Heroclix Sunday: Making Customs

Many's the DCU character that's been made into a Heroclix figure, despite obscurity. The Chef at the Themysciran Embassy; Roland Desmond; The Weird; Baby Doll; all made~

Many's the DCU character NOT made, however.  Depending on who it is I may just may (im)patiently, if it seems it's a character there will get around to.  But Heroclix has been around 20 years, so I no longer blindly sit in hope that they are still working on getting to get just the right dial for the Human Flame or Joe Coyne.  

The gods help those who help themselves, it's said, so if a character I covet doesn't have a Heroclix figure yet, I will often make one myself. 

Sometimes, it "backfires" and, right after I've gone to the trouble, effort, and expense of making a custom figure for a character (like Wonder Woman's brother, Jason), Wizkids will surprise me by coming out with their own:

Mine

Theirs.

Ah, well.  Usually, though, I am delighted when I create a custom figure. But how?  It's essentially a three-part process: 

1. finding (and acquiring) an appropriate dial to represent the character and its abilities;
2. creating (somehow) an appropriate sculpt to represent the character visually and putting on the chosen dial; and
3. creating a character card to describe the character (especially any special powers or traits, which are not explicated on the dials).

For example: The Wind Pirate (whom Wizkids will NOT be making any time in the foreseeable future, unless he's the villain in the next Aquaman movie), whom we met so memorably in the "Jean Loring's Brain" storyline.

The Wind Pirate's "powers" are the weather-controlling abilities from his Ditko-class spaceship, so I looked for an appropriate "Storm" dial; whenever possible I choose dials from Marvel figures so that the custom figure's dial doesn't duplicate and existing one in my (DC) Heroclix collection.

Sure enough, one was easy to find:

I won't bore you with all the specifics of what the colors etc. mean, but suffice it to say this Storm figure has some key abilities that I thought made it the best choice for representing the Wind Pirate.  Naturally, all Storm figures are going to have abilities to represent weather control. But this one also has the ability to carry several figures along with her (which captures the fact the Wind Pirate has a spaceship) and has a 'leadership' power (which captures the fact that WP is the captain of that spaceship).

Of course, there's no fun having the Wind Pirate on the game board without BOSUN by his side to take abuse, so I looked for a complementary 25 point dial that would make for a 100 point "Wind Pirate & Co." team (or segment of a larger team).  Oddly, I found it in the form of someone named "Lila Cheney":

She has no really aggressive attack powers, but she is designed to move far and carry a lot of other figures; putting Bosun on this dial basically represents the Wind Pirate's ship and crew.  That's perfect, since the Bosun the character has no powers (other than the ability to put up with abuse from his unrequited beloved).

As for creating a sculpt, I could have looked for some appropriately sized pirate figures, but... this is the Wind Pirate and Bosun we're talking about, here!  I felt they deserved something bespoke,  so I designed and ordered some figures from Heroforge.com. It's better for D&Dish figures than comic book characters, but it was all over "pirates".

I was happy to have been able to capture Bosun's "you do realize what we're doing is stupid right?" attitude with this design.  Since I made this figure, Heroforge added scarfs, so an updated version could actually have that jaunty orange neckerchief he's sporting in that panel.

He could use it to wipe away those tears of rejection.

With the dials and sculpts on the way, I used this site to design character cards for each of them:

Making up "flavorful" titles for their powers is the fun part; I'm fond of using appropriate quotes from the characters, if possible.  Usually, I bundle a whole bunch of such cards and get them printed professionally by the nice folks at Print & Play, but I could also just print them out on cardstock at home.

Some of the customs I've made with this process more recently have included:

Nuidis Vulko of Atlantis

Do NOT call him fat.

Aquaman foe The Eel

So stylish!

The Faceless Hunter

They all look alike to me.

and CW Arrow's Wild Dog

*SWOON*

Blow me down!

Truly, no good deed goes unpunished.

Here I try to give you some good clean old-fashioned fun, like mad Jean Loring wrecking the planet with earthquakes, tsunamis, and hurricane and the tragic story of unreciprocated love between a pirate and his bosun.

And what I get for this selfless entertainment of the people?

ATTACKED BY THE WIND PIRATE!


Yes, Totaltoyz secretly set a custom-made Wind Pirate Heroclix figure upon me, in all its absurd glory. Accurate right down to the marzipan magenta skull-flower on his Cap'n Crunch hat.

In case you wondering what the Wind Pirate can do, he sits appropriately enough on a Major Disaster dial; here is his card...


Although the Wind Pirate was not given a name in his one and only story, his backstory on this card lists him as Navy weather scientist Gilbert Sullivan. I assume his middle initial is "N". Probably for "Nancy" (family name, I'm sure).

I'll have to team him up with one of my Jean Loring customs. Or have a new one made, with her in a torn magenta dress and special powers that let her destroy entire portions of the map. Then once she's kayoed she becomes a special object that gives those same powers to adjacent colleagues.

But now I'm also going to need a Bosun figure with some sort of minion power ("Bitchslap: Wind Pirate may Mastermind attack damage or pushing damage to Bosun, making Bosun really hot") and a Piratical Parakeet pog with the power to Perplex ornithologists and Hal Jordan.

Attack of Jean Loring's Brain, Part IV

So, last time in "The Attack of Jean Loring's Brain", we explored the mystery of who was watching Aquaman get his ass kicked by a tornado via a spy-eye screen. We determined that it wasn't Name-Or from the hapax legomenon kingdom of Lemuria, or Flunk Flashman of the Secret Society of Super-Villains (even though both of them did have spy-eye screens and were watching the Battle of the Brain Bowl [Jean Loring's Brain, 54 - Earth, 0])

So who IS this mysterious figure?!?!?

If I had a toady, I'd make him wear a magenta beret and sweat-cuffs, too.

Oh, I'm sure most of you have already guessed! It is, of course...

THE WIND PIRATE!!!!!!!

Okay, fess up; NONE of you guessed the Wind Pirate. That's because, like Lemuria, the Wind Pirate had never been heard of before and hasn't been heard of since. But I'm sure you can guess his story. He's your basic "Navy weather scientist who, because he was too valuable, wasn't allowed to go to sea, which is all he ever wanted, and who has therefore now gone insane with pirate-mania, and has an abusive relationship with his sidekick." He's been taking advantage of the chaos and weather instability caused by the attack of Jean Loring's brain to make his own ill-timed bid for world domination; the time to conquer Earth is not about three hours before Jean Loring's brain completely destroys it.

And, meanwhile

there's poor "Bosun", the sidereal sidekick of this psycho space pirate! So enamored of the Wind Pirate,

"And you will kneel, and tell me that you love me...."

but so ill-treated

Bosun gets Ye Olde Bitch Slappe

even when it's just verbal abuse.

"Shut up, you toady, I'm watching Aquaman's ass.

I mean, Aquaman's ass get kicked!"

It's sad, too, because Bosun's obviously really hot and the Wind Pirate is, well, Sonny Bono in a Gilbert & Sullivan production. The whole thing is very Harley/Mr. J "Mad Love"...

*Sniff*! "I... don't know how to lo-ove him..."

"But there's so much more I want to show you, Cap'n! The Cherry Blossom Festival! The Ile de France with all the gulls around it! Niagra Falls...!"

Tragically, it's not to be. There's no romance in piracy, folks.