box set Impulse, I figured I’d make good use of them in a figure a little more to scale with the rest of my Legion. The body is an X-men Morph that was in pretty bad shape. I found it in a loose figure box at a comic book store, the owner gave it to me for nothing. I had to strip some paint and magic marker off of it, but it turned out to be a pretty good base figure for the price. The boot cuffs are kneadatite.

Jeckie: I love the way this figure turned out. It is one of my personal favorite customs. It’s nothing more than a Silver Sable head with Sculpey hair on a Ninja Deathbird body. Very simple recipe and paint job. The cape was hand sewn and the head band was made from shiny elastic with a colored rhinestone glued to it.

Laurel Kent: Here’s one I wasn’t even planning to do, then the Justice League Adventures issue #28 came out that crossed over with the Legion. When I saw that they disguised Wonder Woman in the Laurel Kent outfit, I felt inspired. The head is an extra Robot Fighters Jubilee with the glasses removed. The body came from a Silver Fox that was going to be a Glorith, but I couldn’t decide on which head to use for it. She is painted in the risqué Laurel Kent attire under her smock, Custom Con is probably not the appropriate place to show that paint scheme though.

Lester: Since Lester’s only appearance was some time back in the 60’s, I decided to use a base figure that I swore I’d never use. I absolutely detest the T-crotch look on the Razor Skate Robin. Since Lester is not a major Legion character, I decide to use my throw away fodder on him. The head came from a Jurrasic Park figure.

Monstress: This was a fun figure to make, once I figured out what pieces I wanted to use. The important thing with this character was to create a sense of femininity and overwhelming musculature in one bundle. I knew that the She Hulk was going to figure prominently in my finished custom, but I knew I couldn’t use the legs. Those legs are almost as worthless as MMW Blink’s legs. I didn’t want to use the head either as I thought She Hulk’s was just a tad too pretty for Monstress. I cut the torso away from the legs and head; and I salvaged She Hulk’s hair too. The legs came from a Juggernaut figure and I had to cut them away from his torso. This left me with a huge problem in that I had two pieces with cut surfaces to stick together. The first thing I did was place masking tape in the top of the legs. Once this was done, I filled it with liquid epoxy and let it cure. After that, I drilled a hole in the epoxy and created a “male” peg from kneadatite. I created the female part of the joint in the bottom of the She Hulk torso (see my “Creating Waist Articulation” how-to article posted at RTM’s web-site). All that was left to do now was to add a head and arms. This challenge was solved by using an extra Thunderbird figure from the X-Men Six Pack that I had lying around. I had so much fun doing this figure that I forgot to take pictures to document my process.

Valor: I didn’t know if I wanted to get into other versions of customs I had already done. I like the rebooted Legion the best and I don’t really have the resources to make every Legion era, the gumption to make them, or the space to display such an undertaking. Having said that, I felt I had to make this figure. I made a cast of the Bruce Wayne head I used for my M’onel figure using alumilite. The legs and torso came from an extra Spider Trap Red Skull I had lying around. The arms came from one of the earlier toy biz Peter Parkers… the one that was in blue jeans and a jacket and came with a camera. I loved the puffy sleeves on that figure and thought they were perfect for Valor. The cape is hand sewn with wire in the hems so it hooks over his shoulders. I’m very happy with the look of this figure.

White Witch: What can I say, I’m almost ashamed to call this one a “custom”. I didn’t even have to boil water to swap parts on this one. The reboot version of the character would have been difficult to customize in my style so I kinda sold out and made an easier custom. What’s with that reboot outfit any way? I decided to go for an older, wispier version instead. The head came from a medieval Witchblade figure and the rest is an Alpha Flight Aurora. I would have had this one done for Custom Con 9 but I just didn’t feel like finishing it.

Minesurfer: I’ll let you figure this one out.

Quislet: This is really just a hodge podge of pieces. Some left over kneadatite, a ball of clay, and the corner of some styrene are all that went into it.

Tellus: This was another one that took me a while to “see”. The torso came from an Alpha Flight Sasquatch and the arms are from a Sandman figure. I actually melted these together with a soldering iron and then smoothed the seams. The hind quarters and tail came from a MMW Spat or Grovel (I still don’t know which one is which). The two pieces were joined with plumber’s putty. Plumber’s putty was also used to create the textured surface you see on Tellus’ back. The surface on his arms and chest was created with my usual filler putty but I didn’t sand it smooth like I normally would. The head is an original sculpt using Super Sculpey with epoxy to reinforce critical points to keep them from breaking off.