Not even a year ago, Scott Modrzynski and a cadre of artists unleashed on the world The ColleXion, a series of trading cards featuring X-Men characters ranging from Cyclops to No-Girl. The experience was so nice, they had to do it twice.
Actually, to hear Modrzynski tell it, it wasn’t so much nice as it was stressful.
“I was totally burnt out at the end of The ColleXion,” Modrzynski said. “The planning had snags I didn’t anticipate. The design, the concept – I have a healthy amount of self-doubt, so that followed me up until the last set was packed and shipped.”
And yet, here we are again.
“The response reinvigorated me,” he said of that first set. “The cards sold out in a few hours. I shared the project’s scope and results with my HR department and all the higher powers I have some working relationship with, and they were super responsive to matching my total donation (to the Equal Justice Initiative). Relatively speaking, $1,500+ is not a lot of money, but I was high on the feeling that we pulled this together and were able to bring a small measure of good into the world.”
For Series II, subtitled “RefleXions,” more than three-dozen artists — a mix of veterans from the first series and new ones — were challenged to play up the duality of 79 of their favorite characters. Rather than present stats and fun facts as the first set did, each card features the heroic side of each mutant on the front, and their darker reflection on the back. Think Marvel Girl and Dark Phoenix, Angel and Archangel, Beast and … well, ol’ Hank’s pretty much a supervillain these days, isn’t he?
“In thinking of a Series II, I didn’t want to see the same characters, or at least the same versions of characters, that we had in Series I,” Modrzynski said. “It’s one of the reasons I was stoked to get Weapon X instead of standard Wolverine for the initial project. If we ever went another round, we’d have at least one A-lister to include that hadn’t been rendered before.”
Also there’s Mikhail Rasputin, which he’s pretty jazzed about.
“Rehabilitate this man,” Modrzynski said. “He’s a national hero and an astronaut who suffers from PTSD. Get him help!”
Among the artists who contributed were three of ComicsXF’s own: Adam Reck, Karen Charm and Kenneth Laster. Check out their process shots below.
Adam Reck: Angel / Archangel
Karen Charm: Marrow
Kenneth Laster: Apocalypse / Blue Dad
Finally, we asked Quinn Hesters (aka @BrickheadzX on Twitter) about how he created his trademark digital Lego designs for S.W.O.R.D. standout and favored Magneto henchman Peeper:
“The original ColleXion was really creator-driven, but this time around it felt even more so. The first time around, two of the three characters I did were assigned to me, whereas this time I came up with the ideas of all three, and even proposed some characters to Scott that were done by other artists. Partway through the project, S.W.O.R.D. #1 came out, and I was introduced to Peeper, a delightfully bizarre Jack Kirby villain who cleaned himself up and was recruited into Krakoa’s space program. He fit perfectly with the ‘good and evil’ theme of ‘The ColleXion: RefleXions,’ and I immediately asked Scott if I could do him.
“Both of Peeper’s designs are really simple. The biggest thing that separates them from most of my other figure builds (besides the massive eyes) are that I removed the neck and shortened their legs to get that sort of ‘Igor’ vibe that Peter Quinn gives off. I built the first version of each figure using the LEGO Digital Designer program, which is pretty crude and low-rez, but easier for me to use overall. Then I imported them to Bricklink’s stud.io program, where I was able to add pieces with custom prints and render the builds to the point where they looked like something physical.
“This time around, I experimented with building ‘sets’ around some of my figures. For the first ColleXion, I’d render the individual figures as PNGs with transparent backgrounds. I would then construct the environments separately, using a mix of both LEGO and non-LEGO elements arranged in layers on PowerPoint. When the environments were complete, I’d just drag the figures into them. Think of it like an actor acting against a green screen, where everything around them is added afterwards. However, this approach didn’t always seem completely convincing to me, so this time I built floors and walls out of LEGO pieces in the same file as the figures for some of my cards. This meant that I could have more organic, real-looking shadows, and even do things like having a hologram table that projected blue light onto Peeper’s face.
“Speaking of the holotable, I was able to throw in a pretty neat Easter egg: Neosaurus. Neosaurus is this member of the Shi’ar Imperial Guard who shows up in one issue of Grant Morrison’s New X-Men, and something about his obscurity draws me to him. For the first ColleXion, I asked Scott if I could do a Neosaurus card as a sort of nod to super-obscure characters that were better known for their trading cards than actual appearances in comics, and he politely said no. So I snuck Neosaurus into a card as a hologram that Peeper is looking at, like he’s a fugitive of S.W.O.R.D. or something. There are a few other Easter eggs in my cards as well. Fans of the Chamber miniseries should keep their eyes open for a reference to a certain character from that.
Other artists contributing to The ColleXion: RefleXions are Brendan Albetski, Ryan Barr, Bradley Clayton, Josh Cornillon, Brandon Deichler, Andrew Drilon, B Hughes, Joshua Nelson, Kevin Newburn, Lee Nycz, Michael O’Shields, David Powell, Jeff Somogyi, Amanda Stewart, Erle Tompkins, Leigh Wortley, Elisa Barety, BeefcakeBoss, Marcelo Biott, Emma Burges, Elliot Dickson, Roberto Duque, Chris Enterline, Dave Hulteen Jr., Monika Norcross-Cerminara, Michael Pope, Mike Segawa, Dave Shevlin, Heri Shinato, Jean Sinclair, Valentine Smith, Matt Speroni, Taylor, Jeremy Thew and Sergio Torres.
The ColleXion: RefleXions is available on Gumroad. Ninety-nine physical sets will be sold, proceeds from which will benefit the Equal Justice Initiative, a nonprofit that provides legal representation to prisoners who may have been wrongly convicted of crimes, poor prisoners without effective representation, and others who may have been denied a fair trial.
Dan Grote is the editor-in-chief of ComicsXF, having won the site by ritual combat. By day, he’s a newspaper editor, and by night, he’s … also an editor. He co-hosts WMQ&A: The ComicsXF Interview Podcast with Matt Lazorwitz. He lives in New Jersey with his wife, two kids and two miniature dachshunds, and his third, fictional son, Peter Winston Wisdom.
