Mattel Batman vs Superman Wonder Woman Makeover

                Hey, everyone!  Doing something a little different with the blog this time and am showing you the process of repainting an action figure.  If you’ve watched my YouTube channel, you know that I have repainted many dinosaur figures to put on display as a backdrop and that I've mentioned we watch a lot of Cosplay Chris in our house (If you haven't watched his stuff yet, WATCH HIS STUFF).  While I do love me some dinosaurs and they’re fun to paint, I decided that I wanted a challenge and to step out of my comfort zone.  So while in my travels, I came across this:

                This is the basic Wonder Woman figure by Mattel from Batman vs Superman and I thought to myself, “Now there’s a challenge!”  This is fine as a basic action figure but imagine if someone were to put more details in the armor, add some character to the sword and shield, make Diana not so pale, etc.  I have never repainted a human figure before and while I’ve made it no secret that I was underwhelmed by either cut of BvS, Wonder Woman was one of the better parts of it and again, I want a challenge.  Basically, we’re gonna take this…

 

                …and try to make it appear something more like this…

                …in terms of coloration, anyway.  I don’t know how to put in more articulation joints for better posture or grind down the sword for a better length.  This is strictly a cosmetic upgrade for a figure that has potential but just needs more attention to it.  This is going to be a very picture-heavy post so if your browser of choice is effected by that sort of thing, my apologies in advance.

     So what do we need?  First, we wash the figure with hot, soapy water so we have a clean surface to work from.  Next, we need paint.  Use acrylic paints too because they just clean up with soap and water and the alkyd paints just seem to flake off too easily from the final product.

                I’m starting with the armor using these metallic gold and silver paints.  This stuff works well but it is kind of a pain in the ass to apply as it goes on so thin, opting more for sheen than color so don’t be surprised if in your projects if you have to do multiple coats to get the color you’re looking for, especially with the gold.  So we take the gold and start brushing over the golden lines on her leg armor to give them a more metallic feel to them.

     The leg on the top has the paint added onto it and you can already see the sheen coming out and livening up the gold.  In order to get the full effect, I had to put about...three coats, I think.  So once Those were done, it came time to add gold to the other parts of her boots.

     This is where that "pain in the ass" thing I mentioned earlier comes in.  The furthest leg has had some gold added to it and while it does have the neat optical illusion of making the red on that boot seem darker, you can still see how much of the red is still bleeding through.  In order to get the full effect of the gold here, I think I had to put something like five or six coats and then leave it for a couple of days.

     Up next was Diana's golden lasso and this was pretty easy to do.  The lasso was originally colored the same as her golden belt and boot accents but I wanted the lasso to stand out so I just took the same yellow paint that I use for painting theropod eyes and covered the lasso.  Thankfully the plastic on this part was pretty flexible so I could pull the lasso away from the skirt so that the yellow didn't smudge onto the blue.

     Okay, so what I'm doing here is dry brushing some of that metallic silver paint around the edges of Diana's skirt to give it that worn metal look.  In order to get this effect, you basically need to have very little paint on your brush and just gently swipe at the edges so that it looks like the color has worn away.  Once I had finished the skirt, I looked back at the reference pictures and saw that I didn't need to dry brush every single edge but fuck it, I like how it looks.

     Earlier I had mentioned that I found this figure to be very pale, like it really needed to go out and get some sun.  If you're coming from Themyscira, you're gonna have some color to your skin and even Gal Gadot is not that pale.  So in my travel, I acquired some flesh-tone paint and recoated all of her exposed skin with the color.

     However, since this figure is articulated, I came across this particular problem.  No matter how long I let the paint sit, it would just come off once you moved the articulated joints so I came up with the idea of putting Wonder Woman on a stand in a fixed pose.  No movement, no paint removal.

     So I found a few pieces of wood laying around from past and current projects (we're cannibalizing some old wood to make book shelves above Scholar's desk right now) and put this together.  I put the little block on top with a piece of splintered wood on the back and held them in place using a combination of model glue and little nails that protrude enough so that they will fit into the holes in the soles of Wonder Woman's boots.  Once the glue and flat grey primer set, I used our jigsaw to cut the base into a more manageable size.

    

     Up next was the shield, which was completely flat grey.  I looked up a few reference pictures and found that the shield had a navy blueish base so I grabbed my bottle of dark blue and covered it entirely.  Then, I went over the bird and first ring with the gold paint (pictured above) and then went over the second ring and outer rim with the metallic silver.

