"Aaas yyooouuu wiiisshh!"

 One of the one hundred Heroclix I received those years ago had modification written all over it from the moment I saw it. Looking at it, I know without any reservation, exactly who I wanted this figure to become. It's just taken me this long to actually get to work on making the transformation happen.

The original was called Swordsman. He's arrayed in a purple costume with a mask and swashbuckler's boots, sword drawn and raised, pointing out from his shoulder. A moustache and jaw line to match that of Neville Sinclair in the Disney production of The Rocketeer.

Using pictures from the film, I made a few add-ons: shaved-down some parts of Swordsman's suit then adding head covering, belt, lapels, poofy-ness in the shirt sleeves, and fly-out parts of the gloves out of green stuff. A 97% black repaint would turn this sculpt into Wesley, aka: "the man in black" or the Dread Pirate Roberts.

Of course he's wearing all black, so I tried to differentiate some things to try and make his appearance a little less boring. First up was a zenithal highlight on the black primer. Then, after painting all the black, I chose some elements to be "less black" like his belt, boots, gloves, and headband. These were dark grey mixed with black. I works slightly better for viewing in real life than for these pictures.

Just need to base it now, but I couldn't wait to get some pictures on here.

Steampunked: Dr. Light

I may not have written anything to do with steampunk yet. (Does dieselpunk count?)

As I have looked through my box of Heroclix awaiting modification, there was a figure that just kept on telling me how much it wanted a steampunk make over. It happened to be Dr. Light. Like many of the figures in the box, I had never heard of this character. Apparently, this one is a villain. Must be the goatee that clinches it, I'm pretty sure it was the main inspiration for a steampunk look.

The Before:

Image from coleka.com

The Afters:

He's got a light-coloured goatee and moustache that aren't so visible here.

This doctor is more geared toward controlling electricity. The right hand holds an energy collection staff, the purpose of which is to attract electrical energy from his surroundings (the air, the ground, whatever) and channel it through the heavy wire to the energy amplification device on his back. The left hand is a kind of power glove used to project the electrical energy.

Other notable parts of this mod are the removal of the original cape which is replaced by the vest, which appears to be a tailed jacket with the sleeves removed, and the amplifier. Did quite a bit of shaving down of the original's arms and legs. Cut off the top half of the original's head, to be replaced by goggles and bowler hat, also adding bumpies on the back of the head for hair.

Paints, of course, were the paint-by-numbers left-overs on top of Army Painter black primer.

A fighter from the North

Another Heroclix mod to present. Nothing really special about it, basically a generic northern fighter (maybe a Norseman). The original sculpt was a Captain America type, but it wasn't actually the Captain, I don't remember the name. An axe and a hairy vest came to mind as the thing the sculpt needed. I decided on adding a helmet a little later on.

The axe is a piece of paper clip heated and pushed through the figure's fist and the axe-head shaped on the business end. Shaping the helmet was pretty fun, maybe looks a little like an old pilot's helmet, but hey, not too bad.

Primed with Army Painter black. Paint used was all acrylic leftovers from my mom-in-law's paint-by-number sets. I thinned it down with Liquitex Slow-Dri and Flow Aid. Clear coat with Pledge Floor Care.

As a side note, just wanting to emphasize that one doesn't need to spend a whole bunch to paint a mini to table-ready condition. The paints were free. I got the two bottles of medium for a total of about $16 (with a special Michael's coupon), but they will treat a lot of these little paint pots. And the $8 bottle of Pledge is still 5/6 full after all the models I've treated with it and the experiments of mixing it in paint. I bought the Army Painter primer ($18), but I know people use Krylon spray cans to prime for less.

It's all about experimenting and having fun right? These are for playing with, not for sitting around to be admired.

Heroclix Mod: Rocketeer

Growing up, I had a few favourite movies that I watched so many times I could almost quote them from beginning to end, word for word. As might be guessed when looking at the Heroclix mods I've been producing so far, the Star Wars trilogy was included in that list; despite the fact that most of the characters I've made are not from the original trilogy.

Another of those favourites was The Rocketeer, produced by Disney in the early '90s. I've since learned that the show is based on some graphic novel or comic book series or something, but I've not read it.

Ever since I started being interested in sculpting my own minis, and especially as I have been modding Heroclix, I knew that at some point I was going to want to sculpt the Rocketeer. Well, a modification will do for now:

That gun sure looks big at this angle!

And the donor is...the Red Hood:

The original sculpt I modded. (Pic from Herominis.com)

I finally took the plunge and started chopping plastic. So here's some more of the finished product!

Interesting adhesive solution for the base swap: I melted the top of the base a bit and pressed the figure directly to it.

As I really like the design from the movie, I'm especially pleased with how the rocket pack came out. I tried out a Bergman machine pistol in his right hand to replace the sword, not terrible.

