DAMN.

that is one brutal asskicking...

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Iron Man 2 Hits Theaters next week, April 30

Small Scale stuff

you know the Marvel Handful of Heroes pack isn't so bad, save for the disproportionate sculpts they do but i like how detailed they are regardless, it's one of those things that seem like crap at first but once you experiment with it it's alright.

naturally i painted up the line's Iron Man figurine. i was lucky enough to get the modern armor version,

in retrospect this was a good exercise in precision, granted i need more practice, but it felt great doing this,

kinda like painting your own heroclix figures.

Steve Rogers: Agent of Shield?

digging the new threads.

Iron Man: Legacy issue 1 or why won't the Melter just fade into obscurity?

just got Iron Man: Legacy issue 1 today and....

this is my favorite page in the entire comic.
 i mean seriously, i laughed hard at this page, it's so LOLWTF when taken out of context.
that and how many times has the Melter or any of the people using his tech been used in any Iron Man comic (SURPRISE HE'S DEAD) since the last decade? last i heard of him (or somebody using his tech) was in  Matt Fraction and Salvador Larocca's  Invincible Iron Man #4. and wouldn't you know it, he gets his ass kicked (you'll read a lot more about how the persona of the melter is so unfortunate by clicking the link above).  i mean hell, in this first issue of legacy they even refer to the threat level of the guy as low. dude/s can't catch a break.

second thing to talk about: the Armor.

above is the first glimpse we catch of the new design, which appears to be an amalgamation of the movie and extremis designs. i've read that the armor's look will be unique for this series, and it's done for practical purposes to be a reference point for new fans or old fans getting into the new look of shellhead (more on this later) the way Steve Kurth handles it, the lines--particularly the face  looks off to me in some way. i can feel that the movie design is very hard to put into pen and paper for some artists, perhaps it just lacks the rigidity and sharpness of the armor seen in the movies due to it existing in three dimensions (i know transformers has this trouble as well in their movie comics). below is a better, full body look of the design:

i won't say i hate it, but it just feels so strange. parts of it look organic, parts of it mechanical, never quite a cohesive mesh of both. i dunno maybe it'll grow on me as the series moves on

anyway...
 moving on, the issue--or so i've heard the entire series--acts as a stand alone story that helps to ease fans of the movie into the mainstream (earth-616) incarnation of Iron Man by presenting stories inserted within shellhead's colorful history. these stories are intended to be stand-alone tales, meant to combine the aspects of the movie (such as Arc Reactor technology) and those of the comic series (like people assuming Iron Man is Tony's Bodyguard and not Tony himself).  what can be said about this run is that it seems to be spotlighting Tony's inner struggles, between his legacy as the CEO of Stark Industries, like his Father Howard Stark, and growing out of that Death Dealer persona being imposed on him by his/father's Company, and by the start of it he thinks he has... until Rouge Iron Men start going on a murder spree in Transia (where do they get these names?)  located in marvel's fictional Europe. after a few days mulling over the situation he decides to deal with this incident himself repulsors a-blazin, this makes him fall out of favor with the American Government, and due to Transia's ties with Russia and China, he's going to catch the attention of a certain comrade in crimson. yeah i know it smells like Armor Wars, but it's fresh! the mastermind behind all of this?

(spoiler alert! highlight at your own risk!)

Doctor Doom

this arc is aptly named: War of the Iron Men.

Fred Van Lente is at the writer's helm of this yarn, and this is the first time i've been exposed to his work, and i like it enough to stick around. same goes for Steve Kurth, and though i can understand the movie aesthetics can be a bit hard to translate into 2D especially in Kurth's style, as mentioned above the look of the armor in some places just seems... wonky to me.

personally i love where this is going because it is starting out to be a story of Tony Stark, fighting things he supposedly created-- the weapon to end all weapons, but  it's not him against his own tech like it often is in these kinds of tales, but rather him fighting against an aspect of his identity. that of being a maker of weapons that kill people, being used in the most horrific of ways (ethnic cleansing for example) his image is crushed--yet again--and it's up to him and him alone to make or build his way out of it. will he come out of it a hero, or as an international war criminal? follow the comic to find out.

it's on sale now!

PS: this comic also includes a re-print of Iron Man's First ever appearance in comics, and his old, cold-war origin story from Tales of Suspense # 39 digitally recolored. it's really cool how the old art looks so...shiny.