     Speaking of that metallic silver, now it came time to add the silver scuff marks along the edges of her armor.  This was probably the most time consuming process because not only did I have to the legs but I also had to add silver to her belt, gauntlets and tiara/crown.  It sounds really tedious to have to gently swipe at the edges of all of those spots but it really does bring the figure to another level with these little details.

     Next came the face.  This was the part I was dreading the most because I fucking hate painting eyes.  Holy crap, I hate painting eyes, even on the dinosaur figures I repaint because nine times out of ten, they turn out cross-eyed.  However, the original figure just had eyebrows and the iris but no sclera or pupil so it looked very off.  So I held my breath, steadied my hand as best I could and repainted her eyebrows and iris while adding sclera and pupils.  As you can see in the picture above, it turned out a little cross-eyed so I went back and did it again and I think it worked out better...I think.

     I found myself at a bit of a loss as to what to do with the base because like I said, I didn't like Batman vs Superman (it was actually #4 on my Top Ten Worst Movies Of 2016) and I would've rather not sit through the final fight with Doomsday again.  However, looking at the flat grey of the primer, it actually reminded me a lot of the World War One footage from the Wonder Woman trailer so I decided to make the base look more like that.  I painted the front a sandstone color while painting the back splinter brown so that it would look like the broken piece of wood that it was and then I decided that I would cover the top of the base with dirt and stones that I had in my basement (it's an unfinished concrete basement so there's plenty to go around).

     So an interesting thing happened when I put the glue on the top to make the debris stick.  Apparently you can put paint over the dried glue but not the other way around because as I was brushing onto the sandstone block, the paint started to peel off with each stroke and revealed the primer underneath.  However, if this is supposed to be a war torn place Wonder Woman is fighting in, there would be blast and scuff marks along stone surfaces like this so I went with it.

     So after brushing glue across the top and sides, I brushed and placed some small pieces of concrete and dust along the piece to give it that look of debris and dirt tossed about from weapons fire.

     I thought the front of the base looked too plain so I painted the front, sides and underside black and basically turned the front into an ad for the upcoming film.  #pleasedontsuck

     Okay, so I decided that if Wonder Woman is going to be fixed onto the base, her pose might as well be as fixed as possible so this is just me brushing some glue onto the handle of the her sword (after I've painted it) so that it will always be in her hand.  I forgot to take pictures of a couple of steps so I'll add those in here:

     -I added some paint to her left hand gauntlet and the handles of her shield so that it would stay in place

     -I repainted her hair and leather strap she wears the same color as her eyebrows because her hair looked too dark on this action figure.

     -For the red torso armor, there seems to be noticeable black lines shown in the film where the plates meet but not on the action figure so I painted those lines as best as I could (I didn't attempt to take off the strap or her head because I would be good and goddamned if I got this far only to break the figure) and once the black had set, I went over her torso armor with a brush-on satin clear coat to give it a more shiny, metallic feel to it.

     -After testing the figure's stance, I added extra glue to the nails on the base as well as the soles of her boots.  Once putting the figure on and still finding it a little wobbly, I added more glue on the sandstone to ensure maximum hold.

     Okay, the clear coat has taken hold and I think we're ready for the full reveal.

     So there you have it!  I honestly can't tell you exactly how long this took because I did this over the course of a few weeks between work, family life and doing movie reviews but for my first human repaint, I'm actually pretty happy with how it turned out.  If you really like how this looks, hold that thought because what I'm going to do is take another look at this tomorrow with fresh eyes, do any touch ups as needed and then I will be putting this girl up for sale on my eBay store (along with maybe a couple other things I've repainted) so if you want to be on the up and up on that, make sure that you follow Coffee With The Cynic on Facebook and YouTube or Late Nite Scholar's Twitter.

     Thank you so much for reading, guys and gals and if you like what you see on this blog, you be sure to nudge that "Follow" button and stay cynical!

     -The Cynic

5 Worst Things To Come Out Of The Jurassic Park License

     "Lookee, lookee, The Cynic is making another post about Jurassic Park.  What a shocker," said no one ever.  Look, if you folks know me personally or follow me on social media, you already know how much of a Jurassic Park fan I am.  If you're new here, hi, I'm The Cynic and I've been into Jurassic Park at nearly dangerously obsessive levels since I was six years old.  Now that we're caught up, let us proceed.

