Hand Ninja and Butterball

Say Hi to Butterball and Geiger...

Here two new customs.
This is my The Hand Ninja, scratch built (Super Sculpey and Magic Sculpt), 90mm.

And this is Butterball, dedicated obviously to my friend John!

Short guide for the customizer in e-bay

Many of the customizers after a long period working on other character's base to realize their own, like to start some scratch built. I started scratch built works since some months and find this WoW much more gratifying than starting from the work already prepared by some other artist.

The long boring part of the scartch built works is the preparation of the iron wire armature and the first layers of meterial (Millipuit or Magic Sculp or Tamiya Putty or Super Sculpey...) before to arrive at the buildings of the particulars that really customize the character. That is only the final part.

Many artists use some already prepared components, that is head, arms, legs etc... in order to skip directly to the final part of the work.

One of the most frequent obsession I have as customizer is: "I already customized that character and have several figures in the same position. Maybe with different colors, or clothes or whatever, but the position is often the one of the starting base figure.

So in this two years I started to search on e-bay some figures in the same scale of Eaglemoss Classic Marvel Figurine Collection (CMFC) that could be used for customizing new characters with a total differente pose at the start.

I'll not mention of course the DC Figurine Collection (also from Eaglemoss) that is absolutely 100% compatible with the Marvel one (just very few millimiters larger), assuming that all readersof this blog already know that DC chars from EM are largely used already to customize Marvels (see my Tarantula from Green Lantern as a sample in the section "See them all").

There are really severals and I will not go so deep in showing the results of my search, I'll just want give you collegues customizers some somple of what we can find. Of course I selected those that are frequently found at a low price (mostly 7-9 € and anyway not more expensive than 25 € in some case where the quality is enough high to justify that price).

The range of my  search is focused on characters form 75mm up to 90mm, scales from 1:18 up to 1:20.

First batch is a variety of 7 characters from Tamiya Pit Stop group scale 1:20. Try to imagine to convert all in A.I.M. soldiers or Hydra? 9€ for 7 characters seems a good choice!

Again from a Pit Stop diorama, this is Mandy Lowrider. I used this figure to realize geiger, she is really well done, sexy pose, already prepainted, costs about 7 € and is 90mm tall.

Another set of Tamiya Formula 1 Pit Stop in scale 1:20 with 8 charcters to be painted for just about 25€ (car not included, but can be changed with a nice robodroid and all the characters can be converted in A.I.M. members for a nice Marvel Comics diorama:

From the collection Inter Campione Miniature you can find several character on the same scale of CMFC, I used this (Zanetti) to get my custom of the Silver Samurai (cfr. "See thenm All!" section).
Cost/each about 7 €.

Also the Ma.K. group in scale 1/20 perfectly matches  our needs. I used one of those for Tiger Tyger figure.
Must be painted and in some case assembled. Thay can be found at asian sellers for 7€/piece. the quality is usually quite good.

Quite rare and quite cheap and very well made, this copy of Chris Redfield hase become Clay Quartermain in my Marvel Comics FC. 90mm, 14€ today.

20€ for this PHOENIX MODEL - THE LOST WORLD OF ATLANTIS - Hawk Woman, 80mm

Trifon Miniatures 90mm Bug War Space GI Chief for 18€ and others from the same serie

Lady Karlin 90mm By Denizen Miniatures 24€. I see C. Ricadonna in her.... Iraki sodlier 90mm for 9€, same price for a german sodlier Your Devil Dinosaur to be combined with a Moonboy, from Papo Toys just for 14€ and a couple of red color  layers: The whole "Fumetti 3D collection", that is in scale 90mm. You can get one per 9€,  they are not same high quality as Eaglemoss does, but enough good. I converted couple of them (cfr. my dr. Nemesis and my vector foe of the group U-Foes).  There are at least 10 characters that can be customized from this collection.  Other cutomizers already taken at full hands from this collection. 23€ for this unpainted Conan, 75mm scale, still fits our needs....  Last but not least american diorama figure called Jesus, in scale 1:18 I'm seriously thinking to buy this stuff for 9€ to convert in my personal view of Butterball... There are hundreds still to be shown, but I only wanted to stimulate you to start searching over Eaglemoss limits.... ehehehehe! byezz

8-ball

The man who would later become 8-Ball was born in Duluth, Minnesota. A former defense contractor who designed missile propulsion systems, Jeff Hagees took to playing pool to relieve the stress of his job.
He soon amasses large gambling debts, which arouses the suspicion of his employers, who thought he was selling company secrets to raise money to pay off his debts. Although they had no proof, Hagees' employers fired him.
Combining his love of pool with his engineering talents, he fashions a criminal identity for himself as 8-Ball, inventing his cue stick weapons, and engaging in a highly successful crime spree in New York with his gang.
In one of his costumed robberies, he faces the alien Sleepwalker, who demands to know what he was doing. Sleepwalker had the battle won and nearly captured 8-Ball for the police, until Rick Sheridan (the human to whom Sleepwalker is
bonded) woke up. The alien is forced back into Rick's mind. 8-Ball escaped.

