Legends Of Gotham City: A Collection of Custom Figures

[darklord1967]

After several years of serious procrastination, I finally joined the 6-inch scale DC Super Heroes Action Figure party!

My plan was to create a “Legends of Gotham City Collection”… An assembly of “definitive” classic BATMAN character action figures… cleanly sculpted, deco’d, detailed and articulated… and (equally important), accurately sized in relation to each other.

In these regards, I didn’t think I was really demanding too much.

And yet, by the end of it all, almost every single character required some kind of custom modification before I was satisfied.

Admittedly, a big part of the issue was the fact that I am very much a “traditionalist” when it comes to THE BATMAN mythology. This pretty much dictated my dissatisfaction with most of the available action figures.

My preferred depictions of the Legends of Gotham City come from the classic pages of Detective Comics and Batman as published by DC Comics from the early 1970’s through the mid 1990’s.

For the most part, Gotham City's nefarious VILLAINS that most interested me (certainly as action figures) were the “classic Rouges Gallery” characters: The Joker, Catwoman, The Riddler, The Penguin, Two- Face, and The Scarecrow. The one exception to that basic rule was Harley Quinn, whom I considered to be a brilliant “modern age” addition to the Gotham lineup.

I decided to include a quartet of Gotham City “Secret Identity” characters to the collection (Bruce Wayne, Richard Grayson, Barbara Gordon and Alfred Pennyworth).

As for action figures of Gotham City's Heroic Guardians, I would focus on Police Commissioner James Gordon, Batgirl, and of course our intrepid Classic Caped Crusaders, The Batman and Robin The Boy Wonder.

The figures of this Legends of Gotham City Collection would depict the comic book versions of these characters since the versions from live-action TV or films, or animation did NOT interest me.

Alright. Let’s get to it. I hope you enjoy my custom Legends of Gotham City Collection…

 

[darklord1967]

THE PENGUIN

A nice, clean 6 inch scale action figure of Oswald Chesterfield Cobblepot (aka THE PENGUIN) was going to be a MUST for my collection.

I will state from the start that I am NOT a fan of the post-Tim Burton concept of The Penguin. And I suspect that a slobbering, long-haired, repulsively deformed, half-human bird-man, wearing Dickenson-styled clothing was NOT what Bob Kane, and Bill Finger had in mind when they created him.

My preference definitely leaned toward the classic Silver Age version of this character.

In the end, a figure that I would consider suitable for my collection required a serious amount of customizing effort on my part. From the configuration of a proper anatomy, to the scratch building of accessories, The Penguin was certainly one of the more complex and challenging custom action figures of this series.

 

[darklord1967]

Back in 2005, I first saw the DC Direct Silver Age Penguin Action Figure (from the Deluxe Action Figure 2-pack set with Catwoman). Artist Tim Bruckner was the sculptor of these figures, and when I saw the early promotion ads for this 2-pack, his work really caught my eye.

But once I bought the set, right from the start, the very limited articulation, awkward body proportions, and off-balance posture of The Penguin were a big disappointment. The legs on this figure were actually static and non-poseable! They forced the figure into a permanent forward leaning posture, which made it impossible for him to even stand on his own! The feet were badly undersized, and the arms were excessively long and spread far apart.

Unfortunately this was the ONLY classic “traditional” version of The Penguin available in the 6 inch scale. Frankly, Bruckner’s excellent sculpt work was wasted on a figure that was ultimately engineered to be a glorified mini-statue!

 

[darklord1967]

In the following years, other 6-inch scale Penguin action figures were released, but I didn’t care much for them either:


DARK VICTORY PENGUIN & ROBIN 2 pack: I’m not a fan of Tim Sale’s Batman artwork. I was, therefore, not a fan of his artwork-specific version of The Penguin done as an action figure.

SECRET FILES: BATMAN ROGUES GALLERY: THE PENGUIN This was a barely poseable figure, which only featured a faint passing resemblance to the character. Obviously NOT a traditional take on The Penguin. No thanks.

LEGEND OF THE DARK KNIGHT PENGUIN (Shudder)… To me, this looked more like an action figure of Dr Jekyll’s nefarious alter-ego Mr Hyde! Pass.

 

[darklord1967]

A NEW HOPE:

In 2007, Mattel Toys released their first series of very nice 6 inch scaled DC Universe Classic character action figures. I was thrilled to see that THE PENGUIN was included among them.

Unfortunately, once again, the figure suffered from overly-long “gorilla” arms. And this time around, even his hands were somewhat over-sized. His tuxedo was only a variation of the classic outfit.

