Marvel’s Mad Thinker and his Awesome Android, which he gleefully admits he stole from Reed Richards. Proving that even the junkiest figure can be put to good use, the Android is based on a horrible X-Man Beast. As the WIP pic shows, I ground down his tiny head to become a neck. The head is the torso of a MIB fast food toy. I cut the body across and elongated with layers of card, then drilled into the tops of his thighs and socketed in dowels to make him taller. I then then padded the tiny waist and pelvis with layers of duct tape. I ground off all the straps and junk, fused four fingers into two and added crunchy fingernails, then cut the iron boots short and made chunky toes with nails. I covered him with Home Depot Concrete Patch, a bargain at $4 a tube. The first tube had grit, but the second was just a smooth gray caulking. The stuff is terrific, easy to apply, sets slowly for sculpting. Get it smooth and you won’t need to sand. (Obviously I didn’t go for smooth here.) I then painted various grays and washed with black. He’s tilted so far forward he needs a base to counter-balance. The Thinker was some cartoon guy with a great glare and scowl, but a narrow head. I split his skull down the middle (Ouch!) and sandwiched in thick card. His hair is plastic string, thick in back, thin at the temples. (Comes from Michael’s. Girls use it to make friendship bracelets.) He already wore a jumpsuit, so I layered on liquid sprue. (What the heck is that? Trick from a modeling mag. Take a bottle of model cement, the kind with a built-in brush. Cut chunks of Evergreen plastic and dissolve in the bottle. In a week you get liquid plastic you can apply like paint. It dries smooth and firm (not real hard), saves sanding. You just need to allow extra time and apply thin layers over days. One modeler keeps three bottles going, one thin, one medium, one thick. Try it.) His collar is a tube. His hands are clenched in anger (he’s MAD) from a Chuck Norris. Unlike the comic depiction, he ends up with a freakishly large head and hands, which fits the persona. Thinker is 4.5 inches, AA is like 8 inches.