Hey all! To those who missed me and were looking forward to more entries in my more-than-complete Guardians of the Galaxy, sorry for skipping the last few days. I needed a break from life, and I took some wonderful days off with my girl! Anyway back now, and to make it up to you a little, I'm posting two figures in the set! First up, the Celestial Madonna, the precognitive mentat master of the Guardians, the lovely, the deadly, the green . . . Mantis!

Though she was sorta one of the founding members of the modern Guardians, she wasn't really part of the starting lineup, mostly relegated to support duty on the Knowhere station. As a result, I actually finished her last, just a week or so ago. But, seeing as she's such a long-standing member of the team, I decided she should be added to the site early on, so here she it for your amusement.

Everyone hates painting joints, particularly those pesky ball joints at the hips and shoulders. As a general rule, if I'm making a custom figure, I'm going to chose as a base, first and foremost, a figure that has these major joints cast in the same color plastic as the character I'm building. Mantis has dark blue shoulders and green hips, so I picked two figures and combined them into one: the Invisible Woman from the ToyBiz Fantastic Four box set for the upper body, and Hasbro's Skrull Elektra for the bottom. The head was from a DCUC Star Sapphire (the body went to a later figure in this set), and the skirt was multiple strips of craft foam sheet, already the color I needed. Everything else on the figure was LocTite epoxy putty and paint. Pretty easy, overall. Only problem I had with the build was that her left wrist hinge broke during sculpt, and I had to glue it in. No biggie, she still maintains wrist rotation, but it's slightly disappointing.

As a side note, I'm particularly proud of her weight balance. That fourth pic, that didn't require any string or Photoshop, she is totally able to balance on one foot in a high kick pose!

Excelsior!