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That Tomato guy's Thread

Started by Tomato, July 11, 2014, 12:06:19 AM

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Tomato



So I would have had actual photos for ya'll, but I had a string of bad luck this morning, so I had to leave without taking any. In the meintime, thought I'd post an example of my raging OCD... Basically, to prevent myself from going overkill and just never stopping, I have to chart out my collections pretty heavily to establish limits to my raging insanity.

I may have posted this chart before, but eagle eyed people might notice I swapped out Agent Venom for Space Venom... Mostly because I was buying the whole SV wave anyway and it didn't make sense to then buy a separate version of the same character.

In other news, I've already started painting Black suit USM, right now I've just gotta rework the head and add the chest symbol. I'm kind of annoyed that I ran out of time to take a quick photo, it looks so good already.

Tomato



Need to set up my shelf for the current group shot, but here's USM as he currently stands. I'm waiting for the the sculpt to finish so I can sand down the eyes and finish painting the head, plus do some quick touch ups to the paint job, but I think he's coming along fairly nicely.

Tomato



Much better photo this time, not with the mask as well. I'm actually still doing touch ups there (mostly just cleaning up edges) but he's mostly done, at least until I get the logo decals.

I'm gonna finish up a few minor things and then set up the shelf again, try to take a shot of the full collection

Tomato



So right after taking a whole bunch of photos of the shelf, my ipad dinged, letting me know the packages containing Hammerhead and Kraven the Hunter were delivered. So I was like "welp, so much for those photos" and ran down to go pick those up before the PO closed for the day. The successive batch of photos was not great, especially since the lamp is just to the left of the frame, but... eh.

daglob

That is one impressive collection of spider-characters.

Tomato

So after torturing myself over some of the recent (and not so recent) reveals, I finally broke down and restructured my list so as to incorporate some of the characters I had/wanted to add.

Spoiler

And an update to the shelf:



Yes, that is an unfinished Ricochet and a headless ML8 Green Goblin. The former will need some new pieces, and the latter's head will be stuck on a Spectacular Spider-Man body spliced with GG/Hobgoblin pieces for a Harry Osborn custom (I wanted the ML8 Goblin head since that's far closer to the classic art than the more modern Sandman wave GG). Electro is handless because I'm giving him some spare hands because the lightning ones weren't great.

Tomato

So today I got some new additions to my MCU shelf, and since I was taking new photos of some of my old collections anyway (recently joined a forum for DBZ figures), I snapped some pics.





Previsionary

Disappear when you least expe--

Tomato

#98
So I've been around a little bit less lately, partly due to me having the attention span of a gnat, but also because I've recently moved from an ok apartment with not a ton of space, to renting a house with 3 of my best friends. And unlike the apartment, which didn't REALLY have a ton of space for me to put my displays, we've got a bit more legroom as far as "hey, here's the top of a bookshelf I can put these figures on." Since today is my first "day off" (not really, but it was a half day) where I wasn't moving furniture up stairs and all that, I've had a bit of time to set some stuff up today, and took some photos.

Before I go into that though, question for other collectors out there: A few of the friends who will be moving down have pets, a dog and a cat. I'm not really worried about the cat knocking them off directly (the more valuable displays with customs are mostly in my room, anything downstairs can and has taken a few tumbles). That being said, there are always going to be issues with figures falling due to a bookshelf being knocked, and I'm trying to think of ways to, for lack of a better explanation, glue their feet to the shelf without actually gluing them down.

Anyway, to photos. We'll start with...

Titans
Spoiler

So this one's been through some iterations. I did finally unpack Tempest (he was made by loosecollector over a year ago, but I never unpacked him because when I got him I was moving from Maryland to Nevada, and then had no real space for displays). As for the Teeny Titans (they have a real name, but I'm not looking it up atm) I went through a few iterations of them and I'm still not entirely happy with the results. I got some of the Bandai figures from the original Teen Titans show, but those were kinda blah, they never really looked like the show, and making customs to fill in the gaps wasn't really appealing. Briefly got a few of the Jazwarez figures (which is where the Tower comes from btw) but... while I will credit them being show accurate, those were some cheaply put together toys. I bought a few larger ones for my brother (who LOVED Go) and Raven pretty much exploded right out of the box. Plus, the writing was pretty much on the wall that Mattel was taking that line away from pretty early on.

