Pic of the Day 143 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Mary Marvel, Justice League International costume, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

Pic of the Day 142 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Mary Marvel, original costume, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

Pic of the Day 141 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Iron, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

Pic of the Day 140 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Dr Mid-Nite, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

Pic of the Day 139 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Desaad, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

Pic of the Day 138 - DCUC Darkseid Wave

Copperhead, DCUC Wave 12, by Mattel.

DC Direct JLA Build a Scene Statue

I've been meaning to post these pictures for a few weeks now. The story is that a few years ago my wife bought me a nice glass cabinet (Detolf from Ikea) for Christmas, for to display some of my nicer Star Wars items. But being lazy I never set it up. A few weeks ago a came across an excellent deal on part of a Justice League build a statue that I had been watching on eBay for some time. Shortly thereafter I was able to complete the statue for a similarly good deal, so I was prompted to create space in my messy room to display the statue. This resulted in two new bookshelves, hanging two shelves (that my wife had also given me for Christmas years ago), and a substatial rearranging of the toy room. It's still a work in progress, but what follows are two shelves and the top of the Ikea cabinet. As I continue cleaning up and arranging everything I will post pictures. I have a decent sized collection, more people than me should be able to fit in the room to see it.

The first shelf we're looking at consists of my Darth Maul collection: the highlights being the Sideshow Toys 12 inch figure (left rear), the Gentle Giant 1:12 scale statue (right rear), the Master Replicas Collectors Society Exclusive mini saber hilt (left front), and the little Darth Maul bust that I got out of a quarter vending machine while visiting Pennsylvannia for my grandpa's funeral.

The top of the cabinet has some misc items that don't fit inside with the rest of their related items, the Kotobukiya Darth Maul, the Medicom VCD Royal Guard, the DC Direct Cover to Cover Wonder Woman statue, and part 1 of the Batman Family Statue, Catwoman and Robin. Once I have the other 2 pieces to the Batman Family statue I might have to commandeer one of the other shelves for it, but which? Darth Maul, Royal Guard, Boba Fett, or misc?

Finally, the JLA build a scene statue that started all this reorganization. Based on the artwork of Ed Benes, it looks every bit as awesome as I hoped it would be. I'm very pleased with it, glad that I was able to get it at all, and especially glad I got it for half price (due to buying pieces with slight but unnoticeable damage).

Pic of the Day 137

Steppenwolf, Super Powers variant, DCUC Wave 11 (Kilowog), by Mattel.

Upcoming Convention Appearances

Hey everyone, I will be appearing at the following comic conventions in the near future:

February 28 - Toronto Comicon

March 26-28 - Wizard World Toronto

April 10-11 - Boston Comicon

April 16-18 - Chicago Comic & Entertainment Expo

May 8-9 - TCAF

Come and say hello!

Pic of the Day 136

Steppenwolf, DCUC Wave 11 (Kilowog), by Mattel.

Alas, Poor Batwoman

The opening pages of Batman & Robin #9.





The sharp-eyed will notice that this is the page I was drawing in the videos I posted several weeks back...

Batman Vs Batman - FIGHT!

Here's the big Bat-on-Bat fight scene from Batman & Robin #8, presented in the original black and white.

When laying out this scene I watched a bunch of vintage martial arts movies to get the choreography to look convincing. Hope it worked...

Batman & Robin #7 - More Layouts

Here's a few more pages of digital layouts from issue 7 of Batman and Robin.







I got a little carried away drawing Batwoman here, this was just the layout stage!



Ah, this is the page with the infamous lettering error which confounded so many people and made them think it was one of Grant's more experimental works. As you can see, the page was laid out with the characters oriented consistently from left to right, but after I'd completed the final artwork I was asked to reverse panel 3 because the dialogue (which is written after the art is completed) required Batwoman to be on the left. I did make the change but somewhere along the way the original art file was used by mistake, and thousands of readers scratched their head in puzzlement.






Note the difference in the final page - this was my first attempt at it and felt that the hand exploding from the pit didn't have the right dramatic effect with the characters standing in the background. However there was dialogue that needed to be on this page, and so the compromise for the final was to split it into two panels. I don't quite think it works as well as I'd wanted but that's how it goes sometimes...

