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emperorshotz designs (7/19/17 - Polaris Minimate Collection)


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Well, this is my first foray into Minimates customizing. I've been a HUGE Heroclix collector and customizer for over 10 years now. Customizing Minimates has been a bit more intimidating... I don't know why. I guess it's that extra inch of plastic that makes the task seem like the Everest of paintjobs and sculpting. But I've decided to give it a go when the overwhelming need to fix my FAVORITE super team of all time took over...


THE NEW MUTANTS!

Two minor tweaks and a repaint, here.

Firstly, I took an old Logan headpiece from one of the Wolverines and did a quick repaint so that Wolfsbane had hair more closely resembling what she sported in the comics. Seen this a few places around the forums and it's such a quick, simple, and smart fix that I couldn't pass it up.

Next up was Magma: what a missed opportunity that the Ghost Rider/Sunfire/Human Torch flame headpiece wasn't used. Big "D'OH!" moment on AA's part. So swapped her hair for one of those, popped on the Dark Phoenix/Firestar fire cuffs, and used Modok's flames and Terrax's stone base to jazz her up, as well.

And finally was Sunspot. A Sebastian Shaw body from XM:FC and Xavier's hands from the same 2 pack. Could have very easily just painted a mate black, but they're 5 bucks each at my TRU right now, so figured I'd save the Sunspot that came with the set (collector purist at times). Painted an angry Magneto face and the extra headpiece from the Sunspot mate and then painted the XM:FC Azazel "bamf" base to try and recreate his "sunspot" aura. I'm pretty pleased with how he came out. I was struggling to think of how to represent his power. Didn't want just a bland black figure.
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And those are my first mates! Currently working on a few quick customs (non-movie First Class Beast, New X-Men Beast, Xorn and Prof X, Cypher) then some more labor intensive jobs such as Rogue (with torn up, 80's green tank-over-bodysuit), Rachel Summers Phoenix (first red/gold outfit which I've seen done on the forums) and red/white 80's Colossus to go with my mohawk Storm and trial of Magneto Mags. Possibly using the extra Azazel parts for a custom Nightcrawler. Stay tuned!

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Edited by emperorshotz
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Just finished a few quick customs and a couple flightly more intricate...

First up is First Class Beast:

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Pretty simple: A First Class Box Set Cyclops body with an X-Factor Beast's hands and alternate feet. The cowl/headpiece is a First Class Angel and the face is, I believe, an XM:FC Xavier since I felt the X-Factor Beast was WAY too angry for his portrayal in the comics in this iteration.

Next, New X-Men Prof. X:

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Again, simple: Prof X head on top of a New X-Men Cyclops body plopped on Prof's wheelchair. And, for Xorn sponsored, nanobyte-friendly Prof? Just stand him up! Ta-dah!

90's Iceman:

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This is just First Class Box Set Iceman with the hairpiece removed and an X-Belt added from the X-Men 90's box set battle-ravaged Wolverine. He's a holdover until I get my official W11 Iceman, but I kind of like him just like this... I remember him being portrayed iced over with the belt sticking out like this from time to time. Not sure which one I'll keep displayed with the rest of my Gold team...

Here's 80's work-out Rogue:

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It's a Captivity Six BSG head, legs, & pelvis with a XM:FC Sebastian Shaw torso and arms. XM:FC Xavier hands, a Hulk's spare feet and Captain Britain Brian Braddock's spare hair headpiece painted. The ripped shirt is grey stuff (2-part epoxy) painted.

and finally 80's Phoenix, Rachel Summers:

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This one was a tough call. I really wanted the "charred extremities" look her costume had where there were heavy black lines coming from her hands and feet. That meant Mephisto or Invaders Human Torch. Luckily, I had a spare torch and plopped on the arms/legs from that onto an AOA Sabretooth torso and pelvis. The head, I forget, and the hair is the spare Rahne Sinclair hair from the New Mutants box set.

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As for the Rogue and the Phoenix: I'm preparing to either decal or sharpie the detail on for the torsos. I was wondering if anybody had any solid advice on what to use? Clear waterslide decals vs. white? And also, has anyone used sharpie to the effect of actually looking professional? Or should I just be patient and wait for my first shot at decals?

Any help with the decal thing is REALLY appreciated.

Next up: Sprite (Kitty Pryde), Nightcrawler, and Colossus!

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Great stuff! I love the tweaks to Magma and I really like the idea of using the Human Torch appendages for Rachel! I am definitely going to borrow a few of these tweaks! Thanks for posting and can't wait to see more!

Wes

I've only used clear decals but I'm going to try white with my next project. The benefit of white is you can use white in your design without applying the decal to a white base. The drawback is matching decal color to paint color for seamless appearance.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Have a few new customs I've been meaning to put up, thought I'd share now that pre-Christmas (aka Thanksgiving) is over:

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Re-shot Rogue after I repainted her a brighter green. Still missing her belts and chest details, but I'm still gearing up for decals.

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90's Wolfsbane

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90's Polaris

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New X-Men Beast

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New X-Men Xorn

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Extinction Team Magik

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Kitty Pryde/Sprite

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All in all I'm trying to keep them as much quick customs as possible so that they look as factory-made as possible. Wolfsbane was inspired by Wes' awesome version. I made a Siryn that almost is exactly like his, as well, for my collection-- GREAT ideas, man! Shout out to you for the inspiration!

