Juggernaut Redux

Here's a little mod job that I thought would be quick and easy, that is, until I got an idea from Phineas Curmudgeon...

But I'm getting ahead of myself already. I was checking out a WIP thread by a favorite customizer of mine; Grownman, and saw some improvements he made to the new SMC Juggernaut. I had seen the prototype for this Juggy at SDCC 2008 and was on the fence as to whether I wanted to pick it up or not. Then I saw Grownman's improvements to it and thought I'd pick one up and take a whack at it.

Original Juggernaut >



The main mod GM made was to replace the enormous forearms and hands with the forearms and hands from a HML2 Thor. I liked the look but unfortunately those Thor hands were made for gripping Mjolnir and a battle axe. I couldn't get around the fact that Juggernaut is a character that needs fists.

Once I finally got around to starting (July 2009) on this job I tried out various fists from larger figures and happened across a SOTA Street Fighter Akuma figure that I hadn't been able to figure out what to do with. He had fists that fit perfectly and he already had some funky hand thing that was too far off from the funky hand thongs Juggernaut has. I took some quick pics and showed my idea to some fellow customizers who all gave it the green light.




*I started out with a variant paint job Juggy but I botched up his waist pretty bad so you'll notce in the WIP pics that his colors change : p *

I was on the way. Then the Curmudgeon struck. He brought up something about this Juggernaut figure that was bothering me on a subconscious level: small balls. Hip balls to be exact. Once you cure the gorilla arms you still got a Juggernaut with tiny hip balls that look ridiculous with his legs. But the Curmudgeon provided an answer: Swap Juggy's waist with one from a SOTA SF Blanka. SOTA even made one in brown that was almost a similiar to Juggernaut! Now where the Hell was I going to get one of those? To make this long story a little shorter; I went to SDCC 2009 and scored a Blanka cheap from a dealer. Huzzah!

Now my only problem was how to integrate the Juggernaut torso with the Blanka waist? I remembered a mod done by Grownman. I sawed through the Juggernaut waist about halfway down, then dremelled off the Blanka waist swivel peg and through careful measuring and sanding cemented the Juggy waist to the Blanka.



Then it was just a matter of strengthening and filling it out with some Fixit Sculpt. I decided that his waist was a lot of real estate to just be plain brown so I took another liberty and gave Juggy a belt. The rest can be seen in the pics, so without further delay...

WIP Pics >




Finished >




A cool benefit from using a Street Fighter Waist!





Recipe >

SMC Juggernaut Helmet, Head, Torso, Upper Arms, Top of Waist and Legs
HML2 Thor Lower Arms
SOTA SF Akuma Fists
SOTA SF Blanka Waist
DCSH Batman Belt Buckle
Fixit Sculpt for the Belt and filling out the Waist and Wristbands

Thanx for looking!

I do take commission jobs so feel free to contact me if you're interested.

Marvel Universe Classics Ka-Zar

Continuing on with the Marvel Universe Classics theme with another favorite of mine - Ka-Zar; Lord of the Savage Land!

I always thought old Kevin Plunder had it made. He's got a Sabretooth Tiger for a best friend and lives in a land chock full of dinosaurs, prehistoric mammals and cavemen. Every once in a while he pals around with the X-Men, Spidey, Daredevil and then he hooked up with Shanna the She-Devil! Oh yeah, he's also a millionaire. What a life!

I tried a new paint line while working on Ka-Zar; Reaper Paints. They were suggested to me by my friend Ratboy - a customizer of great talent. My usual method of mixing up a tan flesh tone paint wasn't cutting it this time around. Ka-Zar has a lotta flesh to paint and by the time I would get halfway done the paint would start seperating and changing in tone. Very frustrating. Then I remembered the advice of Ratboy and looked up the Reaper site. How nice to find a plethora of flesh tones to choose from! I used Reaper Tanned Skintone and I think it's got a very nice, natural look to it. I'm looking forward to adding more Reaper paints when I need to replace other colors.

On to the pics!

WIP Pics >



Finished >



Recipe >

DCUC Captain Atom Head
HML Invisible Woman Hair
DCUC Black Lightning Body except for...
DCUC Amazo Forearms
HML Ka-Zar Knife & Scabbard
Sculpted some hair, nipples, belt, loin cloth and boots

Thanx for looking!

Daredevil - Marvel Universe Classics

No, I'm not gonna start this one crying about how slow I work. Been busy with my kids since they're out of school for summer. On top o' that I joined a new band and have been doing a lot of practicing and rehearsing. In the midst of all this I have found some time to work on - Daredevil, The Man Without Fear! Marvel Universe Classics style! Props to DisThunder for the MUC term.

