Recipes:I’ve been planning this kitbashed Avengers set for 10 years, off & on. It took much time to simply locate passable attempts at these Silver Age characters, which were in the same scale. Also shown as “pack-ins” for the Avengers “Boxset” are customized Ant-Man & Wasp miniatures, as well as a significantly reworked Captain America figure. Cap’s shoulders & neck were resculpted, his belt scratch-made, and the figure repainted as warranted. The shield I selected features particularly nice straps. My Hulk custom was a straight forward repaint of some well-sculpted, but poorly articulated Hulk attempt from some forgotten line, made from some awful green plastic. I tried to mix a skintone green somewhere between minty & the “way too dark” green Hulk action figures most frequently sport. Dull-Cote, natch!
Iron Man’s head, arms, torso & legs started life as early attempts to portray Shell-Head’s original “transistorized” armor. I would have preferred this figure in vac-metal gold, but decided on the Big Yellow Banana-look instead, meant to symbolize gold paint in the comics. The head turns within the added color, and Tony Stark’s head is actually glued inside the helmet, his eyes visible through the slits (in just the right light). The fists came from an earlier IM figure. The wrist & shoulder cuffs, telescoping shoulder antenna & belt pods were scratch built. Under his sheet vinyl “skirt,” Shell-Head’s hips were rebuilt to add length to, and to support his customized, albeit unarticulated legs. A Dull-Cote matte sealer was applied to reduce IM’s plastic sheen.
Not one single decent Silver Age Thor has ever been made—IMO—although this base figure came closest. I replaced his cape, boot cuffs, & customized his hammer from earlier attempts at a Thor figure. The belt & buckle were scratch made. I almost painted his thumbtack armor plates sky blue, and may do this eventually. Thor’s helmet, hair, bracelets & torso were repainted. I also had to reposition the wings on Thor’s helmet.
My Tales to Astonish Giant Man figure features a new Milliput helmet & vinyl tunic. I got really lucky with the complex curves in the helmet sculpt, as with mixing & matching the shade blue paint I needed. Helmeted GM was short-lived in the comics, shown here (for scale) with the Infinite Legends, “Ditko Hulk” with his purple hot pants—again short-lived. Unfortunately, I was unable to complete my kitbash of Giant Man in his more familiar red costume with the black “V” emblem in time for this CustomCon.
CustomCon 39
