Crucible City "Classic" Gallery

Status Markers (current as of the last few months the game was open in 2007...after June 2007, none are active anymore):

• A - Active, as far as I know.
• F - In the Freezer (set aside in favor of another character, but may come back eventually.)
• N - Nuked, either for idleness, because the player makes more characters than they can keep active and freezered, or just outright sitebanned. I may mark one Nuked if they have a non-obvious alias and aren't under their codename when I +finger them. I'll use N? in such a case.
• NPC - Non-Player Character or unit.

• A Myrmidon *: A revision of an older character of the same name for Mutants and Masterminds MUX, now with a more mythical bent. My main character on Crucible City MUX. Actually the third character I've made with that name, general color scheme and green energy blades since 1987.
  • A Myrmidon* and Kiryu*: An attempt to use HeroMachine2 to approximate Myrmidon and Kiryu.
  • "Family Matters": Story about Myrmidon's parents.
• N Manitou: A friend's character on Crucible City MUX. She's 8 feet tall and possessed by a shamanistic spirit. Think She-Hulk and Wyatt Wingfoot's daughter.
• N Seraphim: Another Crucible City denizen, an angel of light. Tried using gold gel pens on some details, but all my gold gel pens were dying, so it didn't work so well.
• N Reaper: Counterpoint to Seraphim, Reaper is a darkness-shrouded scythe-swinger from CCMUX. This is mostly a painted work (pencils, then inks, then paint and a little colored pencil on the skintones). The cloak is made of shadow, which is why it sort of blends.
• N Reaper 2: A second design for Reaper, although in this costume she may not keep the name. Design sketch. 3/27/04.
• A Kiryu *: My secondary character on CCMUX, he's a 1/144 scale prototype for a Mecha-Godzilla-sort of war machine. Isn't he cute? Twined around Manitou's arm. 5/27/04.
  • Japanese characters for Kiryu.
  • Kiryu and a self-replicating cube.
  • LOL Kiryu.
• N Inazuma: A kitsune in search of redemption. Same player as Reaper. 6/4/04.
• N Ion: Magnetic-powered young hero. Pencils. 6/19/04.
• F Meeba: Silly-putty-like shapeshifting artificial life form. I used no inks on this, went straight from pencils to a variety of pink markers. 7/2/04. (Disclaimer: not exactly how Meeba's player sees the character looking.)
• N Pix: A 12" tall young woman with dragonfly wings and a psychedelic pixie dust attack. Pencils for the art, prior to some tweaks. 8/13/04
• N Alpha Girl: Your basic flying brick, this is only one of many costumes she wears. And yes, the pose/background is an homage to the cover of Superman #1 (1938). Pencils of a rough design sketch sent to the player for corrections (mostly to the boots and the chest star) before doing the final piece. 8/14/04
• N? Sniper: Sort of a cross between Batman and Green Arrow, with a SUPAR STAELTH JET (which may or may not be shown in this picture, you be the judge!). 8/20/04 (Note: has changed name to Mercury, no longer uses this costume.)
• A Vanir: Gravity power sort, in blue leather. Uses miniature black holes as his main attack. 8/21/04
• N Puppy: Supernaturally lucky shapeshifter who really likes the color orange. The "after Foglio" scrawled in the corner refers to the fact I took the basic pose/setup from Foglio's art for the Shadowfist card "Charmed Life". 8/22/04 (estimated)
• N Amp: Lightning-caster. Goofed up on the boots, they're supposed to be white, oops. And the face doesn't look as good in the final version as in the penciled version. 11/29/04
• N Jessamine: Fae magician and sexy librarian. The buxom hourglass look is a little outside my normal style, so I had to go through a few tries before getting it right. 12/19/04
• N Corporal Freedom: Corporal is just part of his codename, he's not actually regular army or otherwise in the military CoC. His electro-rifle is named Amber Waves, and has telescoping stock and fold-out handle for steadier use. He's otherwise your basic supersoldier. Design sketch, dropped the leg stars. 1/5/05. Nuked a few days later.
• N Sprite: A very pale Irish/Japanese schoolgirl gadgeteer with a talking sealpoint siamese cat (with hands) named Catloaf. This one didn't work out as well as I'd have liked, especially my attempt to lighten the skin after being let in on that detail. Original colors can be seen here, and this is the design sketch. 1/28/05. (Note: renamed to Tiger Kitten and got new costume in June 2005. Also adopted the Angel of Mercy identity for solo activities. Re-renamed to Jade Phoenix in September 2005, got new power set. She's the Janet Van Dyne of the Guardians.
• N Wildfire: A British/Amazigh (Berber) mix with superspeed and fire powers, plus a real thing for grayscale in both powers and wardrobe. :) I painted the flames in several shades of gray after inking the figure, so the paint covered some lines. In this pose, she's slamming to a stop hard enough that her flames are peeling away in sheets, normally she's concealed behind them. 2/26/05.
• A Captain Crucible: An avatar of the city, made of concrete, asphalt, steel and glass. Member of the Guardians of Crucible City. Design sketch, I ended up replacing the shoulderpads (meant to protect the people he hits) with a cape at the player's request, and beefing him up. 5/13/05.
• N Lone Star: Light-controlling Texan. Design sketch. 6/24/05.
• N Pip: Shrinking, kinetic-blasting former gymnast. Design sketch. 7/12/05.
• A Tamin: Android marriage counselor transferred into a combot's body. Super-strong and fast, and able to do things like sprout rollerblades (which are not sharp, that's just a speedline-like effect). Design sketch. 7/24/05.
• A Jade Tiger: Design sketch only so far. Martial artist with optional armor. Insane enough to adopt Sprite/Miko. 7/19/05.
• A Shadowdancer: Naamah, a half-succubus mystical sort who hunts demons. And is hot. Initial pencils where I guessed wrong about a few costume details not visible in the player's official sketch. Final pencils, after player input. Not exactly her current costume design in any version, but she's been changing it. 12/16/05.
• A Ink: Just a quick headshot sketch for now. She's a human/octopus blend. The Chinese hair buns hide two of her tentacles. 12/16/05. Sketch of full body, didn't do a final pic since she has a mutation storyline coming up, so I'll wait and try my hand at the new look. Also, she should have swirly patterns on her skin, but my plan was to paint those on the final picture, so I didn't bother in the sketch. Ink should be a bit thinner than I drew her.
• F Mister Marvelous: Your basic "Superman on a budget" character, he's noticed something and is sweeping the area with his Penetrating Vision. Background and colors almost exclusively Prismacolor markers (haven't bought a brown one yet, so used a non-Prismacolor marker for that) and white paint marker. Yes, his face is a little weird, it looked fine in pencils but I must have slipped half a millimeter somewhere in inking. Oh, and he's twisting around, which is why the right half of his cape isn't really visible, it's folded back as he twirls. 2/2/06.
• A Genie: She's a djinn, what more to say? Initial sketch, and then a second one done after some consultation with the player. 8/3/06.

