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For at least a decade, the Uncanny X-Men comics owned me. If that doesn't make sense, then you've probably never
really been into comics, if at all. Strange that it's taken me so long to make an action figure of my favorite X-Man,
Kurt Wager, aka Nightcrawler, in his classic 70's/80's duds. Actually, I HAVE made X-Men action figures before:
Wolverine, Colossus, Dark Phoenix, and Kurt. Brace yourself if you "get" this part: they were made of Mego action
figures (the Hulk, Superman, Batgirl and... Starsky, respectively), from never-dry clay, and eventually lost and/or destroyed
many years ago. This was many years before clays like Sculpey, Magic Sculp, or Apoxie Sculpt or decent acrylics.
His ears needed to be made pointy, too (more Apoxie Sculpt), and since Mr. Generic was bald, all of the curly hair needed
to be sculpted. Vinyl can't be cooked, or I would have used Super Sculpey and baked the head at a low temperature.
Kurt's very useful tail was just some thick electrical wire then wrapped in a spiral pattern with dark blue electrical
tape. The forked tailpoint was simply tape stuck to itself and trimmed to size. It was attached by drilling into
his tiny plastic buttocks and glued very carefully (so as not to get on any joints) with cyanoacrylate.
I did not take any in-progress shots, since I was juggling him and commissioned pieces. I take more pictures of
those and leave the personal projects mostly undocumented.
Following are shots of Kurt posing for his fans.
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Kurt began as a hard-to-find RAH (Real Action Hero) generic figure. If you've ever tried
to find specific RAH figures like of Darth Vader or Wolverine or whoever, try to find a generic one sometime. The neat
thing about the generic is that it's a blank slate (even eyelids weren't sculpted onto the face) and has things like extra
hands and... well, what looked like ankle cuffs. I never could figure out what they were for, since the feet couldn't
be pulled off like the hands could. And being an RAH figure, it was VERY poseable. Ultimately this is why I decided
to make a Nightcrawler figure.
The hands came in two poses: open and fist. Since Kurt has only two fingers on each hand and elongated feet
with two toes, plus an extra-long heel, I had to resculpt all four to match his. For the feet I needed to be careful
not to cover over the toe joint with clay. RAH figures' ankles are jointed, too, to bend inward like real feet.
The head, keeping with the whole "generic" theme, was expressionless, and the features quite soft. I dremeled away
the mouth and resculpted it as an open-mouthed, fanged grin. Hopefully a cockeyed, devil-may-care grin and not an evil
one. Kurt's one of the good guys.
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