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Forge

Sunday, 03 July 2005

Forge is another example of a custom that just fell together on its own. I was rummaging through the fodder bin for parts for an as-of-yet unfinished custom when the pieces for him fell into my lap.

I wasn't reading X-Men comics yet when Forge burst onto the scene, inadvertently causing Storm to lose her powers and then becoming her love interest - but I was later, when he played a pivotal role defending Muir Island from the Reavers. It was around this time that the X-Men started wearing identical training uniforms. Since the parts lent themselves to it, that's what I decided to do for Forge.

Forge was cobbled together using the body of a Fantastic Four Movie Series 2 Mr. Fantastic, the head of a Marvel Legends Doctor Strange, and the hand and right hip of a Marvel Legends Deathlok.

I had bought the Mr. Fantastic thinking he would work for another custom. That's when I noticed that the V-shape on his torso and the shape of the gloves and boots lent itself well to this uniform. There were a number of nicely sculpted details on the figure that I reluctantly removed -there were some additional seams on the neck, shoulders, abs, arms, and back that needed to be dremeled off or sculpted over. I also closed the open collar.

Mr. F's head and hands are removable as part of his action feature. That made it easy to replace his head with Strange's - a small amount of dremeling required to make the head fit. The cybernetic hand was a little more complicated. Deathlok's forearm fit onto the peg, but the rest of his glove needed to be dremeled down.

The hip replacement was the most complicated part. The ball socket at the top of the hip and the slot for the knee joint both had to be widened - the knee by a considerable amount, as Mr. F's knee joint is quite a bit larger than Deathlok's.

The little details kept this from being done a lot sooner. The belt and straps on the right wrist and both hips are rubber bands. The X-buckle is the head of a thumb tack. For the wrist and hips, I sculpted strap ends and buttons, modelled after the XMC Cyclops. I added the same type of button on the collar.

The boot tassles and headband are painted vinyl. The ends of the headband were scraps from leftover ML Elektra fodder. For the ponytail, I tried something that fellow customizer ActorJez thought I had done with my Omega Red custom (I hadn't) - I twisted up some craft wire, glued it into a small hole on the back of his head, and painted it. I think it's not quite full-bodied enough of a ponytail for Forge, but as I'm already done with it, I'll just have to live with it.