8-Ball witnesses a fight between female supervillains while at a "Bar With No Name": Black Mamba, Asp, and Impala vs. Battleaxe, Steel Wind, and Golddigger.
When 8-Ball and Sleepwalker next meet, 8-Ball proves victorious; he distracts the hero by shooting innocent bystanders. He attempts to kill Sleepwalker, although the alien hero manages to escape.
Later, when Rick and Sleepwalker had switched bodies, 8-Ball and the Hobgoblin each attack Rick, trying to kill what they thought was Sleepwalker to win a $100,000 bet.
The inexperienced Rick is no match for them, which made 8-Ball realize that Rick was not the actual Sleepwalker. 8-Ball defeats Hobgoblin to make him stop, although by that time Rick was already dying.
8-Ball later abandons Rick to his fate, marking his last appearance in the Sleepwalker series.
At some point, 8-Ball is finally captured and imprisoned. He teams up with a number of other villains against the She-Hulk, although they are defeated.

Started from the body of EaglemossVenom, just rebuild with Magic Sculpt White the feet, arms, hands and head. Added the pool cue also made in MS White.

Colored with Model Master colors.

Ko-Rel

Courtesy of Marvel Wikia:


A captain in the Kree military, Ko-Rel fought against the Annihilation Wave alongside her crew until their cruiser was shot down and crashed on the planet Drez-Lar. She lead the surviving members for a year, sending out a help message everyday, hoping for rescue.
Arriving in Kree space as the Phalanx sealed it off, Nova (Richard Rider) was forced into a retreat, hitting the barrier erected by the Phalanx at maximum velocity and falling onto the surface of Drez-Lar, nearly dead. He was quickly found by Ko-Rel on a routine patrol, causing the Xandarian Worldmind to imbue her with part of its power, so as to have an active representative to help Rider, who housed the Worldmind's essence.

Taking the weakened Rider back to her ship after the Worldmind had insisted, she left him there to recover until the Phalanx, led by Gamora, attacked the ship, looking for him. Wanting to lead the Phalanx away from her crew, she fled the fight, taunting the Phalanx into following her. She then began battling them in the air above the ship, not aware of Gamora sneaking through the ship, killing members of her crew and eventually finding Rider, who she assimilated into the Phalanx.

When she was finished fight the Phalanx, Ko-rel was shocked to find that she failed the people she promised to protect. The Worldmidn that called her, asking her to kill Rider and himself before he succumbs to the transmode virus; the Phalanx empowered by the Nova Force would be unstoppable. She tracks down Rider and engages him. With Worldmind giving her tactical information, she was able to avoid the much mroe powerful Rider, before she incapacitates him. However, she refused to end his life, for her son's sake. However, her moment of hesitation caused her to let her guard down, as Gamora stabbed her in the back. As the life left her, Ko-rel tried reminding Rider that this is not who is before. He last word was saying her son's name before dying.

Though dead, Ko-rel proved to a great significance in Rider's freedom from the Phalanx. When she died, the remaining Nova Force that Worldmind imbued in her returned to Rider, giving him the strength to place the virus in remission. A last mental message from her was to ask Rider to save her son.

Ko-rel's personality has since been co-opted by the Worldmind as a template to enable it to communicate with the current Corps.

This work took part at the 9th contest in the Italian Forum and of course arrived at last place! ghghghghgh!!

It was my last participation at that contest, won by my spanish friend Franky with a beautiful representation of the Dark Phoenix. Different point of view made me decide to leave definitely that forum. Mainly my romantic point of view of this hobby that should find in a Forum a place to share techniques and ideas rather than being a little corner shop to gain some coins from our (customizers) activities...

Lat but not least: finally had time to move my whole collection of customs from the Forum to my Blog. Please take time to visit the three pages of customs made by me, by following the links on the right. They are mainly introduced following a time line concept, from the first times to nowadays.