Cyclops (Jim Lee III)
Hey everyone. Thanks for stopping by to check out my latest custom Marvel Legend. My next reveal might feel a bit, repetitive, as this is the third time I have made this version of the character. I guess I’m just picky, but this will be the final attempt as I feel I’ve finally hit the nail on the head. Here is (for the third time) Jim Lee Cyclops.
For those of you who have tuned into my live sessions while working on this or chatted with me about the subject, I really dislike the official Jim Lee Cyclops we got back in the Warlock BAF wave. I say it often and with no remorse. Haha. Something about the thickness of the straps and how they don’t stay on very nicely just doesn’t work for me. I also feel the body he was built on was not the appropriate for this version. I understand why they did it, but i don’t have to like it. Im happy for those of you who are fine with what we got, but this costume in particular is one of my absolute favourites.
Once the Spider Man UK body was revealed, I knew that was the perfect body for a Jim Lee styled Cyclops. He always drew him with a more triangular upper torso that tapered towards the waist. I wanted to mimic that as much as I could and I felt the UK body did the work for me (for the most part).
Slim was made using a Spider Man UK body and fists, head, shoulder harness/belt and left pointer hand from the official 90’s Cyclops figure and feet from Shatterstar. The open right hand is a cast I got from Casting Cave and the right pointing hand is from Captain America.
I wanted to give him an alt yelling head, but only had one of the official Cyclops heads to use so I decided to get creative. I removed the visor, and cut the lower half of the face off. I then cut the lower mouth off a Black Bolt figure and modded it to fit into place. I installed some very tiny magnets into the remaining part of the head (I kept the ball joint hole in tact) and again into the 2 lower parts of the face. With a bit of finessing, I was able to get the Black Bolt lower face to fit nicely, and even better, it swaps out easily, but stays on strong enough that it is still functional. The seam is hidden once the visor was re-attached. I wont lie, I’m pretty stoked with how this feature turned out. I think it really takes this custom up a notch.
For sculpting, I sculpted the straps on the legs, boots and wrists as I usually do. I also connected the shoulder harness to the belt (I glued the shoulder harness down as I did not like the floating strap concept that Hasbro seems to like so much.) I filled the peg holes as well. As for painting, I am still working towards getting my new multi-tone shading perfected. I feel it was pretty successful here. Not quite where I want it to be, but it gets better with each custom I paint.
Im pretty happy with the final results of my 3rd attempt at Jim Lee Cyclops. In fact, i’d say that 3rd time was a charm, because I will not be needing to replace this version of Cyclops of my shelf any time soon! Although that Mafex 90’s Cyclops is looking prettttttty goooood. Haha. Thanks for stopping by.