SW:ED - Anakin and Padme

My latest modding attempt was...interesting.

Padme Amidala was rather easy, started with Contessa Valentina:

The Contessa

Some minimal shaving and then repaint. I had my eldest daughter pick which outfit I should paint from a choice of Naboo pilot uniform, white Geonosis visit. She went with the white one.

Post-promotion pic.

Anakin was tougher.

I started with Mano and Firebrand.

What do you get when you cross Mano...

...with Firebrand?

Using green stuff and a snipping of paperclip, I fused Mano's legs to Firebrand's upper body and shaved down the head chest and arms. I tried to make him a little taller by filling his mid-section with green stuff between the two parts. After painting, I realized that some more shaving could have made him look better: arms are still too beefy and the face came out too large in the chin region, but that was difficult for me to see until I had it painted. So he's a little comical.

You get this guy.

 Though I think I did a nice job on his hair.

A more flattering view angle!

"Cheap as Free" Basing

While I've been working on a bunch of Heroclix mods, there are some clix that I've set aside for use just as they are. I figure they might be useful without making any modifications.

Last year I picked up a bunch of plastic siding stuff made to look like a rock facing. My idea at the time was to use the stuff for making terrain. Haven't gotten around to that yet, but I had another idea. Since I'm running low on the last bunch of bases I made, what if I cut circles out of it to use for bases?

Using a 1-1/4" hole saw on a drill produces a 1" disc. Although, normally one would end up with what would look like a washer because the mandrel for hole saws has a drill bit guide on it. I mounted mine on a 3/8" bolt with washers, a nut, and some very careful placement to get the saw centered in relation to the drill.

Here's the piece I started on. Lots faster than turning a plastic shaft on a lathe!

Drilling out the discs, which I recommend be started on the backside or the side you aren't using as the visible surface, leaves a thin bit of plastic to trim with a good blade.

There's probably lots of ways to mount minis to these discs, I chose to carve off the existing base from the mini, leaving it below the feet. Line up and drill holes where the feet will go, I actually carved little studs out of the plastic below the feet so they would fit in drilled holes without having to cut weird shapes in the bases. Haven't been able to find my glue, so I used green stuff to adhere the model to its new base.

My first three re-based Heroclix. Not too shabby.

I think it worked pretty good, and gives a somewhat interesting surface without having to do much at all. I may glue them to a cork layer so the bottoms are more flat, if I start to feel like it's necessary.

SW:ED - Tusken Raiders

The first two sets of cards I printed off for playing Epic Duels were for team Ahsoka/Rex and for Tusken Raiders. I've got minis for Ahsoka and Captain Rex done. But at roughly the same time that I was finishing Ahsoka, I was starting on some Tusken Raiders. They've been a work in progress for this long. And since I seem to have misplaced one of the sculpts I had going, I guess they still are!

The Heroclix Candidates

So, the team consists of two raiders on foot and one riding a bantha. I chose three minis to convert: two Nova Corps Centurions and a really ugly looking Cyclops, as follows.

Nova Corps Centurion (hcrealms.com)

Cyclops (hcrealms.com)

I started with removing the arms from all three models. Cyclops' arms were attached to one of the Nova Corps Centurion in order to create the iconic "sandperson holding a gaffi stick over his head" pose made famous by our first introduction to sand people in A New Hope. Two arms were modified and reattached to the second Centurion to give the look of holding a rifle, which I assembled from a paper clip and a piece carved from a popsicle stick. I also took off and reattached #2's head to be looking at where he is aiming.

This is probably the most green stuff I've ever used on a single figure modification. It's the sniper on the left that, along with being a WIP, is now MIA.

The bantha was part of the issue that kept these guys in limbo for so long. I just didn't know what I wanted to do to create one. I didn't want to make it entirely out of green stuff, too many $$$. I kept my eyes open for a toy hippo or elephant I might modify, but they were always too small, with a couple of exceptions, which were too big. At one point I even searched the Interwebs for a bantha I could just buy.

One day I was playing with our three year old and she got out some playdough. It only took about five minutes of playing with her for the light bulb in my head to turn on. Could I make a somewhat reasonably convincing sculpt of a bantha out of playdough? Challenge accepted!

There was a bit of reasoning to go through first.

1) I wanted a convincing sculpt, but I had chosen playdough as my medium. Could I make something that looked hairy despite the limitations of playdough? How much would it shrink as it dries? Would it be crumbly when dry? All these questions! Well, you won't know until you try...

2) I wanted a playable sculpt. When compared to the sand people, a bantha is rather large. I learned that Ol' George cast elephants as the banthas, so we're looking at that kind of scale. So while the scale might be good for other miniatures rules, I felt like that was too big for Epic Duels, my primary motive for all of this. I decided to forgo proper scaling for the sake of playability.

