Marvel Universe: Marvel movies misc: Baby and Teen Groot, “Logan” Laura/X-23, AOU Wanda and Pietro, AOU Iron Legion

Bits and bobs from the big screen. (This would have ben “MCU misc” if not for X-23, Fox sale or no.)

Marvel Universe: Groot (“Guardians of the Galaxy” film)

Finally, eh?

It took some time to get around to Groot because choosing the base figure was a tricky process. There simply weren’t very many options available for making one that would fit in the 3.75″ scale — there was the 5″ to 6″ Galactic Battlers “Branch Bash Groot” release, which was shorter and stockier than one might have wanted. The only other one? The Legends-scale build-a-figure Groot, which was simultaneously too expensive and too tall. The height was debatable, of course, since Groot is meant to be tall and his physiology makes size adjustment a somewhat believable possibility. But even if one were to get a bootleg store’s “factory surplus” copy of the figure, which relies on their  equally inconsistent ability to (1) even get one and (2) not price things like douchebags, the average price would be too much to comfortably swing.

Enter the other sort of bootleggers, who usually make their knockoff copies by recasting the existing molds, simplifying them to cut down parts counts and cost. This time, they outdid themselves by knocking off the entire Marvel Legends wave of figures — film versions of Gamora, Rocket, Star-Lord and Drax, and a comic version of Nova and a space-armored Iron Man, not to mention a simplified “build-a-figure Groot! — all in one box. A local collector picked up a few sets and sold them to people who wanted a cheaper build-a-figure Groot, and so my brother quickly made to get his hands on one (the set might yet show up in tiangge stalls, as they usually do). The height might have still been an issue, but since that was still easy enough to handwave and gave us a better-looking base figure than the Galactic Battler would, there was no problem. (I’ve since found that Groot is also available by himself, apparently, if anyone else wants to try the same process.)

Given that the bootleggers removed most of the joints from the figure (leaving just enough to disassemble him and package him a build-a-figure, apparently), Groot was left with the standard five points (neck, shoulders, hips) plus elbows. This made him fairly easy to paint, although to be fair his color scheme also lent itself very well to painting. Mixed up custom shades all the way, starting with a muted light tan/brown, then giving that a black/brown wash to bring out the sculpted detail that their recasting actually managed to preserve. Went back and forth with this a few times, then touched up some parts with a custom green mix.  Tried to go for the same overall shade and color distribution as the Hot Toys figure had, and while I think it ended up a little too greenish, it mostly got it down right.

Turns out that was a pretty neat bootleg set, as it even did the accessories the Legends figures came with. That means we now have a too-big Hadron Enforcer (we’re still trying to find a cheap 2″ two-pack so we have one in better scale), as well as the Orb macguffin and Gamora’s Godslayer sword. At least we got to debut some new parts in the obligatory group shot!

Now, I suppose this just leaves Ronan…