New Bastards up at Poe's!

Did I mention I finished a Build-a-Figure recently? Well, he's in today's Bastards of the Universe strip at Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation! And Poe also has a contest running for a Play Arts Kai Joker figure, so what are you waiting for? Go, schnell!

Read more!

New Bastards up at Poe's!

Since today's 80-pager post was written back in November last year, here's something of more recent vintage: a new Bastards of the Universe up at Poe's! This time, we recap several months of ongoing storylines that you may have missed...or that I may not have gotten around to actually doing. Either or.
Read more!

New Bastards up at Poe's!

New Bastards of the Universe at Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation! This one's for Geeks for Tots, a great cause that helps you out as well! Check it out, and get cracking on the donations!

Also Infinite Hollywood is going BIG: they're matching donations! (When you make a donation, they make one as well!) Let them know when you donate too!
Read more!

Build your own papercraft Iron Throne!

I enjoyed HBO's Game of Thrones, even though I have yet to read any of George R. R. Martin's books. (Well, not those, anyway; I read the Wild Cards books way back when.) And the other day, for some reason thrones came up at work, and I was thinking of the Iron Throne. If you've seen any promo pictures from the show, you've probably seen it:

No spoilers, especially since I'm going off memory here and haven't actually read it: before the start of the series, a king unified the land by conquering the hell out of it. As the old barons and nobles surrendered to him, the king took their swords, and had them melted into his throne. Which is kickass, if not particularly practical or comfortable--in-story, characters have mentioned getting cut just sitting on the damn thing; which is a pretty good metaphor: fighting your way to the throne is hard enough, but you can't rest easy when keeping it is a pain in the ass to boot. Still, the Iron Throne does send a message; even if I figure it's like using your vanquished foe's skull for a goblet: symbolic, but not entirely functional.

(I also have no idea how medieval blacksmiths would've made that thing; although I do like the notion of a somewhat crazed king dumping a mountain of swords on them and screaming at them to make him a goddamn throne, right now.)

So, I had a hankering to build an Iron Throne. From years of collecting action figures, I had a big honking pile of swords. But, I didn't have enough for this, and even if I had, I wouldn't necessarily want to bend them up and glue them. So, we're working with the cheaper medium of paper! We're not going for an exact replica, more of a homage. Or a swipe, either or.

First, you'll need a printer, glue and a gluestick, tape, comic backing boards, scissors, an x-acto knife, and probably a black sharpie. For my throne, I gathered up all the action figure swords I had handy, and experimented a little: the swords that were mostly flat worked better for this, and I scanned or copied several...I probably should've counted how many. Oops. Below is one of the scans I used; I just saved it to a flash drive, took it over to Kinkos (about a block from my house) and got a couple color copies, and a lot of black-and-whites. (Partly because the whole thing is going to be on the gray side anyway, and partly because I had no idea what I was doing.)

Using one of the backing boards, make a base. The front is vaguely trapezoidal, and as you can tell by the crappy template there, was drawn in about two minutes with a pencil and a Borders gift card with five cents on it. Slap one together and tape it up. (Or, if you go to a craft store, you could doubtless get a hunk of styrofoam or something in a shape you like, then go from there.)

Now, the swords. Here's a scan of some of the ones I used: I know there's Conan and the Devourer of Souls' swords, two from Ultimate Nightcrawler, and I think Loki's and Taskmaster's; all from Toy Biz. The Black Knight's Ebony Blade from Hasbro is in there, one from DCUC's Deathstroke, 200X Masters of the Universe He-Man and Teela's swords, and MOTUC's Vikor as well. And...one from an old Witchblade toy, Excalibur from that Merlin figure I got a while back; and some more I don't really recall. Mostly flat ones work best for this, OK?

You're going to want most of them printed on just plain paper, but you'll want some either printed on card stock or glued to a backing board before you start. (You probably want the color ones on card stock.) Then, get cutting! And cutting. And cutting. Be careful with the crossguard, since it's really easy to bend them right off. How many do you need? Um...gee, I really should've been counting when I started this, but a lot.

Starting with the ones on plain paper, start gluing the swords to the base in layers. A lot of the swords in the Iron Throne are bent or melted then hammered into position, and I think the whole thing is just swords on top of more swords, so that's the effect you're going for. You will want a few of the swords on card stock for the sides: think of them as making the armrests. Really uncomfortable armrests. There are a couple swords in there that I glued to the backing board, then glued another cutout on the other side, so I could use it on the sides and it would look OK from front or back.

For the back, take a backing board, and if you used the template size, you want to cut out a piece about three gift cards high. The bottom third is going to be mostly behind the main section, but you'll want to overlap the swords on there.
On the backside, use a bunch of the black-and-white ones for the blades pointing up that remind me of lines from a child's drawing of the sun. The HBO version has well over a dozen on the back, but you can cram in as many as you think looks right, or can fit. Keep slapping them on, until you like the look of it. If any white areas don't look right to you, use the sharpie to black 'em out.
A couple of notes: Again, the flatter swords work best. You can see He-Man's sword in there, and it was a bear to try and cut out; but Skeletor's sword might not work at all. (I'm thinking the 200x version, there.) If you had a modicum of Photoshop skills and wanted to do this, it would probably be pretty easy to set up multiple versions of the swords you want to use on the same printout. A throne made out of He-Man's sword, or Lion-O's Sword of Omens, would look sharp. Ha. Ha.

