Wednesday, July 29, 2015

Marvel Legends Wasp

If you ever told me there'd be a wave of figures focusing on Hank Pym / Ant-Man, I'd say you're crazy. While the Ultron wave of Marvel Legends isn't exclusively all Ant-Man related, it's as close as us Ant-Man fans will probably get.



Today, we're focusing on the winsome Wasp. Instead of doing a new costume (which might require actual tooling on the body), Hasbro decided on the black and gold costume from the 2000s. Some people complain about the buck they used for this figure, but it's much nicer than some female bodies I've been on the shelves. (Like Toy Biz's Xtreme Rogue and its toothpick thin arms.) Unfortunately, my figure, purchased online, has a bad eye painted on, ruining the nice sculpt.



At first, I thought about re-painting the eye, but then, I found out the Captain Marvel head fits on the head socket. It actually looks nice on the Wasp body, Especially with the tossed hair giving the illusion of movement. So, I painted the hair brown and my sister applied some black highlights.

I'm rather pleased with the results.




Tuesday, July 28, 2015

Marvel Legends Hellcat

Hellcat is on my list of superheroes I didn't expect Hasbro to make.  She is in good company with characters like The Black Knight, US Agent, 90s Armored Daredevil, and so on. Why? Because they're all characters that Hasbro has made, much to my surprise.

Now, there isn't a lot of appeal with Hellcat. She looks like another cat-themed martial artist super hero and/or villain.  A lot of her appeal (to me) is her personality (especially when written by Kathryn Immonen) and her history.

Her alter ego, Patsy Walker, started out as a character in a line of romance comics in the 40s & 50s and was revived in 1975 as a the superhero Hellcat by Steve Englehart.

I really love the head sculpt for the figure. Head sculpts seem to be the one thing Hasbro won't reuse a lot, except, of course, for the Age of Ultron Captain America. My one issue was the thin yellow pain on her shins, where the blue plastic is bleeding through.

Using a darker yellow paint, I tried to apply a layer to better hide this.  Here are the before and after photos.


Wednesday, July 22, 2015

Ultra Monster 500 Series Birdon

In honor of Birdon's appearance in the second episode of the new Ultraman X series, here is my custom paint work on the recent Birdon Spark Doll. The sculpt was really nice, but I really wish Bandai had put more effort into using more paint apps.



The gold paint is a little garish, but the alternative is a sickly yellow-greenish color for Birdon's fur. At least all of the chest torso is complete now, and the beak is completely black now.

Sunday, July 19, 2015

Marvel Legends Captain Marvel



For the longest time, I wasn't the biggest fan of Carol Danvers, A.K.A. Ms. Marvel, Binary, etc. That is  until she got upgraded to Captain Marvel and received one of the coolest costume redesign of the millennium. When her new title isn't confusing search engines with Fawcett's famous creation, she is headlining her own (comic book) series and will soon be in her own Marvel movie in 2018.



Unusually prescient, Hasbro made a Captain Marvel figure during the Odin series. It has a great head sculpt and looks great overall. No doubt, it will be reissued in three years. Some artists (mostly Mark Brooks) depict the new costume with gold trim instead of yellow.

So, I bought a second figure and played around with my gold paint.