I read them obsessively all the way through high-school, and then college when I kinda stopped but not really. It was hard. Comics are an expensive hobby....I couldn't afford to be so hardcore in college, but I still managed my X-Men. I fell away from them a little a couple times in my life, but always went back. They were like the family I didn't have...replaced for a while by Buffy but never forgotten (and I ran back to them when Buffy failed me by ending - though I picked them up in comic form too).
Then I got into dolls. Like I said, comics are expensive. It was not unusual for me to spend at least $80 a week. A week. Every week. I collected\read a lot of different titles, and then whatever had cool covers. And what was new. And everything else. No way could I afford both hobbies. Sometimes it seems like I had so much extra money for dolls just because I stopped reading comics. That's how much money I spent on it (and action figures).
I had to quit cold-turkey, and I don't go to comic stores. I can't, if I do I fall off the wagon. Seriously, it's like that. I drove by one once and it had a really cool Wolverine poster in the window. Wolverine isn't my favorite, not at all, but I had that moment...and I had to grip the steering wheel and look forward and drive away fast because I wanted to stop so freaking bad.
So really it it's almost surprising it's taken me this long to get dolls that I made into Marvel characters.
Gambit was an accident. I sorta always wanted to do it (because he's my favorite X-Man and the reason I started reading to begin with - you shouldn't be surprised, I'm female :PP SAD BUT TRUE) but didn't see the point...when my Volks Heath was replaced by another doll as Marcus, I made him Raziel, but Raz isn't a character I'm emotionally attached too, so he easily became Gambit when I thought "I could just do it!". The intention was to leave him that way until I got bored with him, then turn him back into Raziel. He sat around in the same outfit for months not doing anything.
Then I got the trade for the Delf Claus....
It's weird how this happened. I was trying to come up with a character for Claus. I thought I might try to force Logan on him (not Wolverine, my Logan, who is named after Wolverine XD), but when the Dollzone Fei arrived I knew Claus would never be Logan, Fei was Logan, and they're nothing alike. I honestly couldn't come up with anything. I thought about just distancing him from my FC characters and naming him Lennon and he could be a geek (geekier than me...hardcore geekiness) or something...But nothing stuck. I couldn't think of a good look for him either. I thought he'd be brown skin wasn't sure, but I thought brown skin might be pretty with really light hair and blue eyes...and then thought if it was a girl it could be Storm, and Gambit could have some company. Too bad Storm isn't a man....
Hey why can't Storm be a man?
I was kind of running with that idea and then had the thought that it might not be brown skin...or the brown might not be dark enough to pull off Storm, and I should have a back up. I wracked my brain to come up with an X-Man I liked enough to make a doll that would work as Claus and got nuthin. Hundreds of characters and I could not come up with one. Except Jean Grey\Phoenix, who died several years ago and hasn't been brought back yet (come on Marvel, really!!), who is my favorite after Gambit.
Jean Grey as a man?? WHY?! Why not....could work. The more I thought about it, the more ideas I got, and the more I wanted to do it...even if it was a tan doll. Screw Storm!!
I got the doll the next day, and the first thing I did was buy it a wig. Then I made it a wig. I kind of want her to have several wigs. The wig I bought is going to be tough...I want a long wig, and it's perfect for that, but I want a short wig too, and I was kind of thinking I could cut this one...I totally should have bought two. Dammit. I'll have to see what it looks like when I get it.
The wig I made is another style I saw in my head when I came up the idea...it's a patchwork fur mess. Turned out pretty good though, it fits like a glove. Doesn't fall off at all. Saturday I wiped the default face (I kind of freaked out when I did it, for a few reasons, buuuut it was too late) and gave her a new face up....then took her to a friends house and painted her fingernails green. Today I gave her two tattoos and painted her toenails green. I tried on a lot of clothes (it's been a while since I had a Delf body, I didn't know what would work - and she's kind wearing a mix of masculine and feminine stuff...so a style had to be found) and now she's sitting here next to my laptop as I type this.
I guess this would be a good time for pictures. She needs new eyes like burning. These are at least green but waaaaay too dark.
Yes, she's a man. Yes I keep calling her a her. My roommate is going nuts, I guess it makes no sense to her? WHATEVS. Claus makes a fantastic non-woman. Basically the concept is that the Phoenix brought Jean back as a man, even though she obviously remembers being a woman (hence the sheness of it all). Why? I dunno. Maybe it liked being Cyclops and missed having a peen...who knows why it does what it does. Actually I thought of a couple reasons. Because I have to go all cray with the backstories. But whatever, here's Gambit in his first piccies ever.
He's actually shaped up pretty good! At first I didn't think Heath could do it, but I really like him now. I scruffed up his face up some so he looks more Gambity, and I got lots of compliments on him at the meet Sunday. Someday I'll have to totally redo his faceup because when I originally did it, I wasn't planning on keeping him, let alone putting him on the Souldoll body, so he's not matchy at all. Like, AT ALL. And having smokey eyes is too much black with those black eyes. But I'm really really liking him as is. He might get some card-themed tatts someday...and I have to get Uriel's angel mark off him (lol) but for now, that's what he looks like.
Together, yay!
Funnily enough, I never thought of them as a couple (I'm pro Jean\Logan) until now...because they're the only two there are, so they have no choice lol
This is the closest I've ever gotten to fanfic. I'm having so much fun with it I'm thinking of doing Nano again, with them, not my own characters. OMGWAT? I'm having serious art block with my own stuff right now...maybe this'll break it? Or make it worse?? Who knows. I'll probably write a few paragraphs, do some doodles, get bored and go back to my stuff.
New dolls! Yay!!
