Home-Made Legion Club-House

Editors' Note: Today we here at the Legion of Super-Bloggers would like to present a "How To" lesson from Ultra Legion fan Emsley Wyatt. He contacted us recently with some photographs of his home-made Legion of Super-Heroes Club-House. We thought everyone would like to have a look at his creativity, and he gladly sent us the following essay. 


My Legion Club-House Model
by Emsley Wyatt

When I was a youngster, I read a lot of comics. There were many science fiction titles, such as Strange Adventures, Space Ranger, Tommy Tomorrow, etc. There were many super-hero comics; too numerous to mention. But among them, The Legion of Super-Heroes was unique, as they were the only comic to feature super-heroes in a science fiction setting. I recently came across my stash of old Legion comics, and finding them was like encountering twenty-plus old friends who you hadn't seen in decades.

I build models as a hobby and I figured it would be fairly easy to do a model of the Legion's Super-Hero Club-House. The first difficulty was that the clubhouse seemed to change size and shape depending perhaps on who the artist was for any given story. I decided to use as my starting point the appearance of the club-house as it was shown on the cover of Adventure Comics #300, the debut of the first Legion of Super-Heroes on-going feature.

 

 I  extrapolated the measurements based on the standard height of a door and came up with seven inches as the height I wanted to target. I found a plastic drinking glass for $2.50 and fit the bill as far as height. The width was a little off, but, hey, you can't have everything.

Note the height of the figure to set the scale of the Club-House

The fins for the top of the Club-House were made from simple sheet plastic, laminated to double thickness. I also had to build a cap piece for the structure, also from laminated sheet plastic. The base was made from the plastic lid of a candy container. The "skirt" and approaching path to the Club-House door were also made of sheet plastic.

The flag-pole is an aluminum tube with a map pin at the top and standard staples serving as the rigging hardware. The flag itself was printed from the internet after being sized appropriately. The flag-pole is removable.  The grass is model rail-road turf (another hobby of mine). It is secured with Future, an acrylic floor polish.

 

The Legionnaires are, for the most part, repainted "O" scale model rail-road figures, scavenged from my layout. The difficulty is finding figures that have the requisite "heroic" pose and are "generic" figures. Most rail-road figures are specific in nature (the cop, the mailman, the baggage handler, etc).

Many have their hands in their pockets, though super-heroes don't even HAVE pockets. But I've recently discovered "Heroclix" figures, which will give me more options. Mon-El was converted from a "Jason of Sparta" Guardians of the Galaxy figure, for example.

When I finish a figure, I super-glue him or her to a small square of acetate, scrape away the turf where it is be placed, glue him down, then "re-sod" over/near his feet. My plan is to do the Legionnaires, in rough order of admittance from the founders through Shadow Lass, the last new member inducted during the use of the Club-House. I would also include Timber Wolf, since his association with the Legion dates back much earlier. I might even sneak in Chemical King as well. Although his first appearance coincided with the new head-quarters, he could have credibly had his "try-out" in the old Club-House.

 

So there you have it, that's how Emsley Wyatt made his "do-it-yourself" Legion Club-House! 
Thanks, Emsley! 

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