Rogue's shirt was clearly sculpted as well as Kitty's hair onto an X-Factor Beast headpiece and Polaris' belt which was just a continuation of 90's Cyclops' harness cut off at the belt. Wolfsbane's "X" was kind of sloppy (I admit I tried to clean it up a bit in Photoshop-- the stickers I used while waiting for my decals left really gross edges. Ended up taking it off altogether.) You can see on Xorn where I tried to preserve the detail on Crossbone's face by painting around the "skull" lines... on second thought, I would probably just go ahead and paint the whole thing silver and repaint the detail myself. It would probably look cleaner.

I've got a bunch of other projects on the table right now just waiting for pieces... the most important being these two so I can have yet another iteration of the original five:

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So if anyone has a spare variant Mandarin mask for Jean or headpiece a la X-Factor/First Appearance Beast & First Class/First Appearance Angel, let me know! Hope you guys dig these.

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Nice work all around. Never ceases to amazing me how much better that AMX Beast face looks with a different hairpiece. Not that I'm warming to Cat-Beast mind you.

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Those are great! What hairpiece did you use for Beast?

Thanks! Beast is sporting an X3 Beast hair-do atop that AXM Beast head. The rest is X-Factor Cyclops' chest with New Wolverine's jacket and arms, XM:FC Beast's hands, X3 Beast's legs, and random black feet (think XM:FC Xavier)

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Love these!!! Great, great work!!! I really love them all! I'm especially digging the Polaris. I just made her in this costume too (before seeing your version) but I think I like your version better! Nice stuff, and can't wait to see more!

Wes

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  • 3 months later...

It's been a while-- have a bunch of updates since I started using decals. A lot more on the work bench than actually finished, but I figured I'd throw them up and elaborate on them later so HERE THEY ARE:

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New Warriors Firestar

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Avengers Firestar

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80's Phoenix (Redone with decal)

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Original Marvel Girl

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Red costume X-Factor Marvel Girl

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Magik's original Darkchilde armor

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Muir Island Polaris

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Gray suit Black Widow

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Road trip X-Force Sunspot

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90's Cannonball

Edited by emperorshotz
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Thanks, everyone! The recipes are actually pretty straightforward:

Firestar in her New Warriors garb was a decal with a New X-Men Wolvie jacket piece painted over, as Psyguy said Crimson Viper's head and an X-Factor Jean hairpiece, finished with paint where it was needed.

Here's the decal I designed for her. Pretty simple, but my first decal design:

firestarnwdecalbig.jpgfirestarnwdecal.jpg

Avengers Firestar was just an existing Firestar figure with a New X-Men Jean/Phoenix hairpiece, a decal and some paint.

firestaravdecalbig.jpgfirestaravdecal.jpg

Marvel Girl was a Blink body repainted, First Class X-Men gloves, an Avengers boxset Wasp skirt, First App Jean hair and a variant Mandarin mask cut out and glued on top (Thanks to the wonderful Jeff!)


X-Factor Marvel Girl? Just a repainted existing X-Factor Marvel Girl with the green carefully repainted red and an extra New X-Men Jean/Phoenix hairpiece instead.

Black Widow is an Ocean Master body with everything stripped off, greenstuff for her gauntlets since I couldn't find extra Black Widows to part-steal from, forgot the face but pretty sure that's Daredevil's hair and then painted detail.

Sunspot basically just a painted black mate with w11 Bishop's lower legs, Boomer's gauntlets, belt, and chestpiece, and the first Ghost Rider's hairpiece.

And good ol' Sam is basically a 90's Cyclops mate, new face and hair (again, can't recall exactly where I got em, were just in my parts bin), sculpted harness, paint.

There's a couple that I almost forgot to post, strewn across my displayed X-Men:

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Ultimate Angel

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Ultimate Colossus

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Classic Dazzler

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Banshee (still needs a cape-- can't come across extra Photon parts or MvC Storm to complete right now, though, and the ones I tried to sculpt were horrendous and took up so much green stuff!)

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Graduate Angel!

This guy was a lot of paint, an X-Men belt that I can't place, for some reason? Possibly a MvC Wolvie belt, FA Beast headpiece with sculpted hair.

The costume itself is of course, horrendous, but I had to have him for an important reason:

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The complete first graduated class of Xavier's School for Gifted Youngsters!

I only have enough room to display my X-Men mates, right now. I'm particularly anal about how I display them and strict on there being NO COMPLETE REPEATED figures (That Cyke is a mix-mash of pre-existing parts, the Beast is a slightly repainted chest-piece, different head, X-Men belt added, Iceman has his FC hairpiece removed, belt added as well, until I can get the frosted w11 variant to replace him).

A better example, my 80's X-Men team had to have a completely different Nightcrawler figure, despite the fact that either existing one could fill in the gap. It's a skrull Beast face with some modifications, Wasp chest piece, etc:

80sxmenbook.jpg

because my current use for the other two 'Crawlers are part of my Excalibur display and my Phoenix-era X-Men display:

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Just for fun, here are some of the other displayed teams currently using customs I've whipped up:

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New X-Men

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Ultimate X-Men

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Extinction Team (updated Magik's hair. I felt like recently in the books there's been a little more of a "modern" feel to her bangs looks, but I go back and forth)

xmenfirstclassbook.jpg

X-Men First Class

newmutantsbook.jpg

New Mutants

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Wow, that was a way bigger update than I intended!

Edited by emperorshotz
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I'm working on so many other esoteric X-lineups. The head underneath Xorn is a painted Crossbones head.

Also, shout out to youbastards for his awesome Dazzler face decal I put into use. I was going to make my own but his was pretty spot on-- I thought I'd give it a whirl.

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