The reason I'm relatively ok with this line (which is Mattel's) is that, A. I got really into the Teeny Titans mobile game (it's good. worth the 4 bucks or whatever) and B. They're basically glorified lego men. If this line dies, customs are stupidly simple.

JLA/CSA
Spoiler


So this collection used to be a bit larger, but due to some issues (A few of the N52 league figures broke during one of the moves, and the DCEU ones... just... meh) but in a way it's also been distilled down into my favorite iterations of the two groups. Also, I've got this one set up on the shelf in my closet, which has a sliding door where you can only see one half of the closet or the other at a time: Nightmare for photos, but it's also like... I open one side, Justice League. Other side: CSA/Justice Lords.

Dragonball
Spoiler
So between getting the androids and the re-release of Cell I've mostly filled in the gaps with what's actually been released that I want. I have my WIP custom Gohan still packed up, haven't bothered to get him out since he still has no head to speak of atm. I'm eventually planning on making the second Cell (the Figure Rise one) into a custom Final Form King Cold, but I'm not there yet.

Marvel Cinematic Universe
Spoiler
Apologies on the cruddy quality of the photo, but getting a good shot with my ipad was kinda awkward. This one's had a few changes, partly due to the space I'm using for it, but also because of current and upcoming characters and figures.

First, I removed Giant Man and Wasp. I love them, I wish OC Janet and Hank were included, but the comic costumes just don't quite fit alongside the MCU counterparts. I'm kinda waiting to see what happens with Antman and Wasp though, since Wasp will be in that film, and I've been toying with how to include Hank. Second, I picked up some GotG figures finally... I know I know, but unlike the other MCU films, I don't have any attachment to the characters outside of the film. Third, I left a space open for the Netflix figures coming... whenever they're coming. I also currently have my Andrew Garfield Spider-Man chilling in the back of Team Iron Man until I bother to pick up the new SM figure.

Edit: Also, before I forget, I DO have a special space that's already home for the FR figures. I'm just not sure where one or two are at the moment (bubble wrap: Great for keeping figures safe during moves, not so great trying to find them amongst other bubble wrapped things.) so I'm waiting to take the photo until they're out.

Deaths Jester

...and yet you still don't have a DJ, MikeB7, Gdaybloke, Beyonder, or MJB figure...hmph..no love for the originals...
Avatar picture originally a Brom painting entitled Marionette.

Podmark

Sweet collection. I was actually really close to picking up some GotG figures today.
Is that Piccolo posable? If it is I'm really impressed to see a figure that can cross it's arms like that.
Get my skins at:
HeroForce
my Google page

Tomato

What they do with the figuarts figures (which is where that figure comes from) they're made for collectors, so they have swappable faces, arms, hands, etc. For the crossed arms, they're actually molded that way as a separate attachable piece, because there's realistically no way to do it otherwise with hard plastic.

That said, there are apparently Dragonball figures that have flexing biceps now. So that's a thing.

SickAlice

Envy. I used to have so many (think I mentioned I worked at a toy store) but really loved the Spidey stuff. The design just lends itself to figures so well. My favorite line was probably Along Came A Spider followed by Planet Of The Symbiotes. I also love the Deep Sea Venom for some reason.

Speaking of I've been extracting models from Spider-man Unlimited and uploading them to my Deviantart account all week. Should have almost everything up by the months end short a few that came out broken. Spider-Ma'am was the first I did as I thought I recalled you asking about that one.

Envy your Mario stuff too. I've had a desire to buy a lot of the small plush World Of Nintendo ones. Sort of waiting for them to go down a buck or two. I have the Toad in Catsuit one though, he hangs out on my bed with with my Harley Quinn plushy lol.

Oh and last, was just looking at these online last night. Whoo, don't have the $$$ but I so WANT!...
http://necaonline.com/2016/05/sdcc-exclusive-tmnt-arcade-turtles-and-foot-clan-box-sets-video/

Tomato

So last week I went out and got a display shelf specifically for my Spider-Man figures... figured I'd show updates to that one off here.