Batman & Robin #7 - Layouts

Hey everyone, here's a few pages of my rough layout drawings from issue 7 of Batman & Robin. As I've shown in previous posts, I draw these digitally using a Wacom Cintiq tablet and Manga Studio, then print them out in blue on the artboard and then draw the finals directly in ink. These are actually some of the tighter layouts, as the deadline looms (and I start to hit my stride) they get very sketchy indeed.




(The Squire has a different bike here, it wasn't until after I'd sketched these out that Grant decided it was to have the horse's head on the front.)




(Note some of the differences between the layouts and the final printed artwork in the traffic scene. This was my first attempt at it, and I did some revisions to punch it up for the final.)





Stay tuned, I'll be posting more soon, and some black-and-white final pages also!

Pic of the Day 135

Buffy the Vampire Slayer, by Moore Action Collectibles, not sure which particular figure it is.

Apparently, straight on it doesn't look much like Sarah Michelle Ghellar, but from other angles I can really see her in this figure.

Pic of the Day 134

Rasputin, from the Hellboy film figures by Mezco.

Pic of the Day 133

Darkseid, and the Killing Glove, DCUC wave 12 C&C figure, by Mattel.

Darkseid Is - DCUC wave 12

I received my DCUC 12 set today from Enchanted Toy Chest, currently my online choice for DCUC ordering.

This wave evokes curious feelings of indifference and excitement. There's not a figure in this wave that I was clamoring for before they were announced, and even after seeing pictures and now having them, there's not one that means anything in particular to me. So I'm almost completely indifferent about the character selection. Darkseid is probably my favorite character of the set, but I was not one that felt we needed a new Darkseid, though I'm okay with the larger size, from the pictures I've seen I haven't been impressed with this new one, except for the nifty Killing Glove.

The execution though, is great. There's been a whole lot of whining about Mary Marvel's face on the Fwoosh, but it really does look better in person. She's definitely not the prettiest girl in this line (Artemis is), but she's not ugly either. Her white costume looks good, though I'm still thinking of painting the lightning bolt black, cause I think that looks nifty.

My set had Glow in the Dark Spectre, which is both kinda cool and kinda not. I'm pretty much a completist of the single carded figures, so I was planning on getting this figure anyway, but I'm looking forward more to the regular version, as the shading looks good on that one, helps bring out the sculpt. The glow feature looks good though. I've always liked that the inner tray often has something character related molded in, and the skulls in Spectre's tray are the best so far.

The only thing I know about Dr Mid-Nite is what I just read in his bio on the back of the card. Not a bad looking figure though, and it's always nice when they retool the torso pieces for a character. He's going to have a noticeable case of bent-leg though, from the way his right knee is posed. And his owl has more than one paint app.

Copperhead is, with Desaad, the character I'm most familiar with, and that's from a couple of appearances in Justice League the animated series I've seen. I think his arms and torso are reuses of Aquamans, but they did something to make the scales less defined in the sculpt, and it works really well - he FEELS like new parts. Also, he has that slick-looking yet dry feel that snakes have, if not quite so pronounced. Also he has a crazy look on his face, and the way it's peeking out of a giant snake mouth, you could imagine what you would look like if a snake was swallowing you whole. That's kinda what he looks like. I think he's my favorite of the bunch.

Speaking of Desaad, he looks exactly like he should, facially. He looks twisted and evil, with a little bit of a slack-jawed yokel mixed in. He's a very good representation of the hateful little sniveling worm that he is.

From what I'm seeing online, Iron seems to be the fan favorite of the wave, and he is really well done. He's large, has neat accessories, but most importantly, he has probably the most interesting, unique, and well-executed paint job of the entire line (and it's predecessor, DCSH). He has a dark charcoal base paint, then a dark metallic blue brushed over top of it, leaving lots of small little spots for the dark base to show through. It gives the deco a lot of depth, and since he's all the same color everywhere, he needs that depth to look interesting. And look interesting he does. I don't think it should be this neat and appealing, but for some reason, it just is. He looks cool. Also he has a ball and chain as one of his accessories, that he can use to crush your head.

Lastly of the single figures is Eclipso, who is the God's Spirit of Wrath, given a human host, who has often clashed with the Spectre, who is the Avenging Angel. That's about all I know about either character. I'm not at all familiar with this host, Dr Bruce Gordon, who looks like a cross between an Elf (from the Lord of the Rings) and the Joker. The face sculpt is great, I like the wacky smile, it makes him look evil, despite the funky coloring.