Love Me Nice is niiiice!

i recently came across a very cool webcomic:

Love Me Nice is a comic by the talented (i checked her portfolio, and it's all sweet work) Amanda LaFrenais, that deals with the relationship of 'toon star Mac Jr. and his Manager/Girlfriend Claire. Mac lives the life of a superstar toon, following in the footsteps of his father, Mac. Sr, while trying to keep his relationship afloat with Claire who--despite Mac not feeling it--works very hard to take care of his image. recently she's also become the manager of Mac's Co-star, Carolina, who had a crush on Mac (for advantageous reasons...and got a boob job because of him), and is now acting as a "life coach" to her.

the plot is just unraveling and it's very recent, going online October of last year, but i can tell a lot of planning went into this wonderful read, the art is really fresh and detailed, and it has that feel of cartoon sexiness i can compare to Rockin' Jellybean or old sexy comic pinups, which is a style i can really dig. it' cute, and quirky but has a good amount of dramatic tension between characters, and is a rather welcome tale about showbiz and reaching your dreams. but of course at the very heart of it is two toons in love, and like the comic's premise goes, people do a lot of crazy things when they're in love

you can check it all out here:
http://www.lovemenicecomic.com/

i know i'm hooked!

needed some fresh air

i miss the outdoors :P

HEADMASTERS HARDHEAD! HEAD-ON!

finally had a chance to showcase this thing! and the first transformers custom post in a while whew.

custom Headmasters hardhead with real transforming headmaster Duros.

base figure:

Body- Universe Onslaught
Headmaster- combination KO micromasters Gran Arm, minicon liftor legs and  lots and lots of styrene.

in hindsight, i could have done more with the body, but i obsessed too much in building the headmaster. because i wanted mine to be original in a way :)

did you know that you're my hero?

you magnificent bastard, you.

define the H word.

the PERFECT disguise!

things are not what they seem.

apparently, security needs to be tighter.

great things ahead.

oh yes indeedy.

FORCE

When corporate terrorist/hacker GHOST broke into the Stark Industries databanks, he stole several old files on the Iron Man Armor and Arc technology, selling them "under the table" to two of starks biggest business rivals, Justin Hammer and Edwin Cord, in the hope that Stark and Iron man would go after Cord and Hammer to retrieve the stolen tech.

sure enough Justin Cord had used the tech to power several individuals that he used to terrorize Stark Industries, those of whom included, Whiplash, Beetle, Constrictor and Blizzard. Cord used his tech to fund attempts at making his own Armors to sell to the US Military and even Shield, creating the FIREPOWER armor, the Raiders (armored supersoldiers in a similar vein like the Guardsmen), and funding inventor Clay Wilson into developing the FORCE armor.

with all these armored warriors sporting stolen STARKtech, Tony Stark took it upon himself to disable them and retrieve what was his, Donning his Iron Man armor and fighting the ARMOR WARS

ARMOR WARS Profile: Force

Inventor Clay Wilson was a former military engineer and veteran of the first Gulf War. when the unit he was serving in had one of their humvees taken out by an IED, Clay was one of those injured. returning from his tour of duty he began working on a system that would generate force fields which would neutralize and contain these types of weapons. but he could not get funding or interest going for his technology. Edwin Cord had seen the potential of his systems and offer to finance Wilson's operations, but secretly intended the Force tech to be used as an offensive type of weapon instead of a Defensive life-preserving mechanism. progress was slow and Clay was stuck on how to generate enough power for his Forcefield generators to effectively create a shielding grid around him... until Cord presented him with miniaturized Arc Reactor schematics (stolen from Stark Industries), outfitted with a tiny but powerful energy source work quickly progressed and Clay was able to create his FORCE armor. 

upon initial testing the armor proved to be versatile and capable of dishing out as much punishment as it took, and soon plans were being made to mass produce the armor, but upon learning the applications that Cord had intended for his invention Wilson took the prototype and fled. with Cord's security personnel hot on his trail (donning guardsman units), Clay--now Force found himself in heated battle at downtown Detroit. with Tony Stark in the area, supervising the security upgrades on all stark facilities, he came across the news of a battle between Cord Security forces and an Unknown armored individual. rushing to the fight as Iron Man he quickly dispersed the Cord unit from creating any more collateral damage and swept up Force and dropping him by the outskirts of the city. seeing this as a sign of aggression Force quickly engaged Iron Man in combat, 

managing to hold his own but eventually Iron Man gained the upper hand, damaging his Chest armor, Iron Man discovered a miniature Arc Reactor Assembly that had been powering Force's armor. when force finally surrendered and explained everything to Iron Man, starting from his integrating Stolen tech from Cord, the Cord Guardsmen forces had found both of them and began to attack, joining together, Force and Iron Man were able to beat down their assailants and escape. later in his Long Island facilities Tony Stark analyzed the Force Armor, and took Wilson to work with him in developing Negator Packs, knowing too well the intentions of GHOST, he began planning his battle to hunt and disable all illegal and deadly use of his technology .


notes: so i attempted to make an updated look for the classic force armor from the old comics, used a accelerator suit ripcord as a base, modded MU modern Iron man head, and PA armor hands. hope you guys like