Bright yellow and blue. The color scheme of Hellcat‘s costume always struck me as odd–a yellow and blue cat?–but it wasn’t until I typed the above headline that it occurred to me that it may have been designed that way to avoid a potential legal headache with DC’s Catwoman. Or maybe the editor just liked yellow. Regardless, let’s get to this week’s minimalist modding…
As far as customs go, this may be the least-modded figure I ever tried to take credit for. All I did was take the standard Hellcat figure (Ultimates) and reverse the color scheme to her classic outfit. Custom Hellcat dial here.
Acrylic paint, a light coat of matte sealant and she was in the books. If you’ve ever played with the idea of customizing a miniature but you were hesitant to test the waters, modding Hellcat to her classic look makes for a good trial run. There’s no part-swapping or fine line work (though you can get fancy and use different reds and oranges for the hair). It’d call for minimal investment of time and money so if the process bores you, eh, no biggie. If you dig it, next step is modding a life-size Ego the Living the Planet.
I used an Avengers cover up top, but the team Hellcat’s most associated with are the Defenders, so I gathered some assorted Non-Team stuff from around the web:
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Filed under: Uncategorized | Tagged: defenders, figures, hellcat, marvel |
ToyChop 
Hey, have you checked out the Defenders: Indefensible limited series from a little while back? While not an “epic” Defenders tale by any means, Giffen really spins an entertaining yarn! Check it out!
I love your Devil-Slayer mod BTW! Awesome!
Hey man, thanks for the kind words on Devil Slayer. He’s got the best cape in comics.
And I gave ‘Indefensible’ a try back when it came out. I usually like Giffen, but that series left me a bit flat. Having the core four Defenders (Doc, Surfer, Hulk & Subby) act that JLI-ish way felt out of place…I think it might have worked better if it starred the lower tier guys instead (Nighthawk, Son of Satan, Gargoyle, etc.).
Loved the Maguire art, though. His stuff is always top notch, one of the most underrated artists in comics.
Agreed; NO ONE does facial expressions like Maguire!
I agree 500% with you on the Defenders. Lotsa cool characters. Great costumes. Ass-filled stories. But awesome job on the customs! That Valkyrie is amazing. And I love the idea (and look) of Dr. Strange’s Astral Projection.
If I’m remembering this right (it’s been a couple years), I think I finished building that Valkyrie right before it was announced she was going to be in the next HeroClix set. It’s why–for the most part–I stopped building Marvel and DC figures. It’s less fun sweating out a new custom when the character you build gets an official release a month later.
As an aside, the pentagram on Son of Satan’s chest was one of the bigger hurdles to clear with this batch o’ figs. To keep the lines straight, I cut out a small dot from index paper, gave it a razor-thin edge in the form of a second layer of index paper (held in place w/ Elmer’s). I then laid thin strips of index paper in the shape of the pentagram (held w/ more Elmer’s) and glued the dot to the figure with Krazy Glue, quickly pushing it down at the different corners with sculpting tools so it matched the contours of his chest as much as possible.
A small drop was placed on the face of the pentagram as well for the paper to absorb, essentially turning it into plastic (using the tip of a small shred of paper towel to absorb the excess).
I then painted the pentagram parts silver, the “in-between” parts flesh and BAMMO!, little plastic Antichrist.
Happy Easter.
NOTE: I’ve been going in and updating old blog entries, posting cleaner photos that better display the figures and editing the “how to” text. Part of that process is splitting up certain stories that featured more than one figure. While some posts make sense to spotlight multiple figures (like the zombie themes), I thought the tag-cloud nav would work better if I made most blog entries single figure-specific.
That all said, some threads (like this one) may contain comments on figures that are no longer on display in a post. Use the tag cloud (“Tags”) nav to find any figure bumped from a thread (and if the figure isn’t in the cloud yet, it soon will be).