Larger pics of the individual cubbies are up here, but I also want to show off the newly completed addition to the shelf, which has been a labor of love for me for awhile now.



So I've talked a bit about this before, but I'm a bit more of a fan of Harry Osborn as the Green Goblin than I am of Norman in the role. While Harry had died by the time I was 4 years old, I grew up on my dad's back issues, and I loved the complicated history between Harry, Liz, Mark, Peter, and MJ. Harry's confrontations with Peter just seemed much more... personal than they ever were with Norman, especially since... well, let's face it, aside from the secret identity thing, Norman really had nothing to do with Peter's life outside of his dealings with Harry. Harry ALSO knew Peter's secret identity, but there was also personal torment because he was also Peter's friend. And they've TRIED to do some weird father-son dynamic with Norman and Peter since his resurrection... but to me, it just wasn't as strong as what we'd gotten with Harry.

So if I was gonna do a large scale Spider-Man shelf, having a Harry Osborn was a must. But rather than do the cliche "Here's a second Green Goblin figure, and I shall name it Harry" thing, I wanted to have a Harry that was visually distinct from his father. To accomplish that goal, I took the head from the original ML Green Goblin, and trimmed the ears down so they'd be more in line with the smaller ears used on Harry's mask. I then used a Scarlet Spider body to give him the same lean body type as Peter to distinguish him from the future Green Goblin figure that was inevitable as soon as Hobgoblin came out. The result is a Goblin figure that is distinctly Harry Osborn.

Tomato

#104
So I recently finished a few customs, thought I'd post them here.

Enforcers:


About freaking time. Been working on these guys off and on for two years now. For those who don't remember, these are VERY loosely based on the Enforcers of the Spectacular Spider-Man cartoon... With outfits that don't annoy me.

Agent Antivenom


This was something I decided to do more or less on a whim (hey, what if instead of having Brock venom, Brock Antivenom, and Flash Venom, I just do Brock Venom and Flash Antivenom. Shouldn't be too hard right?) and spiraled out of control. I'm happy with the result though.

Next to him is a modified Toxin... Not much to say there, the figure was meh but the original head was just derpy looking, so I repainted the Brock Antivenom head and it looks much better.

Deaths Jester

Avatar picture originally a Brom painting entitled Marionette.

Tomato

#106
I've already told you DJ, my figure shelves get dirty enough without adding in a pile of decaying goop.
Though real talk I did spend some time a few months ago trying to find your avatar skin and I might legit have a decent base figure for a custom based on what I remember of it, but I never did find a DL and even if you sent it RN I couldn't guarantee I'd do it right away given what I'm about to talk about, but I would like to at some point if you want to send me a PM.

Anyway, so as of this afternoon's completion of a Scorpion custom, I'm about 88% done with my Spiderman collection (which I will post later, decided to take new photos and have to edit them all). It's... actually kind of surreal for me, since I usually don't achieve collection goals and in fact have been scaling back most of them for awhile now to make them more obtainable. Granted, some just don't have an end (the MCU shelf will continue evolving as the MCU does, for example) but it's nice to, FOR ONCE, finish a collection I planned out. It makes my OCD happy.

That said... I was hoping to discuss a few gaps I still have in the collection, since I'm super wishy washy on their inclusion. I'm currently missing 6 figures... 1 Amazing (aka good Spider-men), 1 Symbiote, 1 Superior (the darker characters like Kaine, Superior SM, and Noir) and 3 Spider-Women*. I'm pretty dead set on the Amazing and Spider-Woman characters I have planned, but the Symbiote and Superior sets... I'm not so sure. I have some characters listed that I MIGHT still resort to, but I'm not positive.

Superior- Up until a few months ago I wasn't really that fond of my options, and when I was compiling the list for the shelf I even went so far as to move over Ultimate Jessica Drew from the Ladies shelf to pad it out (and also to have as many spider-ladies as possible). With Spider-Geddon though... I dunno. I like the Spider-Osborn character introduced even if I cringe back from the idea of customizing him (though there are tutorials on the net for a six arm Spider-man I could potentially adapt) but Assassin Spider-man was one of Octavius' inner circle in 'verse and I'm reluctant to remove him even if he does have kind of a boring outfit. I honestly may just wait and see on this one, since I expect we might get one of them in a future wave and 'Geddon is still ongoing.