The DC Universe Classics Penguin featured a face sculpt that depicted him as a deformed sub-human bird-man with very bad teeth. In fact, when I first saw the action figure in the store, I remember thinking how much he looked like a horror film flesh eating zombie, with his pale, lifeless eye, sagging skin, and those gritted, crooked yellow teeth.

On the upside, this figure offered a nicely sculpted, nicely articulated pair of working legs (Yaaayy!!!). My immediate thought was that I could combine these legs with the DC Direct classic Penguin’s upper body for a really nice custom figure!

Easier said than done. Time to get to work!

 

[darklord1967]

Let's Get Physical!

I removed the solid, non-posing lower legs assembly from the Classic Silver Age Penguin figure with a simple boil and pop. They were mounted on a ball-joint up inside the body sculpt.

I then used my Dremel cutting wheel to remove the lower body assembly from the Mattel DC Universe Classics Penguin figure.

I combined the top half of the DC Direct statue legs assembly with the cut-off waist of the Mattel lower body assembly. It took a lot of cutting, grinding, sanding and smoothing to make the two parts fit seamlessly together. But when I was done, I performed a quick test-fit between the new legs assembly and the upper body half. The figure’s new overall shape satisfied me greatly.

I gave the lower legs assembly its final paint scheme, and put them aside.

 

[darklord1967]

Calling Weight-Watchers! Calling Jenny Craig!


Next, I performed some basic surgery on the arms to shorten them to an appropriate length. I reduced their length by about 6 scale inches, and also re-positioned them to be closer to the sides of the torso.

I needed to address the size incompatibility between the slimmer lower body of the DCUC figure, and the grossly over-sized upper body of the DC Direct figure.

The DC Direct figure had a strange rubber insert assembled into his back, which extended into his coat tails. This insert added a considerable amount of bulk to the figure’s girth, so I removed it, resulting in a large open cavity .

I then Dremelled off a lot of the bulk along the sides of the open cavity, and filled and smoothed the space with sculpting compound. Once it set and hardened, I re-sculpted brand new fold details into back of The Penguin’s coat with an overall slimmer profile.

 

[darklord1967]

Using sheet styrene, I created neat, sharp coat tails and did all the putty, filling and sanding work to make the join seams invisible. I painted the re-sculpted back of the coat and tails in flat black, and painted the inside of the tails in gloss black to simulate a silky satin inner lining. Using 2 tiny doll buttons, I added the final finish details to the back of the coat.

Ultimately, the extensive surgery I performed on this figure transformed the character’s basic body from comically obese and awkwardly stanced, to a much more realistic (and traditionally classic) “portly” build (as seen in the comic books).

 

[darklord1967]

"That's one bad hat, Ozzy"


With his anatomy corrected, I next addressed The Penguin’s accessories… beginning with his top hat.

The DC Direct figure already included a removable hat, but I found it over-sized and strangely shaped (almost Fedora-like). The hat’s wide base, curled brim, and narrow crown made it completely inappropriate for The Penguin’s formal wear.

I wanted a neater, straighter, and sharper looking top hat for a more classic, elegant appearance).

I turned to the Mattel Penguin figure. There, the hat was the correct size and shape. But as part of the overall head sculpt, it was NOT a separate removable accessory. Using a razor blade, I sliced the hat off of the figure’s head, and then drilled it hollow with a Dremel rotary tool so that it could be wearable. I sand papered the un-attractive raised mold release line cutting sideways across the top of the hat, until I was satisfied that it was “silky smooth”. I then re-painted the hat band in the correct lavender purple of The Penguin’s classic Silver Age look.

 

[darklord1967]

"Under my umbrella, ella, ella, eh.. eh.. ehh..."

No custom Action figure of The Penguin would be complete without his signature weapon umbrellas (or “Bumbershoots” as they are called). I thought that these accessories would be relatively easy to find in the 6 inch scale action figure world. However, based on the features that I was hoping for these accessories to have, I realized pretty quickly that I was dead wrong.

I actually wanted this figure to be accessorized with 2 umbrellas props… one open AND one closed. The DC Direct figure provided a decent closed umbrella, so that was a big help. Although the rubbery spike tip was very warped, I was confident that I could fix that.

It was the open umbrella that proved to be a problem.

The Mattel DC Universe Penguin Action Figure provided an open umbrella accessory, but it was all wrong for my needs. The “gimmicky” accessory featured strange pop rivets , a machine gun attachment, and a metallic silver and black paint scheme. In addition, the umbrella featured a deep dish rounded design which I did not care for.

