Custom Action Figure: Fantastic Four

 This is a big one! I customized the entire classic Fantastic Four! 

 To start off with, I'm not sure why it is so hard to get companies to finish off teams, they'll get three figures in and then kaput! For the Marvel Universe line I was determined not to wait for them to get around to it...
(which they still haven't)

I went all out for this team as I wanted them to be as correct as possible. To start with- while the Mr.Fantastic released in the FF box set was nice, I thought he should have the Jim Lee Cyclops body that so many figures are done on now. This would make him a better size in relation to Johnny who I wanted to look more like a high schooler. He did still use the head from the box set Reed Richards though.

 The next figure up was Sue Storm, everyone's favorite Invisible Woman. She was made almost exclusively from the FF box set figure but repainted.

Johnny Storm was tricky. He started out as a Marvel Universe Bucky which I beheaded then ground off his boot cuffs and flared gloves. He gained a head from an Indian Jones Mutt figure with repainted blond hair. For what it's worth I'm still looking for a better head, but this will do for a while.

 It's clobberin time! The figure whom had the least work done to him was Benjamin J. Grimm. It simply consisted of painting his underwear to match the rest of the teams. It is necessary to point out that this was the one figurine that was not form the Marvel Universe line. It is the much superior Superhero Showdown Thing. I highly recommend picking one up if your serious about your Fantastic Four!

 All the figures were painted in Tamiya acrylics with the airbrush and detail painting was made much simpler when I discovered that I had lots of tiny '4' decals left over from a 1/1000 U.S.S. Enterprise model kit.

The Fantastic Four is Marvel's first family and I was happy to finally get their classic looks on the shelf in a good looking form.

Custom Action Figure: Vulture

Not too long ago I finished up a custom of one of my most desired Spider-Man villains...

THE VULTURE!

 I knew i had to make him after I found the perfect head rolling around in a bag of junk figurines.

 He was cobbled together form the body of a Marvel Universe Silver Surfer for the somewhat stringy emaciated muscular look. His arms came from An Avengers Assemble Falcon. Luckily they popped right onto the Silver Surfer arm pegs. Finally his feather collar was sculpted from milliput.

His final paint job was rendered in Tamiya acrylics. He filled a very large hole in Spidey's rogues gallery, here's to hoping Hasbro makes some more characters who are sorely missing in action!

Giant Size X-Men #1

Sort of used this piece as an airbush test when I got my new compressor. 

Started out as a black and white value study to get the sizes and positions and poses all settled. Used ink and brush and pencil to figure everything out.

After airbrushing inks to lay down a base gradient for all the color fields. I went in and picked out all the details in watercolor.

 Close ups show some of the finer detail like the hair on wolverines arm.

 Final detailing was handled with colored pencil. Most outlining and finer areas are all colored pencil.

 I was REALLY thrilled with the Bamf! around Nightcrawler.

Only a few things were really modified from the original image by Dave Cockrum. But I was really happy to change up Angel's pose in the background.

PORTRAITS!

Just finished up some portraits for some patrons. Thought they came out fairly decent!

 Candace

and Eddy.

These were rendered in watercolor and airbushed inks on illustration board. I have to say I was really pleased with the final result. By airbushing the waterproof inks as a base gradient layer it makes the actual brush painting fairly quick and simple.

Botany Bay Completed!

 Lost in Space since 1996!

Here's the S.S. Botnay Bay in all her finished painted glory! She came out fantastic!

 All the paneling is airbrushed on, with pencil detailing on some areas to give more definition and some pastel weathering to give it a chalky dusty look. I didnt want to overpower the sleek lines and simple detailing of the ship with weathering that was too heavy or out of scale. It fits right alongside my 1/350th scale Enterprise which, with the exception of the rust ring and extremely faint penciled on gridlines, is otherwise clean.

 Such a great desing for a ship! The spindly radiators on the back end wound up snapping off twice during assembly, luckily after painting no more incidents have occured

 The overall size was again kept slightly smaller than canon references. I wanted it to look like this could have (as is seen in book covers and photos from the various series) possibly been launched from within the atmosphere atop a booster stack. Plus it makes the enterprise look alot bigger.

 Some simple greeblies along the back end really give it that TOS feel, much like the sparingly placed yellow and red bits of plumbing/widgets along the enterprise corridors.

A nice shot from 1996 of the Botnay Bay zipping away from us at archaic speeds... wonder what will happen to those guys on board?

Coming up next! I'm am goig to be making some more small craft, Charles Evans favorite old clunker the Antares, the Tholian webspinner, and the "No Herbert's Allowed" Aurora! I am also looking to the Animated series for inspiration and will probably be working on some of the smaller auxillary craft as well as the villain ships from that series!

Botany Bay... OH NO!

 "I thought you said it couldn't possibly be an earth ship?"

 As a companion piece to the 350 scale Enterprise I scratchbuilt a 1:350th Botany Bay to go alongside it. (Based on plans drawn by Phil Broad and photos of the studio model)

 The ship itself is made from Styrene overall with the exception of a wood dowel for the head which was then clad in styrene for the flat faces and puttied and sanded until firm and smooth. Some close enough kit parts were added on the rear end of the ship to represent the greeblies on the original. Some of the panel work that is shown as raised on the studio model will be represented as paint on this ship. I'd like to keep it as subtle as possible much like the gridlines on the saucer of the Enterprise.

 A stand was made to match the Big E's, from a Plastruct acrylic hemisphere and Aluminum rod. overall build time has been about 12 hours on the little guy, not bad as a time killer when getting ready for work, or while watching some TV. A bit more putty work and priming and I'll be soldering some brass rod and screen together to make her rear heat sinks/antennas/strainers, then she'll be ready for paint!

 You may notice the fronts and backs of the cargo pods are not backswept as on the studio model. This was a legitimately conscious decision. Growing up with the micro machines Botany Bay and having displayed it with  my 1:1000th Enterprise for some time I got used to the flat pods and they seemed to make more sense in so far as fitting together as cargo modules so I kept them flat. For that matter I also kept the model slightly under scale, as the MM Botany Bay was to my old Enterprise, I think it makes the Big E a 'little' more impressive!

 A little Bonus! If you ever wondered how large the Botany Bay, the Enterprise and the Bridge island of the CVN-65  Enterprise would be next to each other... NOW YOU KNOW!

CVN-65 piggybacking the Enterprise.

USS Enteprise 1:350 Finished!

A milestone in my model building! This is the Star Trek kit I have waited a lifetime for!

Worked hard to smooth out the gridlines on the saucer. After the hull color was applied they were penciled back in with a fine point (Very hard lead) drafting pencil and a compass rule. Rust ring was airbushed very subtly. At certain angles they appear and disappear giving the ship its 'As Seen On TV' appearance.

 

Bottom gridlines were obliterated as well. Lines redrawn in hard lead.

 

 I think I was the first person to finish one of these with the gridlines puttied and filled in.

 In the overhead shots you will notice the missing warp engine grills and vents on the pylons. I have yet to order the photoetched brass grills that will be inserted in these areas to replace the thicker less accurate kit parts.

 Galileo is removable via a magnet placed underneath the shuttlebay floor.

 

 More finished pictures with a nice clean backdrop to come!