This is my 2nd Daredevil, the first Daredevil I made was sold on eBay. When I got my hands on a DCUC Wave 8 Flash I knew the time had come to make another DD, this time, for my shelf. I loved the Daredevil: Guardian Devil story by Kevin Smith & Joe Quesada and I really wanted make this DD as close to the way Quesada drew him.

The hardest part about this custom, besides finding time to work on it, was covering up the yellow on his boots. Mattel uses some thick paint. What I did for the parts that weren't red was give 'em a couple coats of Citadel Foundation Red. The Foundation line of paints are made specifically to be great base coats with good coverage. Then I went at him with Model Masters Guards Red. His little bit of flesh was painted with MM Light Flesh with a drop of Citadel Beastial Brown mixed in. The MM Light Flesh is way too pale on it's own but a drop of brown added to 3 or 4 drops of MMLF makes a natural caucasian flesh tone.

On to the pics!

WIP Pic >



Finished >



Size Comparisons >




Recipe >

ML Face Off Daredevil Head
DCUC Flash Body except for the forearms which came from a DCUC Batman, for that cool sculpted glove look
Belt made from Styrene, Buckle from Fixit Sculpt
DD Insignia is a vinyl sticker courtesy of my good friend Synner

Teaser >



Thanks for stopping by!

Penance from Arcana Studio Comics

Wow it seems like forever since I've posted a new custom. I gotta work faster... or smarter... Screw it, you can't rush art. :p

Penance is the title character of the mini series Penance from Arcana Studio. It's a story about lies, murder and revenge in the superhero community of Atlanta, GA. The main protaganist is actually an ordinary police detective that is caught up in the middle of it all personally and professionally. Check out Penance and Arcana Studio's other titles at > http://www.arcanacomics.com/

I was commissioned by Sean Wise, the co-creator of Tales of Penance, to create this Custom Penance AF. Sean was referred to me by my good friend and AF customizer extraordinaire Matt "Iron Cow" Cauley. Thanx much to both of y'all!

A lot of work went into this job and it really challenged me. As you can see Penance has a mix of the standard superhero leotard and futuristic armor. The gauntlets (I think that's what they're called) were a major source of frustration. They weren't something that could be easily swiped from another figure, trust me, I looked. Nope, I had to create them from scratch. It took no less than 5 tries. I finally ended up constructing them by cutting the basic forms from sheet styrene, gluing them all together, then to his forearms and then sculpting over them with Aves Fixit Sculpt. I did the same for the Eye motif Amulet and Belt Buckle. The armored lower legs came from an HML Ultimate Iron Man which I spliced onto the legs of the DCUC Manta base body. I removed, dremeled and sanded off the unnecessary features and sculpted the needed details. Painting Penance was quite the adventure too. Red doesn't show up on black all that well. Most of the veins of red were done by painting them in white first then going over the white in red. Luckily painting uneven lines is something I'm very good at.

Enough blah, blah... onto the recipe and pics.


Reference & WIP Pics >



Finished >




Recipe >

ML Moon Knight Hood / Cape - airbrushed black, then green
ML MK Head Cast - sanded a bit to modify features
DCUC Manta Body
DCUC Superman Fists
TNA Wrestler's Forearms - Gauntlets created with Styrene and Aves Fixit Sculpt
HML Ult Iron Man Legs from knees down - features created with Fixit, Styrene and Braided Elastic
Belt made from Styrene
Eye Amulet and Buckle made from Styrene & Fixit

Batman - Jim Lee Styled - Created March 2009

Feels like forever since I finished Bane, but finally a new custom! This Batman just seemed so much harder to make than the previous ones. The body was very difficult to open, had to fix some factory defects and attaching the neck was an adventure. Because he has swappable heads (see pics) I had to make sure the neck was secured to the body a little stronger than just gluing. I had filled the hole left when I removed the original neck with Aves Apoxie Sculpt and then after gluing the DCD neck down I drilled a hole in the neck peg cavity and then used a screw to fasten the neck down to the body. I don't think I'll use this DCD cape on a Batman custom again. A lotta effort to make it work. Hope you like it Amazing Spider-Fan!



Recipe:
DCUC 1 Batman Body
DCD Reactivated Batman Head, Neck and Cape
DCD Unmasked Batman BW Head and Belt
Bat Symbol provided by Synner