Symbiote- ... Hrm.

You would think... with a movie out that I actually marginally enjoyed (not great, but better than I expected) and with the sheer INSANE number of symbiote characters getting figures, that surely SOMEONE would take my interest long enough to get me to purchase a figure, right?

AHAHAHA no.

Thing is, I'm not even that fond of the ones I already have. Venom, Anti-Venom, Scream, and Carnage are all symbiote mainstays, and I've managed to make a decent looking Symbiote Scorpion figure (based on some customs I found online with a similar goal in mind) but Toxin has a bleh design and I only tolerate the released ML figure now that I've replaced his head with a repainted version of Anti-venom one which doesn't have the stupid buck teeth. Other than that, my options are:

Red Goblin- Has a decent figure and the design is at least visually interesting (a problem with 75% of symbiotes tbh), but it's a stupid, gimmicky concept that I've hated since they introduced it. The magic of Norman overcoming the symbiote weaknesses was just stupid, and despite some ok bits the story was marred by a pointless character death, several heel-turning character motivations, and was generally more frustrating than it was worth.

Poison Spider-Man- Why did this need a figure? It doesn't help that he doesn't even have a proper wikia page, being relegated to a "list of poisons" while there's a what if story where Peter re-dons the Venom symbiote and calls himself "Poison" and THAT comes up when doing a google search instead. I literally only know about it BECAUSE it has a figure. Otherwise, it's a boring design that looks like a discount anti-venom, who I already customized. No Thanks.

Riot- Oh Sony, you tried so hard to make me care, but I really, REALLY don't. Riot is a palette swapped Venom without the symbol to give him any personality. And it's not even a GOOD palette swap, since Riot is dark gray to Venom's black... YAWN. He's such a boring loser he didn't even make it into the wave made to coincide with the film where he was the primary antagonist, and I doubt many even noticed.

Lasher- While this one at least isn't technically yet ANOTHER Venom or Carnage variant, and I do technically own it (it was one of the Lizard wave) it's just... boring. The character's yet another of the Life Foundation posse, who all just felt like lame spinoffs even when they were introduced. Scream is the only one to ever really do much in the books, and the Lasher figure is just kinda there. It's a poor repaint of the Spider-man buck, and I already have several better figures on that buck. Plus, Scorpion kinda fills my "green symbiote" quota. FYI, not listing any of the other two LF symbiotes because they're even worse.

Hybrid- So while I'm not fond of the Life Foundation symbiotes separately, of all the options, Hybrid has probably done the most. It's just such a shame that a mix of 4 very different looking symbiotes, none of which are red mind you, resulted in yet ANOTHER Red symbiote in a sea of Black/red symbiotes. At least Hybrid Deadpool kept the colors (though I wouldn't include him because DP can never be in a collection, only photobomb other collections. It's a rule I have), regular hybrid is boring and meh looking.

Mania/Maniac- The problem with both these options is the same: they're a poor man's Venom and share the exact same visuals we've seen with all the Venom incarnations over the years. Mania at least was a kinda decent redesign of the whole She-Venom idea, but the whole curse mark thing was stupid and without Flash there's not much to do with the character. And Maniac... I dunno, I've never actually read the books he's in, but he isn't that interesting visually and what I've read up on him isn't any better.

Scorn- Don't like the character too much, but based on visuals alone I tend to give this one a bit more leniency. I'd like a purple symbiote anyway (it's a color that I don't already have, and it would help break up the mass of black and red I've got going on) and the mix of purple and silver is pretty visually striking. That said, she doesn't really have any sort of consistent look, not even the symbiote "hair" we've seen with Mania and Scream. And, again, the character isn't really interesting and was apparently killed in a story about Symbiote god (or whatever, this is why I get so freaking tired of symbiote stories in comics) so bleh.

And... yeah. There's a glut of meh to awful options for symbiotes, even with the sheer glut of insane options from eye-rolling events like Venomverse. So I dunno.

