Angel (X-Men Prime)
What’s up y’all! Hope you’re all here for another reveal. This one was a lot of fun to make. I always enjoy getting to work with new materials when working on customs. He was made for my buddy John (aka Stranded Customs) as part of our first (annual?) figure swap. Here is Angel from X-Men Prime, complete with plasma energy wings.
My friend John loves modern comics (ugh.. :) jk) and this is not the first time ive made him a modern rendition of a character. I once made him a modern Longshot for Secret Santa. Anyway, we decided to theme our swap this year as an Angel Swap because we both picked Angel’s to make for one another, I made him this X-Men Prime Angel and he is working on an Age of Apocalypse Angel for me! So fun!
This time displaced Warren Worthington was made using a retro Iceman buck. I swapped out the shoulders with a pair from the Beetle (w/ a modified peg to fit the butterfly joints), for its angular, armoured look. It matched the reference pics well. The head is Tony Stark from the Invincible Iron Man figure with his goatee shaved off and his wings… well his wings were a fun build.
The wings themselves were made using 2 blue plastic dinner plates I bought from Walmart. Using my Dremel, I cut the 4 sections of the wings that I had drawn out using a stencil. They were essentially just shapes; the detailing on the edges wouldn’t come till much later. After I had the wings cut out, I made the frames/arms of the wings using a pair of female arms that I extended using a coat hanger. This allowed me to have a hinge swivel at the midway point and at the base of each wing.
Taking a page out of fellow customizer. Morning Woof’s book, I attached the wing arms to a tube I made using apoxie sculpt. To add durability, I filled it with Thermowax (a reheatable plastic that works great for making joint sockets). I then inset a magnet into the tube that housed the wings so it could be easily attached to the back. From there, I started sculpting the arms of the wings. I spent lots of time sanding the wings using a sanding block. The block helped me keep it flat and prevented me from rounding the edges the way I normally would when using sanding paper with my hand. Once I got the base of the wings done, I did some minor detailing and it was time to inset the wings.
Using a Dremel with a disc cutter attachment, I made a channel that ran along the bottom of the wing frame/arms. I then filled them with clear apoxie, and held the blue plastic pieces into the channels and let them fully set for 24 hours. Once dried, they were locked in place and it was safe to detail the edges. Again, using my Dremel with a fine tip bit, I carved out a design along the edges of the wings. Upon completion, I used a crappy paint brush that I dipped in clear apoxie on the edges of the wings so the wings had some texture and didn’t look so flat. Overall, I was really happy with how they turned out and im grateful I didn’t hit any major snags.
The sculpt (aside from the wings) was pretty minimal on this guy. The torso got some sculpted detail, as did the boots, neck, arms and hands. And when it came to paint, it was pretty straight forward. I enjoy painting whites, its a fun challenge to get really crispy white. And Red looks so good when its paired with white (o Canada!) It makes me proud. lol.
Im super happy with how Angel turned out. I was (and still am) especially stoked about the final product. The wings worked out great, way better than I expected them to be. The spray of clear blue and a mild overspray of white along the edges of them really makes them jump out of the pics. The red are bright, the whites are brighter and overall, he just turned out awesome and I don’t mind saying it. I hope my buddy Strand enjoys this guy, cause he was a lot of fun to put together.
Up next, US Agent, American Zealot. Stay tuned!