And finally, Darkseid. I love Darkseid the character, he's cool, he's intimidating and scary, and he's an evil dictator, what's not to love? The figure on the other hand... The larger size is cool, I like Darkseid being large. However, I think the DCSH version looks better. I would have preferred a different costume, rather than exactly the same as the first version. The only consolation there is that I don't have the first version, I have the second darker repaint, so this doesn't look exactly like a larger version of a figure I already have. From the pictures I've seen online, I was not liking the face. The cracks in it are painted to dark and obscure the face too much. Some have said it's not as dark in person. The cracks on mine are black, not gray. The saving feature is that the face on mine has a darker shading than I've noticed in pictures, so it's not as jarring a contrast. And the face does actually look really good. I'm a lot more pleased with him than I expected. The head is harder to push into the neck hole than I thought, and it didn't click, after I pushed on it a couple of times it just stayed in. The Killing Glove looks nifty, lotsa cool details, and I don't know why anyone would want to use the extra hand he came with.

The Soles of his Boots! I don't recall having seen this in pictures - he has Kirby-tech boot soles, kinda like Mr Miracles flying dishes. Neat! They look like rocket boots. Of course, having detailing on his boot soles means the copyright info is stamped on his buttocks. Thankfully his skirt covers it. So, in conlusion, he's not my least favorite C&C as I was anticipating, that dishonor remains with Gorilla Grodd and Atom Smasher, who are just pretty boring to me. But I'm also apparently the only person in the world that's not in love with monkeys.

All in all, the wave is really well done, and there's nothing to complain about really. It's just not terribly special to me because none of the characters are, though it's not as unspecial as I thought before opening them, as Darkseid really is much better than I anticipated. In re-reading what I wrote above, I'm not longer sure if I like the DCSH version more than this one or not.

I like the new packaging, it looks good, and I really like having the various characters on the front of the card. I'm not one to think that because someone's on the card they'll be released anytime soon, but I do hope that when Zatanna comes out, she's in the cleavagey corset as shown. I like the new layout on the back of the card, just looks cleaner to me.

The pins: Oh, the pins. The pins are absolutely worthless. The art is too small to look very good, and they feel every bit as cheap as they are (presumably). I think Mattel probably threw these in to make us feel better about the price increase, but for all the garbage pins I'm going to acquire this year, I would have rathered they didn't bother. I can take the price increase without the worthless consolation prize. I'm in love with this line enough to pay $16 each without needing the gimmick. The C&C is all the gimmick I need to ensure I buy them all.

Alright, we've got Steppenwolfs, Mantises, Parademons, Kalibak, Darkseid again. When the hell are we getting Granny Goodness?

Pic of the Day 132

Hordak, Evil Sorcerer leader of the Evil Horde, from Masters of the Universe Classics, by Mattel.

Now this is a cool figure. You can pretty much predict what kind of figures I'll be interested in, if they've got lots of neat accessories, or nifty armor, skull faces have a decent likely-hood of being cool, and if there's a bat, snake, or dragon theme to the figure, you Know I'll like it. So Hordak scores pretty highly by that meter.

This figure was the June or July 2009 figure, and being that I didn't start buying MOTUC until Sep or Oct, I missed it. Luckily, somebody local to me swapped me for Jan 2010's Battle Armor He-Man. It was well worth it.

Pic of the Day 131

He-Ro, Masters of the Universe Classics, by Mattel and the Four Horsemen.

Stuff I've acquired since November, part 2, GI Joe

I noticed the Rise of the Cobra line when it hit, being interested in the film, plus Storm Shadow and Snake Eyes, but was able to pass them up in favor of DCUC and other larger-than-3-3/4 figures. Until the price dropped to $5 each, and then later finding some of the bigger items on clearance.

I was never really a fan of GI Joe, the bright, colorful, mis-matched uniforms in particular, until Sigma 6 came along and made them all look better together, toning down the wacky coloring. And now with the ROC style, everybody looks like they belong on the same team, matching, (more) practical uniforms, tons of accessories, and cheap, for me, it was a match made in heaven, despite the small scale. They're quite good figures too. I'd definitely dump them all in favor of a good ML- or DCUC-like line.

Anyway, here's most of what I got, various figures didn't get photo-ed before opening, but I'm sure we'll see them as Pics of the Day, eventually.