Triplicate to Marvel - Part 1

With the Forgotten Heroes project I've foolishly said I'd be part of approaching I thought I'd better get my hand and eye in on a Heroclix conversion, just to make sure I know what I'm letting myself in for. Forgotten Heroes is supposed to showcase lesser-known Marvel and DC characters, or characters from outside of those two companies, so this conversion, which I've had in mind for a while, wouldn't have been suitable for the project anyway.

A couple of years ago I acquired this figure of the Legion of Superhero's Triplicate Girl. Whilst I have a bit of a soft spot for the wonderful sixties colours of her mini-dress costume, I don't really have a lot of use for Triplicate Girl in my games. Actually I know nothing about her, but the Legion of Superheroes has always struck me as about as interesting as a game of DBA 2.2.

Her pose is pretty neutral, though, and I realised the figure was more than suitable for a character I do need in my collection: the X-Men's Marvel Girl.

Here's Triplicate Girl.

And here's Marvel Girl:

Looks like a pretty straightforward conversion to me.

I started by slicing some of the decorative trim Triplicate Girl has on her boots, as well as smoothing off the tops of them. She has thigh-high boots on, so there's a small 'lip' up by the skirt. Marvel Girl sports bare legs above the knee.

With the limited amount of shaping done, I added the two accessories Marvel Girl needs. Firstly the belt. This is just a thin strip of paper, glued on and then trimmed. A square of paper was added over the join for the buckle, but I hadn't done that when this photo was taken.. Secondly the mask. I cut a few of these before I got one the size and shape I needed - again it's just paper, but with a generous coating of PVA glue to stiffen it. I will need to carefully widen the eyeholes later, but I will probably do that at the painting stage, so I can see just how much I have to model and just how much I can fudge with the painting itself.

Here's the modelling mostly completed, and then a grey undercoat applied. I used grey because it gives the figure a monotone look, covers the colour underneath better than white and doesn't obscure the detail as much as black.  Now I can see how the figure looks in terms of shape. And I'm pretty happy with it so far.

On to the painting.

The initial stages. Possibly the dress could do with being a little darker.

I'll finish her off in the next post.