     When you have an intellectual property expand from a single idea, whether it be a book, film, etc., sometimes things get a little muddled and a subpar product comes out of it to remind you that nothing is truly perfect.  The Jurassic Park license is no different and with the fifth film going into production within the next couple of months, I thought it would be fun to share what I think are the five worst things to come out of the Jurassic Park license.  This is in no particular order and I am looking at more specific things, not just the movies in general.  If one of these things listed are one of your favorites, I’m happy for you that you like it but it doesn’t do it for me.

     Worst Dinosaur Public Image: Dilophosaurus

     I admit that Jurassic's depiction of dinosaurs, while mostly respectful, is not accurate.  It wasn't fully accurate in either the original book or film upon their respective releases and it’s not fully accurate now considering how much paleontological theories have changed in the twenty-seven and twenty-four years since said releases, respectively.  I can deal with that because one of the many things that make dinosaurs so fascinating is their mythological allure and despite new discoveries ever year, it still feels like we know so little about them and when adapting them into fiction, creative liberties have to be taken.  What bothers me is when one of the creative liberties created specifically for Jurassic Park keeps popping up elsewhere and that brings us to the Dilophosaurus.  I feel bad for this dinosaur: it’s only in one film in the flesh despite toys being made for it with every movie, it’s depicted at a reduced size so as not to be confused with the Velociraptors and its most memorable creative liberty feature keeps being outright ripped off.  I get that whenever the general public hears the word “dinosaur,” odds are their minds bring up this movie, considering how it set the bar in believability both within the story and special effects wise but I’m tired of seeing Dilophosaurus’ with neck frills and venom spit coming up outside of Jurassic Park.  This depiction has been “borrowed” in games like Jurassic: The Hunted, Ice Age 3 and ParaWorld as well as by various toy manufacturers including Animal Planet.  The latter really puzzles me because I always thought Animal Planet was about education but perhaps I missed something.  Basically, if you don’t have the Jurassic brand on your Dilophosaurus, lose the neck frill and venom spit, please.

     Worst Toy: Jurassic World Dino Hybrids Rampage Indominus Rex

      I thought long and hard about this one because of all the things from the Jurassic license I enjoy collecting, an argument could be made for the toys being my favorite.  I combed through the entire toy catalogue and had a few to pick out for worst toy.  Over-the-top hybrid dinosaur toys were introduced into the license in 1998 with Jurassic Park: Chaos Effect, a line I enjoyed upon release but as time went on, I realized it wasn’t for me.  I didn’t mind Hasbro’s line of toys to promote Jurassic World and have all but five of them (the Pteranodon vs Helicopter and Tyrannosaurus Lockdown sets were too ugly for me and I couldn't get over the Titan Raptors not having sickle claws) but when they announced a line of toys dedicated entirely to hybrid dinosaurs, I said, “Pass.”  While I suppose I probably could’ve gone with any of the Jurassic World Dino Hybrids toys, which are basically Chaos Effect 2, I’ve gone with this reworked Indominus Rex figure.  First off, the balancing issues from the original Indominus Rex figure weren’t fixed so it won’t stand on its own, the coloration is atrocious with said coloring stopping right at the attachable tail, not to mention the gold accents looking like skid marks rather than a smooth color blend and the action chomping feature seems to only work when it feels like it.  The worst part is that the prototype shown at the New York Toy Fair, while still ugly, looked more detailed, better colored, stood on its own and the gimmick, oh, I don’t know, actually fucking worked.  I know that these toys are meant to look like the hybrids in the JW mobile game but over-the-top hybrids didn’t work for me when Kenner was making them so they don’t work now with Hasbro.  I hate to use one of the more recent additions to the toy line but you have to call them like you see them.

     Worst Video Game: The Lost World: Jurassic Park – Trespasser

     Most video games based on movies are terrible, that’s just a fact.  The Jurassic franchise is no exception but of all of the games with that skeletal T. Rex branded on it (I don't think I ever played any of the games based on JP3), none of them felt as terrible as Trespasser.  This was a PC game released in 1998 that was supposed to revolutionize the FPS genre with its 3D graphics and physics engine and all it wound up doing was pissing off a lot of players, myself included.  Set one year after The Lost World, you play the character of Anne, a plane crash survivor who has washed up onto Isla Sorna and you have to get off the island alive.  Well, the kicker here is that you only have one arm to use (the other was injured) and have to use it to interact with objects to progress the game and/or survive.  An interesting idea, if the game mechanics weren’t so clunky.  I remember being killed a few times by oddly animated Velociraptors because the arm wouldn’t pick up a gun despite me gliding over it quite a few times and stacking boxes to get out of a jam only goes so far when a slight breeze will knock over your stack.  As far as graphics go, yeah they don’t look great now but I remember not being terribly wowed by them back in 1998 either.  I mean, this came out the same year as Resident Evil 2 and a year after the Playstation game for The Lost World, for crying out loud.  Sweet box art, though.