Out of desperation, I retrieved an old spare Kenner Super Powers Penguin umbrella from my parts bin, and was relieved to see that it was compatible in size with 6 inch scale figures. Plus, the umbrella featured a flatter, more traditional dish design that I preferred. Unfortunately, the rod and handle assembly was scaled for the much smaller Kenner Super Powers figure, so I would have to scratch build a new one for my custom action figure to hold comfortably.

I used a spare DC Direct closed umbrella accessory to get the curled handle I needed. This would maintain a consistency of style between both open and closed umbrellas.

Next, I decided to make the umbrella rod out of real metal so that I could avoid working with silver paint (which I find rubs off more easily than other pigments). I used one of the wheel axles from a toy car to fashion the rod by cutting it to the correct length.

I next turned to the ink inner tube from a ball point pen to create the other open umbrella parts I needed. Draining the tube of all its ink was a tedious and messy process.

Using a section of the ink inner tube from a ball point pen, I created a coupling to join the curved umbrella handle to the metal rod.

 

[darklord1967]

The other end of the metal rod was attached to the pen tip reservoir, with the ball-point serving nicely as the umbrella’s spike tip.

I used the ball point from an identical pen to replace the warped rubbery spike tip of the DC Direct closed umbrella.

I re-painted both umbrellas in flat black to give them a distinctive cloth-like appearance. And lastly, I carefully painted the silver armature details on the underside of the open umbrella.

 

[darklord1967]

And now, this custom, frigid bird… THE PENGUIN… is ready to plunder Gotham City…

Hwaaagh!!! Hwaaagh! Hwaaagh!!

Actual Custom Action Figure Height: 5.5 inches (without Top Hat) / 5.75 inches (with Top Hat)

 

[darklord1967]

CATWOMAN

The Catwoman’s comic book outfit which appealed to me most was her skin-tight purple cat-suit with thigh-high black boots and arm-length clawed gloves (from her late 1980’s-late 1990’s comic book appearances).

This costume has been represented a number of times as an action figure. So I had very high hopes of avoiding the lengthy creation of a custom figure for my Legends of Gotham City Collection.

No such luck…

 

[darklord1967]

Mattel released a modern black-suited Catwoman Action figure as part of their DC Superheroes line in 2007.

When the DC Universe Classics line was launched some time later, Mattel re-released this same figure molded in purple (evidently as a nod to her classic cat-suit of the 80’s -90’s).

The trouble was, all of this figure’s sculpt details were representative of her black costume. To me, it was a moot point really. The truth is ALL of the lanky female action figure sculpts from The Four Horsemen Studios simply disagreed with me too much.

Things were a little more hopeful at DC Direct, though. They produced two Catwoman Action Figures wearing the classic purple outfit:


Batman: Knightfall Catwoman Action Figure: While beautifully sculpted, this figure was unfortunately created in a much larger scale than what I needed for my collection.

Batman: Long Halloween Catwoman Action Figure: John G. Mathews sculpted this beautiful rendition of Catwoman in my favorite outfit. It was based on comic book artist Tim Sale’s artwork from the “Long Halloween” storyline (which unfortunately, is not my cup of tea). But I recognized pretty quickly that it was mainly the head sculpt, wrist bracelets, and color scheme that made this figure artwork-specific to Sale’s “Long Halloween” book. With an appropriate head swap, and careful paint work, this figure could definitely be made into a perfect “classic” comic book Catwoman!

 

[darklord1967]

”More lives than a CAT!”


I found this action figure to have very strangely-shaped arms that not only were
anatomically awkward, but whose mobility was terribly limited. Due to the shape of the arms, and the way they are set into the arm pit sockets, I was actually unable to lower her arms down to her sides!

Following the printing color palette of the Long Halloween’s comic book, DC Direct molded Catwoman’s outfit in deep burgundy (rather than the correct traditional purple for this costume). And her gloves and boots were disappointingly painted in glossy charcoal grey (rather than the correct “suede” flat black). Those color issues would all need to be addressed.


The DC Direct Silver Age Catwoman Action Figure (from the Deluxe Action Figure 2-pack set with The Penguin) was still sitting in my parts bin (a left-over from my custom Penguin project).

Although her Silver Age costume was not the one I wanted for my collection, her cowled head was the perfect size, suitable design, and a most beautiful face sculpt for my custom Catwoman figure! Using boil and pop, I removed the head from this figure and drilled it out with my Dremel tool so that it would fit properly on the Long Halloween Catwoman’s neck stump and ball-joint.

 

[darklord1967]

”Give that girl a hand… and let cooler heads prevail”

I began preparing the Long Halloween Catwoman base figure by removing the limbs I intended to replace. Her head came right off with a boil and pop. And her useless, un-attractive arms were pulled right from their sockets with the aid of a pair of pliers. I then drilled out her arm sockets to accept the replacement arms I had planned.