*As an aside, the fact that we have SP//DR, Red Goblin and Spider-Ham and we STILL don't have Julia Carpenter or one of the SEVERAL Superpowered MJ figures (my preference would be Spinneret from Renew your Vows, but Iron Spider, one of the SEVERAL Spider-woman versions of Peter's outfit, the Carnage one from the USM cartoon... I'd have taken ANY of them) is INSULTING and I'm so salty with Hasbro about that. I'm finally resorting to customs for both, which are at varying stages of completion.

AfghanAnt


Tomato

#108
Thank you, it's appreciated.

Spoiler





Current state of the shelf. Scorpion turned out amazing, so happy with how it turned out. I also have a few wips I can't wait to finish so I can show them off, though I'm still terrified of how I'm gonna paint the outfit on MJ.

P.S. Still salty about symbiotes.

Tomato

#109
Huh, didn't realize it'd been so long since I'd actually posted stuff here. Let's fix that shall we?



First, finished customs of two Spider-Women, Spinneret and the Julia Carpenter Madame Web. Because Dangit Hasbro, you give us House of M Spider-Man, Red Goblin, and New Black Suit figures, but none of the half-dozen superpowered MJ variations, or ANY Julia Carpenter? I call shenanigans. Whatever, I fixed your mistake (as a funny aside, teh base red I used for the Renew Your Vows MJ was Mephiston Red. Not intentional, realized it after I'd started painting). I've also gotten a significant bit of work done on Uncle Ben Spider-Man from the original Spider-Verse event, which I've posted a few updates of in the Discord.

The solution of the Symbiote issue was so obvious that once it hit me I was mad at myself: my Ultimate Spider-Man custom with him in the Black suit. It's purple, which is a color that I didn't have otherwise, it was an important character, and since the Ultimate Symbiote costume is a completely different animal than the 616 counterpart, no duplications. However, it's left a hole in the shelf I now need to fill.



Now the list I have is just some of the more likely candidates, but I'm not opposed to others either, just that those are the ones I've been considering most. I'm also considering flipping one of the Superiors over to Amazing (either Kaine or Noir) to make room for a second "Superior" aka evil-ish Spider-Man. Also, only reason Spiders-Man isn't on the list is because the figure'd be boring. I'll likely post a followup with some micros/renders/something so that those of you who don't know the characters as well can get an idea for them.

Tomato

#110
Some new additions




Not gonna go into too great of detail on these because I have been blowing up the poor FR discord with WIPs, but I am linking the images to another site I posted them at or anyone interested in the nitty gritty. Long Story short: Lots of work for both, but I love how they turned out.

Tomato

https://www.instagram.com/p/Bxn_KQ_lP8J/?utm_source=ig_web_copy_link

So I'm at a bit of a crossroads. I am essentially 98% done with my massive "Seven Groups of Seven" Spider-Man collection (which is already closer than I thought I'd get) and with Spider-Ma'am completed I'm officially down to one final figure. As things stand, that open slot is for a Spider-Man (freed up by me moving Ultimate Peter to the Symbiotes) but I can move some figures around to make room in either the Superiors or Spider-Women as well. I have a few ideas on what I'd LIKE to do, but they vary from terrifying to boring to problematic and I'm very torn. I doubt anyone will respond, but I'm going to lay things out there for the sake of my sanity.



Sp//dr

If you had told me last year that this was not only a character I was considering for the last spot on my shelf, but the top contender among other very good options, I'd have laughed in your face. She was the character I was least excited to see in the lead up to Into the Spider-Verse, as I have no love of the character in the comics (Sp//Dr? Really? Really with that name? Come on now), the suit design is ugly, and I have zero attachments to Evangelion or any other mech anime the character's creation was attempting to homage. And, to be honest... I still don't like her, even in ItSV. She's a walking anime and asian stereotype, who I think only works in the film because, like Noir, she's SO different from a lot of Spider-people that she stands out and injects the film with a style it didn't already have with the other characters.

But at the same time... there's something to be said for the fact that she's the ONLY character from that film I don't have represented. And while I do think some of the decisions border on questionable... dang if I'm not drawn to including her on the shelf for the same reasons. I've mentioned this before, but part of the reason I did Ultimate Peter in the first place was because I saw no reason to have two versions of the same costume next to each other.  Peni/Sp//dr is different than anything else on the shelf, and wildly so.

