Strong Guy (90's X-Factor)
What up everyone?! Welcome back. Very excited to share this next reveal with you all. It is perhaps my favorite and most successful frankensteining of parts I’ve done in all my time customizing. Keep scrolling down to check out the first of my 90’s X-Factor creations, the muscle of the team, Strong Guy!
As many of my followers are aware, I have a deep love for all of the 90’s x-teams. Now that my Blue and Gold strike teams are both finished, I figured it was time to tackle the jacket toting 90’s X-Factor. And what better way to start than taking out the big guy first.
Guido here was made with many different parts, most of which did not fit together. It took lots of finessing to make these parts work together but I really wanted to achieve that insanely disproportionate, tapered look Strong Guy rocked during this time in his history. I usually save my work in progress pics for the photo carousel below but in this instance, I deemed it understandable to include in the write up. Here’s a pic in his most raw form, before assembly really even began.
I started with a Juggernaut BAF torso and arms. To achieve the tapered torso I decided to cut the torso in half. From there, I hollowed it out. I then took the barbell torso joint from the Ultimate Green Goblin BAF by cutting that figure into pieces (one cut under the pecks and one right above the waist). From there, I cut a Deaths Head II figure in half (right above the waist swivel) leaving the waist and the legs from that figure.
From this point, I cemented the top of the Green Goblin torso into the hollowed put Juggy torso using Apoxie Sculpt. After letting the apoxie cure, I did similar to attach the torso to the waist. By maintaining the lower portion of Deaths Head torso, I was able to maintain a waist swivel. At this point, I had my basic “skeleton” that shaped out the overall body shape I was going for for Strong Guy.
In regards to head choices, this guy went through 3 different heads before I was finally happy with the look achieved. I started by considering the Juggernaut Head. It fit well, but I felt it was too big and took away from his unique proportions so I decided to go a different route. From there I moved onto the smiling Thanos BAF head from the Captain America wave. I shaved down all the details and tried to build it up but the more Apoxie Sculpt I added to the face the more it lost what made me like it so much in the first place. I ruined it. Shit. Thankfully, my buddy Sean hooked me up with the 3rd and final head, which in the end worked so perfectly, which was the Marvel Select Thanos (smiley, sans helmet). It’s almost as if that Head was made for Guido. It worked so perfectly. The glasses came from casting Cave. Not sure where the original sculpt comes from but they worked great with a little bit of reshaping (just sanded off the edges to make them more circular)
At this point I would outline what I sculpted on the figure, but this figure was essentially fully resculpted. There are only a few minor spots that received no sculpt (the neck, knees and parts of the hands and feet). Aside from those spots, everything else was fully sculpted. The arms have multiple layers to simulate wrinkles, the chest has so many layers I can’t even keep track and the legs were all resculpted to make them more bulky to better flow with the newly sculpted torso. I also widened the feet to give him better balance. He is pretty top heavy, but he surprisingly stays well balanced.
To wrap it all up, I gave him my signature brightly colored paint job using my airbrush. Both the yellows and the blues use multiple layers of shades to get that color pop I love for my comic figures so very much (3 shades of yellow, 4 shades of blue).
Overall, I am beyond stoked with how Strong Guy turned out. He took a while to get him to the point where I was happy with him but I’m so glad I put the time in to make him specific to the look I was going for. He will looks great with the official Multiple Man figure and my custom Havok (which is the next reveal if you’ve been following along on my Instagram account.) The rest of the team will become my first priority of 2019 starting with Polaris, then Wolfsbane and Random.
Before I get to them I have to complete a bunch of secret projects I’m doing for an array of figure swaps (a figure swap with fellow customizer Pym Particles, my entry for this year’s Fwoosh Secret Santa, a figure for my buddy Omarali, and one final commission for the year). I’m excited to share those with you all, but until then, be on the lookout for Havok to be fully revealed with pics and a full write up. Thanks for stopping by. Cheers!