            Worst Novel: Jurassic Park Adventures – Flyers

            This was the final entry in a trilogy of spin-off books expanding on Jurassic Park III.  The first, Survivor, told of Eric Kirby’s eight weeks alone on Isla Sorna while its follow-up, Prey, had Eric and Alan Grant teaming up to save a group of teens sneaking onto the island to gain fame and fortune by filming the dinosaurs after the events of Jurassic Park III.  Flyers took the story to the mainland where Grant, Eric and Amanda Kirby have gone to Universal Studios in Orlando to discuss their time of the islands when the Pteranodon family that escaped at the end of the film descend on the resort.  I’ve never really liked when Jurassic Park goes off island because you lose that sense of isolation and helplessness when you have dinosaurs (or in this case, flying reptiles) in a heavily populated area and to have a whole book about it?  Yeah, I’m not with it and bringing back Amanda, arguably the most annoying character in the history of Jurassic Park, certainly doesn’t help it.  It wasn't terrible, exactly but of all of the novels I read, this one had to be the worst.

            Worst Comic Book: Jurassic Park – Redemption

            Okay, when I said that this was is in no particular order, I kind of lied because I had to save this one for last.  If I had to pick the absolute worst thing to come out of the Jurassic license, it would be this comic book story arc.  Why?  Because it is the worst.  As hinted at by this blog post, the expanded universe for Jurassic is…not very good.  It is full of shaky storytelling, lacking any of the awe-inspiring moments that the films had and all exist as proof that this was never meant to be a franchise.  The comics put out by Topps in the 90s weren’t really anything spectacular but they look like The Dark Phoenix Saga compared to the three arcs IDW Publishing put out.  While The Devils In The Desert was a mixed bag and Dangerous Games was more boring than offensively bad, Redemption was IDW’s maiden voyage into the series and wow, did it suck.  The story follows Tim Murphy trying to realize John Hammond’s dream of a functioning park, only having it in Glen Rose, TX instead of an island resort.  Lex is opposed to this but Tim goes forward with the help of a mysterious benefactor and of course, shit goes wrong when a Carnotaurus escapes and eventually all the dinosaurs escape.  The artwork is absolutely terrible, failing at Jurassic’s idea of trying to make the dinosaurs (and humans) look as believable as possible.  The writing is just awful, showing that this comic was more focused on dinosaur violence and shoehorning in characters for fan service and less on interesting story...or having a solid ending.  Seriously, the conflict doesn’t have a resolution but rather it just stops.  On top of that, this comic fails with its big twist when Peter Ludlow from The Lost World is revealed as the benefactor who is trying to sabotage Tim’s idea for revenge against John Hammond, stating that he only married into the family to partake in John’s wealth.  This may have been writer Bob Shreck’s first gig as a writer, but had he actually done his fucking homework, he would’ve seen that Peter refers to John as his uncle (the board room scene, anyone?), not his wife’s uncle (or his wife's father as he says here).  This would make Peter the son of one of John’s siblings and since Tim is John’s grandson, Peter would be his first cousin once removed, not his uncle.  Even putting the family tree blunder nitpick aside, there is no fucking way that Peter survived the ending of The Lost World.  I don’t care how well you pay your security staff, if they didn’t shoot Ian and Sarah when they took the baby Rex, they sure as Hell aren’t going to come into a sealed cargo hold with that baby and a tranquilized adult to save your ass, "Elite crew" or not.  Thankfully, it seems like Redemption was never intended to be canon and has more or less been erased from the fan base’s collective memory so my apologies for bringing it up.

     I'm not saying that the intention of this post is to say that Jurassic Park 5 is going to suck so don't take it as such.  This was just a fun exercise for me to find the worst of the worst in a property that means so much to me.  Agree or disagree, feel free to sound off in the comments.  If you like what you see on this blog, give that "Follow" button a nudge and stay cynical!

     -The Cynic