Even though a lot of action figure swords are made out of plastic that should be in quotation marks, it would be mighty tough to actually get enough to build a plastic Iron Throne. For example, Ultimate Nightcrawler is an all right figure, comes with two swords, one double-bladed, both terrible; but even then you would need dozens. If you have the skills, you could take an impression of a sword you wanted to use, then cast it in wax. Keep in mind, we're already way out of my skill set here, but if you make a ton of wax swords, you could probably bend them enough to cobble them into shape. The other idea I had was to use metal snips, or some sort of sword-shaped cutter, to punch them out of tin or something...that seems like a good way to cut the hell of your fingers.

You might be wondering why Negative Man, Wonder Woman, and Aquaman are in the pictures, instead of a He-Man or Conan or something. The ones I have aren't poseable enough to sit on it! Or they have stiff fur loincloths or capes. That's why in all the Bastards of the Universe strips, it's usually Beta Ray Bill on the throne (from the Mephisto Marvel Select figure) and even then his cape makes that a little tricky.

If you build your own throne, let me know how it turns out, or leave a comment with a link!



Read more!

Still on the DC reboot, but elsewhere:

New Bastards of the Universe at Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation! "Reboot, Reuse, and Recycle." My kids leave the TV on Nick too much, so I know that title's an altered version of the recycling song from iCarly. I'm secure enough in myself to cop to that...

Read more!

Time to use the 'blatent hornblowing' tag again...

New Bastards of the Universe up at Poe Ghostal's Points of Articulation! Check it out: it's got a couple of recent purchases from around here.

Read more!

Year End: Favorites of 2010!

I don't typically do a "Best of" action figure for the year, just my year-end count and totals. Partially it's because I don't buy every single figure, or even enough for an accurate sampling; but also because many of my purchases are based on character. And I always figure the best figure of the year was probably a bit more upscale; like the new Star Wars AT-AT or something from Hot Toys.

Not the case here, although I do think all four of these were purchased at full price: first up, Marvel Legends Valkyrie. She was originally planned for the Hulk/Fin Fang Foom wave back in 2008, tooled and ready, then bumped from the lineup. Marvel Universe then became the spotlight line, so she would have to wait until this year for release; and I'm hoping for a resurgence of Marvel Legends, especially when it comes to new characters. (Moreover, Val is going to be in a ton of homemade strips, both here and at Poe's!)

Not unlike Valkyrie, Shocker Toys Scud was teased long, long ago, but we finally have him this year. Getting a figure you never thought would get a toy is one thing, but getting a good figure as well? Well worth the wait. Although I sometimes get the feeling that as a company, Shocker sometimes bites off more than they can chew; I'm pulling for them, I like the idea of more independent comic figures. Their handicaps? Getting the figures on the shelves, and character selection. (Shocker made probably the best figure Shadowhawk is ever gonna have, but I don't care about the character.)

Negative Man is not only a character and a figure I personally dig; but he's there as a representative of DC Universe Classics. Again, it's a line I usually cherry-pick based on characters--it would have to be a pretty stout discount to get me to buy a new Donna Troy figure--but that's pretty much what happened! Between markdowns, coupons, and eBay; DCUC surged the last three months of the year. Nine DCUC buys from January to September 2010, then nine in October, six in November, and eight in December. Along with some mainstays like the Martian Manhunter and Guy Gardner, DCUC delivered some characters I never thought I'd get on the shelf, like OMAC, Jemm, and Negative Man.

And Twitch? Twitch is just cool, you could probably pick him up for under eight bucks right now, and he can be whatever you want him to be. I started using him in Bastards of the Universe well before I saw Toy Story 3; and it's safe to say he's...different here. I always think of his style as a callback to old-school lines like Masters of the Universe and Sectaurs, too.

Those were my favorites, what were yours?
Read more!

There's still time!

You still have until, I don't know, noon PST on Thursday the 11th, to enter the "Build your own Bastards" contest! Leave a comment with your own Bastards lineup (on the "Homeless Bastards" strip) and one lucky winner will walk away with a loose Marvel Legends Beta Ray Bill, a carded Toy Story 3 Twitch, a carded Conan the Adventurer, and a loose and saddleless Battlecat! And the Warlord #4 I mentioned! Now's good, so enter, and check out Poe's new exclusive while you're there!


Read more!

Build Your Own Bastards!

Articulated Discussion is currently down for repairs (come back soon, TAO!) but the ever-gracious Poe Ghostal gave the Bastards of the Universe a new home at his Points of Articulation! Homeless Bastards no more! And thanks again, Poe!

To celebrate, head over there, and enter the "Build your own Bastards" contest! Leave a comment with your own Bastards lineup, and one lucky winner will walk away with a loose Marvel Legends Beta Ray Bill, a carded Toy Story 3 Twitch, a carded Conan the Adventurer, and a loose and saddleless Battlecat! I mentioned over there, Warlord fans, you're out of luck: getting either a vintage Remco, or newer DC Direct...or even the new JLU one, for that matter...didn't cost out.

But, I'm throwing in a quarter-book copy of Warlord #4, from the Bruce Jones/Bart Sears relaunch. Spoiler warning: it's terrible.

Sears had gone with a sketchier, less-polished style; that I didn't care for as much as his earlier Justice League Europe work; but he wasn't the main problem. The storyline was the real killer, here.

Kind of a neat costume, though, even with the magic/techy "Sword of Truth" and Travis without his usual beard.

Tomorrow: hopefully, some info on a possibly forthcoming Bastard! Maybe.

Read more!