Get Into Mod Mode!

Welcome back to Mod Mode!

Mod Mode is an article about modding - editing or creating a brand new sculpt and replacing that old sculpt you didn't feel was quite up to par on a Clix dial.

If you're interested in putting your own personal mark on your Clix experience, or just want to see how an idea can turn into reality, come on in. As my good friend Deckard Cain would say.. Stay a while and listen!

Issue 4: Mysterio's Illusions!

Welcome to Mod Mode Issue 4!

Welcome back to Mod Mode! This week, I'm going to try performing a magic trick - write an article that doesn't take half an hour to read! Hands down, hands down - I don't need assistance from the audience for this one (although I'd like to see some people show off their mods)! I thought it'd be sort of a nice treat for everyone to have a bit shorter read as a small break from our regularly scheduled wall of text.

For Issue 4, I thought it'd be fitting to mod some quick Mysterio bystanders to go along side the Sinister Six OP kit that recently released! I'll be going over how I did my custom bystanders (and I also made a "token" counter), which will actually be pretty quick. I think if anyone was looking for a "jumping on" point to modding, this would be a great one to start with. You don't need to do an exact replication of my mod by any means, but the basic idea for this one is just really ripping the sculpt off some extra Mysterio figs and gluing them on to their own base.


Here's that spoiler for my friends who want the TLDR:


Let's get started!


Welcome to the Grand Illusion
To start this one off, I busted out my completely legal version of Photoshop. I went and grabbed the WizKids preview image of Mysterio and cut the token out with the Elliptical Marquee Selection tool. I then created a new image that was 1.5"x1.5" and pasted and scaled the token to be the full size of the image.

I also made an "Illusion Token" bystander as sort of an experiment. At one point in my modding life, I completely recreated every layer of a bystander token in Photoshop, so I have a template saved that I can easily edit to create either custom bystanders or (in cases where I can't find a good image of a bystander) recreating an existing bystander.

As sort of a side note, if anyone ever is interested in any of my PSD files or if they just want the JPG files to print off their own bystanders, just shoot me a PM and I'll send it on over to ya.


Come On In And See What's Happening
I then made a new 4"x6" document and pasted in 4 of the bystanders and 2 of the Illusion Tokens so that I could have two sets of each (since something will usually go wrong somewhere). I've been printing off my bystanders on 4"x6" photo paper that I found at the dollar store, and it's been working pretty well.

Here's the Illusion Token:

And here's the sheet I printed off:

If you right click either of the images above and click "View Image" or just save the image, it should save and scale properly so that you can just print them out.

Here's the printed sheet:


Pay The Price, Get Your Tickets For the Show
For this mod, I'm basically using most of the things I've used in the previous issues. Most of what I'm using are from Issue 3. I'm using my clear acrylic discs for the tokens, the 1.5" diameter circle cutting tool thingy, and I'm bringing the magnets back.

OH! Mysterio. Almost forgot about him. My original plan was to hack a couple of ASM 026 Mysterio, but I was sad to find out that I didn't actually have any extras.. and then I found out that if I wanted to order some it'd be like 5 dollars each.. I found that I had some extra Ultimates Mysterio (049/050/051) and his sculpt is pretty cool even though he's old, so I used that. (Looking online, they're 50 cents to a dollar each, and if you can't find them, you can always try Ultimates 217 Quentin Beck - same sculpt).

My original idea also was to strip the paint off of the ASM figs and use the clear base without repainting it, I figured it'd be cool to have some translucent figures. Seeing as the Mysterio figs that I used are so old, I believe they aren't clear underneath, so I just left them as is. I didn't even use a knife to rip them off their original Clix bases, I just pulled them off and they came off pretty clean.


The Stage is Set, the Band Starts Playing
A few people had asked in the last article if I had considered recessing the magnets into either the base of the figures or into the discs themselves. Just to show how much I cares, I did both for this one.

I used my rotary tool (I used the medium drill bit) to drill holes into the discs and into the bottom of the Mysterio figures. The discs held up very well to the drilling (I was afraid maybe they'd crack or shatter, I have never been too sure if acrylic is closer to glass or plastic, even though it's a plastic). I went a little too far into one of the Mysterio figures and had to stack 3 magnets into him to fill the hole. As you can see in the pictures, I actually drilled the holes before unpeeling the paper from the top of the discs. I figured with this one that I may as well not peel the paper off until I'm finished gluing - that way, no overflow of super glue would really show up on the discs.

One thing here was I wasn't entirely sure how the holes would line up, since I didn't have the tokens down to see where I wanted them to be. If you note the Illusion counter I made, there is a spot for a figure on the right and left sides. I basically eyeballed it and hoped for the best when drilling the holes.



Here are the holes cut into both Mysterio figures:

I then glued all of the magnets into place. I glued the magnets into the two Mysterio figures.. if you remember back to the last issue, I had mentioned I sometimes get disoriented with the tiny magnets and end up gluing the wrong side down and they won't connect. To avoid this, I used a Sharpie to mark the bottom side of the magnets before I slotted them into the acrylic base. That way, I just had to make sure the silver side was face-up. I still need to find some plastic tweezers.

