Ragdoll

Ragdoll, the creepy, ‘Raggedy Andy’ contortionist of the DCU. A cold blooded murderer, a treacherous teammate, his body a patchwork of surgical scars…how could this little scamp NOT be a fan favorite? He’s like the little engine that could, but with MURDER! And a better costume.

This is actually the second time I’ve cobbled together a Ragdoll custom. The first (along with a Secret Six style Parademon) ended up in the collection of a ‘Six fan after she spotted ’em here on my blog. Woof, talk about no good deed going unpunished…you should have seen the looks on the faces of some in my gaming group when I broke the news. Turns out Secret Six-themed teams were popular, I teased them with the ability to go full-roster and then took it away. Yeah, comic fans can be a reasonable bunch when you mess with their plans. Anyway, I promised to make new customs for my gaming group and now, six months later (irony!) I finally got around to it. You can check out my second stab at a Parademon here.

Ingredients: I dug around for a thin, spindly body and came up with Ragman (Collateral Damage). His head came from…hmm, some bald dude. I’m guessing Ultimate Electro (Ultimates). His hands came courtesy of Dove (Crisis), and to—hopefully—convey the broken, loose feel of the character, the pose I went with required some figure support. The pillar from the Question (Origin) delivered the goods.

Lots of little detailing went into this bugger. Each strand of hair is a thin strip of index card paper twirled for that “perm” look, a pinpoint of Elmer’s used to hold it in place. Repeat until he had a full head of hair, shape the final style with tweezers and then PLOP, a drop of Krazy Glue hardened the whole mess. The same trick went into making his scarves. All the assorted stripes on his costume will make you want to push your expensive, fine-tip paintbrush through your eye and into your brain. Enjoy!

Custom Ragdoll Heroclix dial here.

————————————————————————————

Parademon

The Secret Six. A rag-tag group of baddies who escaped from a maximum-security stockade to the Los Angeles underground. Today, still wanted by the government, they survive as soldiers of fortune. If you have a problem, if no one else can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can be strangled and left for dead by that creepy-ass Ragdoll.

Anyway, I only read the first Secret Six mini and it was about eight hundred percent more entertaining than I thought it would be. That’s not a knock against series writer Gail Simone—her Birds of Prey stuff was excellent—but my only exposure to the Secret Six was waaay back in Action Comics Weekly. I wasn’t a fan. But BAM!, Simone whipped up a different take and elevated a bunch of D-listers by crafting fun adventures full of fresh characters and snappy dialogue. She did good. So much so I wanted to use a little Secret Six team when losing to friends in HeroClix, but they never released a Ragdoll (click here for him) or a badass Parademon. So I made my own…

Not owning much in the way of comic books any more, I had to go online to find reference for this guy. As the Parademon-themed image at the top of this post would suggest, I couldn’t find much in the way of Secret Six art that showcased a full body shot of our boy here. Not a big deal. There’s an endless amount of Parademon images & toys to use as a guide, and they all look alike, right? Right…?

Turns out the Secret Six creative team DID give him his own distinct costume, a look that made him recognizable as an Apokalips grunt BUT made him stand out in a Parademon crowd. That’s a good feeling, spending hours hunched over a miniature, putting the final touches on and it and SURPRISE, the reference material you used wasn’t accurate. F*ck it, though. I’m still posting these pictures.

Ingredients: I wanted him to have a beefy look, so I went with the absurdly scaled Hydra agent (Sinister), an even more absurd firearm (Cable—of course—Mutant Mayhem) and finished it off with a set of wings (Mach-1, Sinister). Costume trimmings were strips of index card cut to shape and then hardened with a drop of Krazy Glue. Some acrylic paint, a coat of matte sealant and this Parademon–whichever one he is–was done. Custom Parademon dial here.

So what does the Secret Six Parademon suit look like? I finally found a group shot on some random website, and lookit that…the S6 ‘demon has more of an Apokalips bathrobe thing going on. Ech…one day I’ll go back and make a comic-accurate version, but I’m kinda dreading it. The moment I do I know I’m gonna want to make another half dozen or so “regular” Parademons to keep my single grunt happy.

And hey, I have no idea if the below pic is a published piece of DC art or something from a fan site. I tried finding info on it but came up empty. If anyone recognizes where this is from–even if it’s from a Flikr fan page or whatnot–drop a note in the comments section. I wanne give credit where it’s due.

Oh, one last thing. If they ever make a Secret Six animated series, the opening credits should be the exact opposite of this.

———————————————————————————-