I made some time in the spring to finally finish up the 500% Minimate. I went with automotive paint for the metal flake appearance. After multiple coats, I topped it off with a couple clear coats for protection. Unfortunately before I was able to apply the clear coat to the head, I dropped it on my patio. It chipped out a sizable chunk and I went back to the fill-sand-paint routine for a while. Now I can't even tell where it chipped.

The printer is back in operation, so next I'm going to see just how big I can make one of these suckers. Two Internet points if you can figure out the scale.

I've mentioned the Translucent Tuesday Fight Club before and how it's basically translucent Minimates beating each other up. The guy behind it, Geohound, ran his own TTFC contest on the Multiverse. I was getting the animating itch again, so I created this:



You can see all the the entries here.

I've wanted to try my hand at creating stained glass pieces for years. The color, the light refraction, everything about it just seems to hit all the right buttons. When the Minimate Multiverse put together the Marvel Minimates 10th Anniversary Masterpiece Contest (with prizes from DST), it seemed the perfect opportunity to jump in.

When starting something new, my first reaction is to go slow, experiment and learn how to do it right. I quickly realized that wouldn't win me any contests, so I went full bore with a roughly 14" by 14" Phoenix image with over 100 pieces of glass. Here's the result.
This is actually a scaled-back version. My original template had a much larger fiery Phoenix Force in the background. I do plan on finishing the full version in the upcoming months. Keep checking back.


Back lit on a bright, sunny day. Here you can really see the texture of the glass. I wish I hadn't used such small pieces for the sash. They really caused a lot of difficulties and detract from the overall look. Oh well, lesson learned.


Against the work room window. In these photos you can't really see the solder lines. That's the part that I'm least satisfied with. They are uneven and a bit lumpy.


Here's a big reason why I love stained glass. Refraction. It's so cool way the light bounces and flows as you move the piece. The way the different types of glass bend the light.

You can see all the anniversary contest entries here.

In late December of 2013, the Minimate Multiverse was full of animated speculation about an upcoming unknown new license. There was a vague hint given about a new box set for a new license. The speculation ran wild, from Star Wars and the return of DC (which were quickly shot down) to the A-Team and Dukes of Hazzard. People quickly latched onto the idea of Peter Pan which would coincide with the release of a new remastered Blu-Ray edition. Not everyone was onboard with Peter Pan, but the timing made sense to me so I created these little silhouette images to feed the fire.



I like the Tinkerbell more than Captain Hook. I don't know, Hook just seems like it's reaching. It's not iconic enough, while Tink just works.

You can read the speculation thread here, or see the released Minimates here.

Here's a contest entry that wasn't a contest entry. With the 10th Anniversary of Minimates, the Minimate Multiverse ran a contest that featured a lot of San Diego Comic Con promo material. I had a great idea for an entry but I didn't need any of the prizes for my collection. So I made the entry anyway and just excluded myself from the voting. Everything apart from the cake and the candles were in my model library. So other than the difficult frosting this was really quick to put together.

Yes, another contest entry. This one was involved creating your own Battle Beast. It was tough to decide which animal, but after many sleepless nights Thundegaar the hippopotamus took form. Check out the link for many more images.
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The Minimate Multiverse Cover Contest made its return this year and I decided to take a stab at it and create a 3D entry using Blender. After some difficulty deciding on which cover to replicate, I settled on World War Hulk #4. It had five new Minimates that I hadn't yet converted to 3D models along with a few opportunites for special effects. This is a fairly image heavy post that shows each step that I took to recreate the cover.
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There's no substantial update today for two reasons. One, I've been spending my Minimate-time shooting photos for the 2009 version of the MMMV contest hunt. You know that one I've been pimping for the last couple weeks. Here's a photo of my Hunt Buddy, Comrade Boris Tiltawhirl Girlieshorts. Two, I'm running out of material. Chronologically I'm only a year back, and since then I've only done three or four Minimate projects. Once I've posted those, I'll have to make new material. Heaven forfend. :) Maybe I'll start just posting once a week instead of twice. Or perhaps one major project post per week and one little tease post like this per week. We'll see what happens.