• NPC Fenris Walker: A kitbash using a plastic mecha miniatures set, seen during the Earth-N (for Nazi) global plot. November 2003 was dominated by an invasion from a reality where the Nazis won, and this was one of their mecha. I filed down parts, connected them in ways not intended by the designers, and added a Mechwarrior soldier figure.
• N Manitou Heroclix - Made from a She-Hulk (Rookie) base with extensive putty additions.
• A Myrmidon Heroclix * - The clickbase is rookie Nightwing, the figure is the Mage Knight Immortal Zealot with the crest taken from the Mage Knight Infantry Captain. Putty used for the tunic and visor. In my original character drawing, the tunic was draped over the left shoulder, but I had to cover up a big shoulderpad on the right shoulder of the Zealot. Myrmidon does not have Nightwing's ranged attack, but he does have a "move by" ability that I suppose could be used to represent the ranged attack...jump in, attack, jump back.
• A Myrmidon Action Figure *: Built up from a Mission Vision Flash. The belt is from a GI Joe figure, the energy blade from a Gundam, and the tunic from plastic undersheeting for a mattress. I used thin clear plastic sheeting for the visor. View without tunic. 5/9/04.
• A Kiryu Clix * - The base figure is the mount from a Shyft Serpent Sniper, with the limbs of a Whirling Golem added on. The backpack is made from styrene sheet and rod pieces. The barbels are a single piece of copper wire shoved through a hole drilled in the snout, and the antlers are painted on a partially-cut sheet of clear plastic.
• N Pix Mini - When I noticed that the Twi'lek Bodyguard figure from the Star Wars plastic minis game looked like a pole dancer, I had to mod one into Pix. I repositioned the staff to be more like a pole (or cheerleader baton) and made wings from clear plastic sheet. Done some time in fall 2004.
• N Chibi Muriel - Muriel aka Ismene is a sphinx. This is not how she actually looks. Consider it how her merchandising might look. I had a leftover knockoff My Little Pony from another project, and thought it might go with a knockoff Bratz head...and it did! I also got an 88 cent lion from Wal-Mart for the tail. I deliberately slopped on a goopy base coat of white to get the fur effect. Cost of raw materials: 44 cents for one of the MLP knockoff two-pack, 50 cents for clearanced pseudo-Bratz, 88 cents for the lion. :)
• F Monolith Heroclix - Ian turns into living steel, but without the panel lines, so I used Tamiya putty to smooth out the arms. I also cut off the various X-Men logos, and used more putty to make his hair a bit messier. The eyes are blank white.
• N Bullet Heroclix - Northstar just needed goggles (crafted from a bit of semi-cylindrical styrene rod) and long hair (Squadron putty) to get the right form, and then a shiny metal costume.
• N Tiger Kitten - Sprite's new identity used when she works with the Guardians, built from a Batgirl (animated series) action figure. 7/28/05.
  • Front and back
  • Closeup of figure
  • Comparison to original
  • In action!