However... there's still a problem. The comic design of Sp//dr is still garbage, and that's what the ML figure is based on. And you'd think "well, they made toys for the ItSV movie, it was popular, surely there's a Sp//dr that's at least PASSABLE right?" but you, my friend, would be a fool. THIS is the monstrosity that is the movie toy. The paintjob is awful, the proportions DON'T match the film, the fun, expressive digital screen is replaced with generic Spider-face that's sculpted in, all on top of the fact that this thing is apparently 9.5 inches, meaning it would TOWER over all my other figures. The amount I would have to do to this monstrosity just to make it passable (cutting away and resculpting most of the torso, detaching and trimming down the limbs then adding clear blue separators and devising a complex system of magnets to better match how it works in the film...) and having Sp//dr as my final figure makes me feel like someone running a marathon and be feet from the finish line, only for the finish line to suddenly move 2 miles further ahead.



Spider-Man: India

So before Spider-Ham took his place, Pavitr Prabhakar was going to be my last "Spider-Man." While it might seem insane that I'd place him above the more well known Ham (and, in hindsight, it kinda was) Pavitr was, even among an army of Peter Parkers, probably one of the smartest Spider-Men in Spider-verse, bar none. I also loved his self-aware discussion with UK concerning all the Parker variants. And as I've mentioned in the past, there's not a ton of Middle Eastern superheroes period, so having one I like and who had a major contributing role to SV seemed like a no brainer.

However, what ultimately led me to move away from the character is still relevant. For one thing, his design is... well, it's Spider-Man with different pants. With classic Red and Blue Peter already on the shelf, not to mention sever others aping his color scheme, I don't feel like Prabhakar would be sufficiently unique to stand out. Plus, since there isn't a figure right now, I'd have to customize him... and while I'd really, REALLY rather not customize the last figure, if I'm gonna do it, it'll be for something more creatively satisfying than Spider-Man with new pants.



Spider-Punk

So I'm gonna be honest... I do not understand why this version of Spider-Man caught on as much as it did. Before the official figure came out, I saw more customs of this spike headed uber-punk than of most other Spider-verse characters. And like... I hate the spiked mohawk thing (it's not even like Hobbie has a mohawk. Dude's got a huge afro that must be a nightmare to fit in that mask, ESPECIALLY with those dumb spikes), I hate the denim jacket over spandex, I hate the Air Jordan tennis shoe nonsense.

But despite how awful I find the costume, I don't hate the character. There's a charm in Hobbie's in your face, stick it to the man because they control the whole world shtick. As a character and as a foil for other Spider-people, he works. And I DO already have a figure of him, even if I only bought it for a Lizard piece (I was considering using the shoes for another custom but I went a different direction with that one). But... MAN do I hate his stupid, stupid costume. It doesn't help that it's even more like Peter's costume than Pavitr's, at a glance anyway.

Honorable Mentions

A couple characters even less in the running but are still up there are Assassin Spider-Man and Mangaverse Spider-Man. The former was going to be the last of my Superiors before the six armed Norman Osborn Spider-man came in and pushed most of the others out of his way (for the record, SV2's Spiders-man is only not a contender because his costume is JUST Peter's with spiders inside and around it). That said, his costume was kinda boring and he was only really a contender because he was in Otto's inner circle, but he's barely a character in the story and his design is kinda plain. Mangaverse fairs better in that regard, with a more unique take on the design... but because there is no figure we again run into that hole where if I'm going to put in a level of effort, I'd rather go all in on the insanity that is Sp//dr.


Tomato




So with everything going on, I've been trying to keep myself busy with IRL projects. First, we have Sea King and Grid, the former was directly tied into the creation of my skin (that hook is a 3d printed version of the one I made for FF).



And then there's this behemoth. As I stated in the last post I made here,  Sp//dr was not my first choice to include for my shelf... but ultimately what won me over was both that she's the only ItSV character not on the shelf and... frankly, if it's gonna be the last character in this collection, I wanted to go big. Every piece above has been 3d printed, and I'm currently working on 3d printed joints as well. Each will be connected via magnets, meaning that like in the film, I can move pieces around to different formations.

I'm also trying to figure something out for the screen, but we'll see.

Podmark

That's really cool that you are 3D printings for your figures now.
Get my skins at:
HeroForce
my Google page