WIP: Rogue, 6 Month Gap

I have a real weakness for the 6-Month Gap uniforms in the X-Men books, from X-Men 100 until what, 110? The story is: in 2000 or so, the X-Men movie comes out, and artist Leinil Francis Yu designs new costumes for everybody inspired by the leather look from the movie. Except he's really unfocused and ends up with some great traditional superhero looks; for some characters, the most iconic look they've ever had. But nobody remembers or wants to remember these books, because the writing was done by Chris Claremont, making his first return to the X-books. For year after Scott-Lobell year, fans said, "Bring Caremont back, he'll fix everything!" It was at this point that Claremont proved either that he had become a worthless hack, or that he had always been a worthless hack and no one had noticed for all those years.

Anyway, really bad comics but great designs, and my favorite Rogue costume. Here's a link to it on the old UncannyXmen.net site. It's her only costume with an X motif, and uses her traditional colors. I really wanted to do this custom using the newest Rogue figure, the XTreme X-Men outfit toy that Toybiz did in its last gasps of the Marvel license. But that toy has these really tight hip joints that were going to paint rub like crazy. In contrast, Marvel Legends 6 Phoenix matches the colors of this costume in nearly every joint. It's kind of an old sculpt, only the second ML female, and parts like the shoulders can't hold up to modern figures... but no paint rub!



Here's the custom about five minutes in. The head and neck of an XTreme Rogue have been hacked off and glued to a Phoenix torso. I've painted a slightly darker green on the legs and arms, and added the beginning of the X in white. I've got a plan for the hair, and I can tell I'll have to sand the shoulders to avoid rub there. The original design, according to some pamphlet Marvel put out at the time, was meant to be evocative of the movie by having the yellow represent heavy leather boots and gloves. I may build up the rim of the yellow zones with rubber bands to reflect this... and also to add some complexity to a repaint. Regardless, the custom should come together pretty quickly.