Boris Karloff as the Mummy
(from The Mummy - 1932)

One of the core Universal Monsters, the Mummy originally appeared in the 1932 film The Mummy, directed by Karl Freund and starting Boris Karloff in multiple roles including the title role. The base ReAction figure is of course very similar to the 1979 Remco Universal Mini-Monsters toy of the same character, though the head is notably more accurate. The customizing on this figure is minimal, simply adding colour to the eyes and painting the hair a slightly darker shade of green to make it more visually interesting. A black & white shot is included in homage to the era whence it came.

All parts – The Mummy (Super7 ReAction)

_________________

Bumper
Autobot Strategist

Hasbro has certainly gotten their money’s worth with the deluxe-class Bumblebee/Cliffjumper design, so who am I to do any different? More casual Transformers fans may never have heard of Bumper, a Transformers minicar which originated in 1984 but not recognized as a canonical character for many years. When Hasbro imported the molds from Japan that would be used for the original Bumblebee and Cliffjumper toys, there was a third very similar mold that they did not use. At least, not officially. But in fact, a number of this third mold were released in 1984 on Cliffjumper cards. The reason for this is not known, but over the years fans started calling this mystery figure Bumblejumper, or just Bumper.

Head: TW-T04 Highway (third-party Freeway)
All other parts: Generations Selects Hubcap

Gun: TW-T04 Highway (third-party Freeway)

_________________

Chase
Throttlebot Scout

The Earthrise Cliffjumper mold has seen a lot of use already, being retooled and recoloured into a number of different characters. Since the Throttlebots were essentially a continuation of Autobot minicars, and since Goldbug (one of the remolds of Cliffjumper) is himself a Throttlebot, it stands to reason to make use of this mold to make some more Throttlebots. This involved replacing the head with something resembling the original characters’, painting the legs, waist and hands red, and the front of the feet black. In robot form the tail end is positioned to create a “hood” behind the head to better resemble the original Throttlebots figures.

Head: TE-T05 Shinebug (third-party Goldbug)
All other parts: Earthrise Cliffjumper

Gun: G1 Perceptor

_________________

Cliffjumper
Autobot Warrior

This is a minor upgrade of Earthrise Cliffjumper, which has the effect of both making the figure closer to his original G1 appearance and creating greater visual differentiation between this figure and the custom Chase that was made using the same base. It actually involved decreasing some of the paint detail by changing the grille from black to red. The shoulders were also painted black, but I kept the forearms red since it just looks better to me, and it gives Cliffjumper more resemblance to Bumblebee’s paint scheme.

All parts: Earthrise Cliffjumper

_________________

Freeway
Throttlebot Saboteur

Using a Shattered Glass Goldbug just to get the hands for a Goldbug custom means I needed to find something to do with the rest of the figure. Since Goldbug was a Throttlebot, and since I had already made a custom Chase out of a Cliffjumper, it made sense to make another of the Throttlebots, specifically Freeway. The dark base of the figure lends itself well to being painted blue, and a small bit of modding was done on the head to differentiate it from Goldbug.

Hands: Transformers Legacy Autobot Goldbug
All other parts: Shattered Glass Autobot Goldbug

Gun: TW-T05 Shinebug (third party Goldbug)

_________________

Goldbug
Throttlebot Espionage Director

The Transformers Legacy version of Goldbug uses gold plastic all over, except for the hands, which are blue to match his head. Presumably this was done to break up the colour scheme a little bit. But the original 1987 toy had no hint of any blue colour on the arms or hands – of course, the toy was so simple that it’s hard to even say it had arms or hands. But since the Shattered Class version of Goldbug (which is mostly black) had gold hands, an easy parts swap suggested itself here. Definitely the easiest custom I’ve ever done. Just so the parts swap wouldn’t be the only custom thing about it, I also chromed a spare gun and gave it to Goldbug, so that he wouldn’t just have the same weapon that every version of this mold comes with.

Hands: Shattered Glass Autobot Goldbug
All other parts: Transformers Legacy Autobot Goldbug

Gun: Legends Skids

_________________

Hubcap
Autobot Communications

Hubcap is one of the handful of 1986 Autobot minicars that were retools of 1984 toys. The original Hubcap is a retool of Cliffjumper, released in bright yellow colours. This version of Hubcap continues that tradition, being a retool of Earthrise Cliffjumper, released in yellow with a new head. The Generations Selects version of Hubcap doesn’t need much in the way of improvement, but the original 1986 toy had fully black arms rather than yellow, so out came the Model Master flack black paint.

All parts: Generations Selects Hubcap

Gun: fodder

_________________

Hubcap (Pre-Production)
Autobot Communications

Hubcap is one of the handful of 1986 Autobot minicars that were retools of 1984 toys. The original Hubcap is a retool of Cliffjumper, released in bright yellow colours. But Hasbro’s pre-1986 Toy Fair catalog shows that originally, Hubcap was intended to be white, while Tailgate (another retooled minicar) was going to be yellow. On release, these colours were reversed. So this customs represents the pre-production version of Hubcap, with a white body, black limbs, and red face.

Head: Generations Selects Hubcap
All other parts: Generations Selects Bugbite

_________________

Great job, you’re on quite an end-of-the-year roll with these!

Thanks! I'm about to post the last batch of the year - all Marvel characters now.

_________________

Black Panther
Marvel Superhero

Kenner’s Marvel Legends Retro line began in 2020 for 3-3/4” figures, with the conceit that they’re the style of figure that might have been released in the 1980s for Marvel characters – essentially, if Secret Wars had been done better. They have seven POAs – neck, shoulders, forearms, and legs. They’re pretty expensive for their size, and have a lot of shared parts between many figures, but the sculpting is generally very nice and the figure look pretty great for the most part. This Black Panther custom is a simple repaint – the original is not black but dark blue. So I painted his costume black, leaving the belt dark blue for a little contrast. He looks pretty striking now.

All parts: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Black Panther

_________________

Daredevil
Marvel Superhero

This Daredevil is a simple repaint – the original’s boots and gloves are a maroon colour, rather than red. So I painted those red, and the eyes red as well (instead of white), adding shadows around the eyes for contrast.

All parts and accessories: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Daredevil

_________________

Hobgoblin
Marvel Supervillain

The retro Green Goblin figure just cried out to be turned into the Hobgoblin, with a head and cape from an older Hobgoblin figure, and paint as required.

Head: Marvel Universe Air Assault Hobgoblin
All other parts: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Green Goblin

Cape: Head: Marvel Universe Air Assault Hobgoblin

Satchel: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Green Goblin

_________________

Human Fly
Marvel Supervillain

This is one of those customs that warms the heart of my inner 8-year-old self. I loved everything about the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon that were re-run constantly throughout my childhood, and the episodes with the Human Fly character always stood out in my memory. I always thought of these guys as “evil Spider-Man” when I was little, though that’s not really the case. This was a simple custom to do, after getting the shade of blue paint right, using a Spider-Man figure, though I had to switch out one of his hands since the original is in web-shooting mode, which isn’t appropriate for this figure. In the cartoon there were two of them, of course (a big reveal at the time), but I only made one, so a little photo trickery was needed for the pair shot.

Left hand: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Reed Richards
All other parts: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Symbiote Spider-Man

_________________

Mockingbird
Marvel Superhero

This custom is intended to represent Bobbi Morse’s first costume after adopting the Mockingbird alias. It’s not fully accurate, lacking the big sleeves, but it fits nicely into the look of the Retro line.

Hair: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Invisible Woman
Head: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Ms. Marvel
All other parts: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Invisible Woman

Sticks: Marvel Legends Retro 3-3/4” Daredevil

_________________