Bronze Meddling Box 2: The Order of the Golden Dawn [p. 27]

[elhonez]

42 characters down, 9 left to go!

Even after I'm done, it'll be slow going as I acquire necessary parts, paint & assemble. I'm sure this will keep my occupied at least through the end of the year.

Also, an open call: if anyone has GoGo Yubari meteor hammers to spare, and/or Wizard World solid blue promo mates, please PM me and I'll make you an offer.

[elhonez]

I finished the last of the decal designs for 50 characters. There are probably another 20 that are QCs or paint-only customs and don't require sticker art. And I'm ready to reveal the theme of the next set of waves: Shang-Chi, The Master of Kung-Fu.

I'm a child of the 70s, and I grew up on Kung-Fu movies, and 70s crime and action cinema had a real impact on my developing mind. It's part of what drew me to make the street-level characters of the Power Man and Iron Fist waves, and has definitely informed this next set of waves.

Reflecting on the (comic) series, it's interesting to see how ahead of the game Marvel was with representation, although I acknowledge many of the characterizations were one-note and/or wouldn't hold up to today's scrutiny, e.g. they often leaned heavily on some tired racial stereotypes. But still, they collectively represent hundreds of issues in which Black and Asian characters were front and center, and in the 70s and early 80s no less.

Another point of interest with respect to the MOKF series: many of the characters were actually licensed from the estate of author Sax Rohmer, who created the character of Fu Manchu way back in 1912. So these are characters that Marvel can no longer use, at least in their original form and with their Sax Rohmer names. As I "release" these, I'll call them out. Fu Manchu was written as Shang-Chi's father, and he was a real shitty dad, which will be reflected in the nickname for Wave 1 (similar to my previous drops, each wave is roughly themed).

In planning the waves, I did my best to have "anchors" for each -- Shang-Chi had a short list of notable buddies and a couple of villains that could be considered his "big bads." But these are anchors as defined from within his own mythology. Apart from an exception or two, there wasn't a lot of cross-pollination between MOKF and the rest of the 616. However there were a lot of very cool designs that I'm excited to share. Unless you're a hardcore fan or read the Omnibus editions, I think 90% of these characters will be new to you.

Many of these customs I've dabbled with or had plans to complete as simple QCs for several years now. And I initially had planned on doing everyone but Shang-Chi, sort of as a plea to DST to do him properly. At the time I wasn't confident in my abilities to do him justice. But I came around on that thinking, and I think he's going to look pretty cool. But he's in one of the later waves. And his wave comes with a surprise character.

Timing-wise, as previously alluded, the bottleneck for me will always be parts. I don't expect to complete this set of 8 waves and 1 box until spring 2025 given various demands on my time, and my current parts hunt. I'll have Wave 1 photos by end of September if all goes well.

[Kotter Comics]

Looking forward to this, though I will definitely be in the category of not recognizing 90% of the characters. MOKF was not on my reading list in the Bronze Age. But given how much I enjoyed your PMIF series, I'm excited to see this one as well!

[cylonchaney]

2 hours ago, Kotter Comics said:

Looking forward to this, though I will definitely be in the category of not recognizing 90% of the characters. MOKF was not on my reading list in the Bronze Age. But given how much I enjoyed your PMIF series, I'm excited to see this one as well!

This except probably 100% in my case.

Definitely looking forward to seeing your work.

[elhonez]

A preview:

The MCU version was cool, but I'm a sucker for this look.

[Kotter Comics]

Very cool!

[cylonchaney]

7 hours ago, elhonez said:

A preview:

The MCU version was cool, but I'm a sucker for this look.

Very nice! Is the shoulder hand painted?

[elhonez]

Yeah! I never have been successful at making shoulder decals that don't peel up around the edges. So I sucked it up and did it the hard way. 

[cylonchaney]

6 minutes ago, elhonez said:

Yeah! I never have been successful at making shoulder decals that don't peel up around the edges. So I sucked it up and did it the hard way. 

Having just done some detail work myself recently, I feel  your pain. Nice results!

[elhonez]

Thank you! There ended up being more hand-detailing than normal in this wave, which, as it happens, is named:

__ __ __ __ __ __     __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

 

 

[cylonchaney]

C

[buttheadsmate]

M

[Freaqualizer]

Punk?

[elhonez]

Ha (to Freaqualizer). No C, no M. Hanged bits coming soon when I'm in front of my computer again.

Edited October 8, 2024 by elhonez

[cylonchaney]

4 hours ago, elhonez said:

Ha (to Freaqualizer). No C, no M. Hanged bits coming soon when I'm in front of my computer again.

Does that mean no P, U, N, or K? We're gonna see our first fully hanged mate at this rate. 😆

[Freaqualizer]

8 hours ago, cylonchaney said:

Does that mean no P, U, N, or K? We're gonna see our first fully hanged mate at this rate. 😆

Oh no! LoL. I wasn’t guessing. I was just quipping! 😭

[elhonez]

__ __ __ __ __ __     __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __ __

Guessed: C, M

[buttheadsmate]

A 

[elhonez]

Ooh... BHM came to play!

__ A __ __ __ __     A __ __ A __ __ __ __ __

Guessed: A, C, M

[Trekker 42]

R

[elhonez]

__ A __ __ __ __     A __ __ A __ __ __ __ __

Guessed: A, C, M, R

[buttheadsmate]

Master Assassins !

[cylonchaney]

1 hour ago, buttheadsmate said:

Master Assassins !

Can't be. M was a miss.

Might as well guess "S" though as you have a great guess at 2nd word.

[buttheadsmate]

What fool said 'M' ? 

[elhonez]

Masterful guess!

__ A __ __ __ __.     ASSASS __ __ S

[insert hangman with some parts here -- I'm at a bar]