A little bit Wild

So I finished a new custom today, yay!
Always an interesting time when you stroke the last bit of paint on and really get to see what the final piece looks like.
     Bit of background;  I never set out to make a Two Gun Kid, this guy actually started out as an armature for a Star-Lord figurine I wanted to do (and will do in the future along with a hundred others).  Thing was, when I started adding the detail I began to see Two Gun Kid in front of me.  I like to work in a very loose style and not be focused down one track, so I went with it, and this is what I ended up with.

    I never thought he would be of huge interest to collectors, not ranking high on many want lists.  However, he is quirky, colourful and has a long and storied history, originally appearing in comics before Marvel came to be (like Captain America and Sub-Mariner), then later being integrated into MU continuity.  Given that, I think he would have been an inclusion in the official collection sooner rather than later, had it continued.

Let there be Life!

I guess for CMFC collectors who have gone on the create, commission and buy customs, the collection is a living thing, a living which doesn't want to die.  It doesn't want to say "This is enough, I'll stop now."  It's living because it's adaptive.  Adding customs to a collection allows it to tailor itself to the tastes of it's owner. It's a living thing because it will continue growing long into the future, feeding off of it's source material, the ever changing, ever evolving MU.

     It's the strength of the comics medium that it can create vast canvasses of narrative, which stretches across decades.  There is no limit to the type and style of stories can be told in comic books, and in the MU in particular.  It's fitting that the figurine collection which bases itself on them, should be equally broad, diverse and continual, long after it's original remit has been completed.

     Excelsior!

Death

I thought Death was an important character and one whom deserved to be added to the collection.  I'm surprised the Official collection never touched on the Pantheon at all in its run, A Death/Eternity double pack would have made a fine end to the Special releases.  This figurine did not come out perfectly...the head is slightly too big (Which I excuse because she's a conceptual) and she isn't quite as slinky and curvy as she is often depicted.  Still, she looks the part and looks at home next to my Thanos.

Doop

Everyone loves Doop, right?  He's not the most technically challenging figurine to create, but he does pack a lot of expression and looks nice and distinct. I've created a couple of variants with different logos, which look pretty neat.

Rogue

My first redo of an existing character and my first attempt to fully create a human sculpt from scratch.  Basically, the existing Rogue in the CMFC does nothing for me at all.  Rogue is definitely up there as one of my favorite Marvel characters, love that Southern sass and go to attitude of hers.  She is also one of the best looking X-ladies...she has (like many X-Men) had a few different looks over the years; about 5 or 6 notable ones.  Any of them would have been better than the one that they chose.  I don't think I did bad job on my version, but there is room for improvement...and with such a cool wardrobe, room for another redo somewhere down the line.

Selene

If you're going to have Hellfire Club figurines, you've got to have this lady.  I like how she came out and she looks the part next to Frost and Shaw.  I hope to do more Hellfire members in the future.

How much is too much? My first custom creations.

So, one down, a few thousand to go!

     There's always a bit of debate among collectors.  Some were happy with the two hundred (+ Specials) that were made, some gave up long before getting those, and others wanted more.  Maybe one or two more; favorite characters who were not included.  Maybe a dozen or so, the characters who were needed to round out and fill teams that were officially begun.  New Mutants, Guardians of the Galaxy, a Lockjaw for the Inhumans. Maybe fifty more would have been ample, or a hundred?  The truth is there is no right number of characters to include in a collection of figurines encompassing the length and breadth of the MU.

    A non-comic literate friend of mine looked at my collection the other week and was amazed at the number of figurines there.  "They are all actual characters?" he asked.  "How many more would you have to make to get them all?"

    I chuckled.  "There are thousands.  There have been dozens of comics released every month for fifty odd years, that's just a fraction of them."

    Of course, you wouldn't necessarily want every two bit villain or sidebar personality that ever appeared to be recreated as a figurine.  The only thing that ever really matters in deciding where the collection should end or how much of it you need is significance.  That's an individual quality.

    I've not yet read the Exiles, so Blink leaves me a bit cold.  Yet she got a release relatively early.  But she was probably worthwhile and relevant to those who did.

    In jotting down my own list of characters I would have wanted to see, I reached fifty very quickly and without too much thought.  I've started to make a dent in that list with my own creations, even as it evolves and changes over time.

    So, here's to melting metal and cooling it down into something neat:

Paladin

He's just a neat looking guy, distinctive and was rocking that whole merc attitude long before Deadpool came along.

Warlock

A lot of fun to make, tedious to paint, and high on many want lists.  I went for a friendly, amiable look here as I remember him from the early New Mutant books.

Eon

Quirky and definitely one of the more unusual character designs in the MU, I like how this one came out.  The impetus to sculpt him came about from a want to create some of the Marvel Pantheon.

Nimrod

A villain I remember very distinctly from my early days of buying comic books (circa Uncanny X-Men 200).  I always wanted to include him and try to create a figurine which stood out as much on a display shelf as he did on the printed page.  He's a seminal John Romita Jnr design.

That's it for this post!  More to follow.  I hope you like the blog, and my custom figurines.  Please feel free to leave any comments, critique, discussion or any other notes you want to in this blog...

The story so far...

It all started with a talking Raccoon totting a mini-gun.  It was more of a mini mini-gun, him being a Raccoon and all.  He was a wicked bad-ass Raccoon and deserved a spot in the line up.  The line up had been an ever expanding roster of the craziest bunch of costumed freaks and paragons, horrors and misfits, heroes and villains that ever lived the MU.  It was a vast array, but not endless.  In fact, there came a point when it was very endy.  In that it ended.  With no Raccoon.

     Confronted with this, which other choice was there for a committed, hardy collector?  All he could do was arm himself with some kneadatite and pointy prongy things, and ensure the Raccoon became a reality.

This was the result:

    He didn't end up with a mini-gun, but hey, you know what they say about bringing one to a knife fight.