Here is a look at everything once the magnets were glued in:


Suddenly Your Heart Is Pounding
There's really not too much left to this mod. For the Pokemonicus mod in the last issue, I mentioned that I used Mod Podge to adhere the cut-out tokens face-up to the bottom of the acrylic discs. For this one, I decided to expirement, my girlfriend has this little "sticker making" machine, where you just roll your paper through and it becomes a sticker. I gave it a try and used it this week, but Mod Podge would have worked basically the same. Instead of Mod Podge, I just made the front of the bystanders into stickers and stuck them to the underside of the discs (after I pulled the paper off the top and bottom of the discs). They look virtually the same, but I didn't have to bust out any glue or brushes.

At this point, the mod is already done. I suppose I should clarify that my intention with the Illusion Token counter was just to have a place to keep track of the two Illusion tokens that Mysterio has. I thought it'd be fun to have them on one counter and then when you use them, just pull them off and stick 'em to the bystander tokens (yay magnets!).

You may notice in the pictures that there's some paper around the magnets on the bases. I have to go back and use my Xacto knife to cut them out - I figured out the disadvantage to not peeling off that paper before drilling!


Wishing Secretly You Were a Star
So, here's the finished product!



So, I had mentioned that I'd like to see if anyone else felt like trying their hand at this one. I realize most people don't have some of this stuff (magnets or acrylic discs) just sitting around. In my early days, for bases I would either just print out bystanders and glue them to the top of poker chips and then glue the figure on top, or I'd actually glue them to the top covers of 1 gallon water jugs. They are a surprisingly convenient size. You also don't need to use magnets.. I like to, but you can really just glue the suckers down, they probably won't go anywhere anyways. I really hope that through this series, people will feel comfortable enough to try their own hand at modding.

Thanks for sticking with me with this article series. The feedback I've received each week has been very exciting to read and hearing that people are enjoying the series has really made me glad I'm writing it. I will always welcome any feedback, good or bad. I'm also open to requests of what you'd like to see!

Hopefully this one was a bit of an easier/lighter read!

Look forward to Issue 5 in two weeks, where I'll be doing something less Mysterio(us)! Until then, thanks for reading!

Plastic coin cases work well especially ig you go the magnet rout. You can switch out different pogs and figures. This is really awesome.

I think it would be cool to create and print a dial top like you see on the toys and spider bots, but in a regular size. Then just attach it to a plastic base and glue on the miniature. I think it would give a more uniform look.

I really like the use of magnets as a means of attaching figures to a base. My previous mods used a basic peg/hole method, but has the potential to cause wear and no longer stay in place if taken on and off too often. I've even already got some of them.

A legal version of photoshop, that is completely unheard of. He's a witch!


Cool idea and article.

You bring the tar, I got the feathers.

(Nice article.)

Always appreciate these articles and as an aside, I imagine playing a match with you is a remarkable orderly and aesthetically pleasing experience.

This is awesome! Can you post something like this for all the current figures with bystanders? At least the way to print them out?

Way too much work. Wizkids should just up the quality of their sculpt design, and make the tokens the SPs require, in order to create more interest in the game. What mostly got me interested in the game was some of the better sculpts, but losing interest as they become more lackluster or not the right size (i.e. Bus stop SMWW Wonder Woman and bubble gum machine TT and JLTW Aquaman; tiny Hercules and Rhino; lackluster Dr. Strange and BM Batman sculpts; about all Spider-man sculpts; and some Superman and Hulk sculpts).

really dig the formatting this way

Another great article and props for using Grand Illusion lyrics! #styx #favband #sotd

Very nice, love the magnets and acrylic discs.

Those look really cool but I don't have the skill to make them.

I agree that WK needs to up its production, but that just makes me admire great mod work all the more. Particularly, I thought SMWW had horrendous and tired sculpts. I'd say 5 good ones in the set, not counting colossals.

I love me some magnets. For the dial top, I'm a little confused about what you mean - do you mean create a black dial template and just fill in the boxes for each bystander?


Yeah, I had originally used magnets as a way of making things seem a bit less permanent if I wanted to swap a figure later, but I quickly found out that it also protects figures from breaking off and really makes the whole thing last a lot longer.



Thanks! I uh.. I may have.. "exaggerated" the legality of my Photoshop.. maybe.. just a little.


Haha, thanks! It's actually a bit of a cluster*#&$ when I play. I get a bit disoriented around other people, so I'm always tracking down where I put my dice after I rolled 'em.


Thanks! I could try to resize all of them from their Print n Play pages, but it would be a bit time consuming. I'll try to get around to it though!


Wasn't sure if anyone was gonna pick up on that, haha. Thanks for pointing it out, and thanks again for the complements!


I think my biggest gripe with SMWW was the reuse for the common/uncommon/rare etc.. like with Wonder Woman.. couldn't even repose her? I understand this to some degree.. like with new sets having things like ID cards and ClixFX, Build-A-Clix, etc.. they are probably allocating some of their budget to the additional things they're including and trying to cut corners where they can (using the same sculpt pretty often)..

As much as I would like them to include 3D bystanders instead of printing them on the back of the card, it would probably up the cost of the OP Kits a bit more, and most people don't want that. It's also interesting how they sometimes choose to include pogs and sometimes just show the bystander on the card.. Dormammu, for example, came with a pog. They could easily have fit two pogs on one punch-out card for Mysterio, but chose to just print it on the card instead. I'm sure there's some method to their madness, but I can't figure it out.