I used the beautifully feminine arms from a DC universe classics Star Sapphire action figure to transplant over to the drilled-out arm sockets of my custom Catwoman’s body. These arms were far more poseable, far more anatomically correct, and far more appropriate-looking on this body than the original arms were.

I transplanted the original LH Catwoman clawed hands into the wrists of the new arms. I decided that I had no need for wrist articulation on this figure, so I glued her hands permanently in place, and then did all the putty and sandpaper work to make the wrist seam invisible.

 

[darklord1967]

”Fits like a glove!”

I spent two days slowly and meticulously prepping this figure for paint by gently sand papering her every nook and cranny with 300 and 400 grit fine sand paper.

Using the thinnest scale styrene rods (.010”) available, I created the cuff fold details of Catwoman’s long gloves (along her upper arm).

 

[darklord1967]

”I can see your TRUE colors, Catwoman!”

When she was finally ready, I air brush painted her costume in a much truer Purple shade (carefully matching the original purple cowl color of the DC Direct Silver Age Catwoman figure). I then hand-painted her boots and gloves in flat black (“suede”) to correct DC Direct’s original inaccurate palette for this figure.

With all of her surgery and paint complete, I assembled the Silver Age Catwoman’s head onto the Long Halloween Catwoman’s neck stump, preserving full articulation.

 

[darklord1967]

“Whips-n-Whiskers!”

The accessories I provided for this Bat-villaness were her wicked cat-o-nine tails whip (provided by Mattel’s DC Universe Classics Catwoman), and her cat burglar accomplices “Ebony” and “Isis” (courtesy of the DC Direct Silver Age 2 Pack).

 

[darklord1967]

And now… this feline temptress CATWOMAN is ready to prowl Gotham City as a thief in the night… Meeeeeowwwwwrrrrrrr…

Actual Custom Action Figure Height: 5.62 inches

 

[BigSams50]

Your work is amazing. Do you plan on making more custom figures?

 

[darklord1967]

Thanks Big Sams50! I appreciate the compliment. Yes I do plan on doing more of these. In fact...

 

[darklord1967]

THE JOKER

Thanks to the kind folks at DC Direct, and Mattel, the addition of a 6-inch scale JOKER Action Figure to my collection was reasonably easy and painless.

The Mattel DC Universe Classics Joker figure (body) was an outstandingly sculpted and very well articulated rendition of the character’s classic purple tuxedo appearance. I saw very little room for improvement there. I was even willing to overlook the square mid-torso articulation which I normally cannot stand.

Unfortunately, the head / face sculpt was not exactly the frightening visage that I had hoped for on my custom Clown Prince of Crime. In fact, I found this face sculpt rather silly.

 

[darklord1967]

Establishing The True Face Of Evil

But as luck would have it, our good friends at DC Direct came to my rescue with the release of the Arkham Asylum Joker action figure. I did not really care for the figure itself since it was not a classic traditional version of The joker. But it was, hands down, my absolute favorite head sculpt of the character in this scale.

I have always been of the opinion that The Joker seems so much more cunning… so much more frightening… indeed so much more evil with a clenched teeth smile… which makes him look like he might bite (re: Hannibal Lecter). By comparison, virtually all other 6-inch scale Joker action figures featured face sculpts with an open-mouthed smile, which to my eyes, just makes the character seem giddy.

There was no doubt that a head swap was going to be essential for the creation of my definitive “classic” Joker figure. But the DC Direct head sculpt was by no means perfect. It would require one major adjustment: The sculpt was rendered to match The Joker’s Arkham Asylum video game appearance, where he was depocted with a heavily receding hairline and bald temples.

I filled in the balding upper forehead areas of the head with white squadron putty, and re-sculpted the waves of a fuller hairline with the point of a large sewing needle. With a few strokes of green paint, I managed to successfully match the character’s classic comic book appearance.

 

[darklord1967]

“Steppin’ Out In Style”

The Mattel figure included a walking cane accessory that I disliked. It was rubbery and warped, and it was not long enough to pose the character the way I wanted.

I decided to create a new walking cane accessory for this figure made out of real wood. My wife’s make-up pouch contained some wooden hair styling rods that were perfect for what I needed. All I needed to do was re-shape one of the rods into a suitable taper for a walking cane.

I sand papered the little wooden stick until I was satisfied with its new shape.

The only usable parts of the original Mattel accessory accessory was the cane’s “Joker head” handle, and the ball-point base tip. I sliced both objects off of the warped rubber cane. I carefully drilled receptacle holes into the underside of both pieces and put them aside.