Then I dug in, sculpted a bantha and planted a rider.

Then I put it up to dry. After three weeks, I checked on it, and it still seemed soft. Maybe my imagination, but I put it back up for a while longer just in case. A few weeks later, it looked ready! I glued some arms to the rider and added a cloak, head covering, and rifle with green stuff and other items. That was two, maybe three months ago.

Yesterday, our oldest daughter wanted to try repainting a miniature, so I decided to paint the two Tusken Raiders alongside her. So here they are!

Here comes the rider!

No licking the camera please!

Good day, all!

SW:ED - Han and Chewie

I couldn't hold out any longer! I had to add some original trilogy characters to my little collection. And who better than everyone's favourite smuggler and his walking carpet sidekick?

Han Solo
Han starts out as Heroclix sculpt Human Target.

Human Target (pic from HeroMinis.com)

Pre-paint prep work was to shave down the pants to make the almost knee-high boots and to shorten the bottom hem of the jacket. I liked the Empire Strikes Back clothing ensemble as depicted on a display figure I came across on Google images, so that's what I used for my colour scheme. I left the original paint on face and hands. 

The finished product! Well, except for filling in and painting over the basing.

Chewbacca

Now, Chewie was a little more work. There were a couple of notably taller sculpts in my available selection. I chose the S.H.I.E.L.D. Bodyguard.

S.H.I.E.L.D. Bodyguard (pic from PopularCollections.com)

The transformation began with the removal of his folded arms. Then came the full-body layer of green stuff that I pushed, prodded, poked and otherwise pestered into a hairy humanoid...without arms.

I didn't remedy the missing limbs for a few weeks, trying to decide on how I wanted him to look. In the end I went for a casual stance holding his bowcaster. The new forearms consist of toothpick 'bones' glued to the figure and covered in green stuff. For my first foray into sculpting a mass of hair, I think he turned out rather well. The bowcaster is a shaved-down piece of bamboo skewer and bits of a paperclip with green stuff accents.

Painting consisted of a black primer, a dark brown base coat, two to three lighter brown highlighting layers to try and match the way the dominant hair colour changes in certain locations of his body. It almost worked, though the pictures here don't see it.

Han's most trusted friend.

In the end, there were two things I felt I couldn't do at my current skill level: sculpt their faces right. I did try to make a more pronounced "floof" of hair for Han, but that didn't really work. I think the point at which I could change Chewie's face to more resemble the face we all know is not too far off and I may put in another attempt.

Han Solo and Chewie: wary in the Arena of the Planeswalkers.

Side note: Yes, I purchased MtG: Arena of the Planeswalkers. I figured for $15, if I don't like the game, I got a bunch of minis for cheap. I'm already thinking of painting them up.

SW:ED - Captain Rex

Yep, I'm still here. Just being busy with things that are not hobby-related lately.

I've had my Captain Rex figure primed and ready to paint for a month or more now. I finally painted it a couple of days ago and put a clear coat on today. So, yay!

Captain Rex with his Epic Duels partner, Ahsoka Tano.

Not much to say except that I decided to go for the next gen clone helmet this time.

More pics:

Apologies for the horrible dark background that completely swallows up his darker features. I'll do better next time! Can't even show you which Heroclix figure Rex started out as; can't remember the name, can't find an empty clix base that I can't account for.

SW:ED Project - Asajj Ventress and more clones

I first saw Asajj Ventress in some Clone Wars episodes. I wanted to get a Sith figure in and I thought she'd make a good addition, especially since she is often fighting against Ahsoka Tano, whom I have already modded a figure for.

Looking through my box of candidates, I came across a sculpt of Elektra.

Image from hcrealms.com

I find this sculpt to be rather ugly. So many things just look so wrong with it. One thing that's good about it is that it is a good pose for someone holding a lightsaber or two!

Looking for images of the character, there are a number of different interpretations of what Ventress looks like. Of all the ones I scrolled through, I liked this one the best: Link to Asajj. I based the look and much of the colour scheme on this image. And the result:

Still debating how much I want to her face in the way of coloured lines.

One might notice that the base is black. That's because I broke down and bought a primer. How glad I am that I did. Paint goes on so much smoother and stays on better. I primed the bases with the models.

The Epic Duels deck I downloaded combines Ventress with a couple of battle droids. However, I'm not yet sure how I want to model battle droids with their skinny legs and arms, thus the posting of just the main character.

Bring in the clones

I also got the three other Punisher sculpts turned into clones. I'm not as happy with how the minigun-wielding one turned out, mainly because he was a little larger scale than the others, but it'll work for the table top and that's all I need!

Here they are:

Athos, Porthos, and Aramis

She's all like, "Seriously?"