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| by Chris Galdieri |
He's the Coolest Cat, With a Heart of Steel
Iron Man has always been a mainstay of the Marvel universe -- one of the "big three" Marvel heroes, a founding member of the Avengers, and all-around cool guy. He's such a swell guy he lets his friends call him "Shellhead." If my friends called me "Shellhead", I'd probably get mad and stop inviting them over to watch Frasier.
Toy Biz has been good to Iron Man. Not only did Iron Man have his own toy line that showcased a dozen different incarnations of his armor, but the Armored Avenger even popped up in the first wave of the new Avengers line.
As well as the toy world has treated Iron Man, though, there's never been a figure of Iron Man in his sleek, streamlined armor from the Seventies and early Eighties. (All right, there was the Secret Wars figure, but that was longer ago than I care to think about. And that figure is way out of scale with Toy Biz anyway.) But chastise not the folks at Toy Biz, for it is that kind of oversight that gives the Toolbox its reason for being! So this week, we'll be creating a swanky new Iron Man!
Our base figure will come from the Stealth Armor Iron Man figure. This figure was just re-released as part of the Marvel Universe line, so it's still easy to find. This is probably the simplest Iron Man figure Toy Biz made; there aren't lots of extruding accessories or weird attachments, and the figure's mask has a mouth. Don't scoff at this; some Iron Man figures don't. Fortunately, there has never been a figure of Iron Man's weird "nose armor", so it all balances out in the end. But I digress.
Plug, Plug
Our first order of business is to fill in the armor sockets. We won't be using any of Stealth Iron Man's snap-on armor attachments for this figure, so we need to get rid of those unsightly holes in Iron Man's torso and limbs. There are sockets on the front and back of the torso, the waist, the shoulders, wrists, and calves. So we've got our work cut out for us.
To fill in the sockets, we'll take our air drying "Das Pronto" clay and roll out tiny gobs of it. The gobs should be a little bit wider than the sockets themselves. Then we'll take these gobs and work them into the armor sockets. Once the gobs are in there, we'll wipe away any excess clay and let the clay on the figure dry. When we've filled in all of the sockets, we'll sand down the clay to make sure that it's flush with the torso of the figure.
Next we'll make a few necessary additions to the figure. First we need to do something about Iron Man's long, skinny neck. We'll roll out a thin cylinder of clay and cut a short length of it. We'll take this cylinder and wrap it around the figure's neck, and then flatten and smooth it out to create a collar. It's not functional, but it looks cool.
Next we'll take care of Iron Man's shoulder guards. We'll use our air-drying clay to make two narrow strips, and then we'll place one on each of the figure's shoulders. We'll flatten out the edges of these strips to make them flush with the figure's chest.
Finally, we have to sculpt the cuffs of Iron Man's gloves and boots. We'll roll out thin, flat strips of our air-drying clay, and then wrap them around the figure at the upper forearm and mid-calf.
Priming and Painting
Now that we've got all of Iron Man's doodads and geegaws sculpted and attached in their proper places, we can start painting the figure. First we'll prime it with acrylic spray primer. We need to be careful here and make sure we don't apply too much primer, lest the primer run and make the figure look bad. It's better to take the time to apply a few light coats of primer than to have it run and accumulate. And we also need to be sure to work outside or in a well-ventilated area, since inhaling primer fumes is just plain bad for you.
When our primer dries we can begin painting. Since Iron Man is made of, well, iron, we're going to use metallic paints. As always, we'll work from light colors to dark ones, and start with gold. We'll paint Iron Man's facemask, arms, and legs with gold, as well as the inside of the circle on the figure's chest. Be forewarned: metallic paints are notoriously thin, so you may need to apply more than one coat to get the color to be opaque.
When we've finished the gold, we'll move on to the red. Essentially, everything that we didn't paint gold will get painted with our metallic red paint: the rest of the helmet, the torso, the gloves, and the boots. Once we've done that, all that remains for us to do is to paint the eye and mouth slots on the facemask black. Then we'll seal up the paint with acrylic spray varnish, and that's all she wrote! We've now got a brand-spanking-new classic Iron Man figure to add to our collection.
Of course, there are still plenty of Iron Man variations that have never been made. The new armor, for instance, doesn't have a toy, and neither does the big clunky yellow armor Iron Man wore way back at the start of his career. Will any of these armors be the subjects of future editions of the Toolbox? Only time will tell -- 'cause I'm not! That would ruin the surprise.
Do you have questions or comments about this or any other custom action figure project you're working on? Please e-mail the Toolbox with them! I can't promise to run or respond to every message we get, but I will try to answer mail every few weeks.
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