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 It never ceases to amaze me , that subtle spark of inspiration that compels me to create ; this time initiated by the acquisition of a really really skinny Pallisades' Action Figure of Dr. Aki Ross from the film " Final Fantasy : The Spirits Within " . I absolutely hated it , despite the fact that there were bits and pieces that I really liked . In the end she has served as fodder . I did not like the body but must admit , the articulation was nice . I would imagine that the combination of aspects of this figure , the extreme thinness , the rigidity of the sculpting and the almost inhuman " alien-ness " of the overall look of the Pallisades body was really what gave me the notion to turn this figure into my robot girl Bim . That , and I thought it would be fun to pair up a robotic sidekick with my " Cyberhuntress : The Robot Killer " custom . Aside from the stock body , just about everything to create Bim will have to be handmade , so she will serve nicely as a " how to " project for those of you who might have similar ideas and no idea how to approach the problems presented within a custom such as Bim . Be warned , this section will be pic heavy .   Bim was created during the days of Hajima Sorayama's introductory craze to the United States , whose un-robot like " sexy robots " combined the hard edged look of chrome with the standard Pin Up girl . The only aspect that truly defines her as a non-human as far as her physiognomy goes is that her nose has no nostrils , aside from that she is a fairly typical female head sculpt . When it comes to sculpting a portrait , I tend to do eyelids and galluses ( those cute little puffs of flesh beneath the eyes ) . This time out I have eliminated those in keeping with a look that is more hard edged , despite being very soft and feminine . The pursed lips are merely a typical affectation I would adopt whenever I drew Bim . As is typical for me , I have executed the head sculpt in Super Sculpey , primarily for its ease of use and speed . There's not much new in the manner that I sculpt a head that differs from my earlier tutorial on head sculpts aside from the size , being 1/6th .  Since I began with Bim's head , my first decision concerned the head attachment to the body . Since I had executed the head in sculpey , a rigid form once cured I would need to devise an attachment system that would work with the rigid plastic of the body as well as that of the head . My solution was to use magnets . Having sculpted the head on the end of a pencil , my neck joint hole was already begun , and only needed a bit of widening with the dremel to enlarge it to accept the magnet . I then needed to create a steel neck cap that would serve as the locking mechanism to attach the head . These I had from an earlier custom using a " mag warrior " , the arm and leg cups specifically . I used an X-acto to trim down the neck and then slipped the cup over the neck . Magnets work very nicely for seamless attachments . Bim wears a breastplate , so I also used magnets to attach the front and back sections of her breatplate , allowing a nice tight fit that can also be easily removed . Since she is a " robotic lifeform " , cutting in the holes on her torso to fit the magnets is in keeping with her articial nature so won't look out of place once she is finished ; it will be incorporated into her design . This is the positive aspect of the abnormally skinny Pallisades body design , the breastplate does not look overly bulky on the thin torso , and is in keeping with her original design concept .   The breastplate can certainly be handled in a variety of ways . It can be made from plastic heated and formed to shape over a rigid mold , cut from sheet metal and hammered and bent to shape , or as in the case in point , sculpted . I have used sculpey really for the meer fact that it was handy , and my plans for the breastplate required I use a material that could be easily modified through construction . The choice of material is not that important , for a piece like this the finish is as much a matter of paint and surface finish moreso than actual construction material . As far as steps to achieve , using sculpey is a far more expedient method as the prototyping goes .  Super Sculpey is a fairly durable material when cured . I've got pieces that have lasted decades despite years of handling . Once it has been painted and sealed , it is fairly resilient and won't deteriorate unless it is forcibly compromised . Due to the fact that Bim'sa breastplate is removeable , thusly prone to much more wear and tear than a typical piece , I have built it up over a wire mesh . The wire mesh serves a dual purpose . 1 : as a base , it can be formed to shape over the doll's torso , thereby allowing a tight conforming fit . 2 : with the sulpey pressed on over it , the sculpey impresses into the mesh distributing the stress points and making the breastplate much stonger . compared to a straight application of sculpey without a base support . Small , thin pieces of steel are cemented into grooves dremeled into the backside of the breatplate ; these will serve as the anchoring plates for the magnetic attachment system .  There are quite a few " how to's " covering the best method when scupting in sculpey , and one of the predominate ones is to save baking until AFTER you've finished the piece . This is good advice to a certain extent , but for a piece like Bim's breatsplate this is not a technique I would advise . The reasons are several , there are a lot of layers to the detailing and two different section that need to fit together almost seamlessly , and it needs to have a hard metallic surface ; to name but a few . The basic form is created in the first step , which will give you a solid surface to work over . This cured base can then be cut , sanded and filed down more to further perfect the form , and since it has already been hardened you need not worry about smudging your initial work . It is also much easier to obtain crisp hard edged detailing with thinner application of sculpey over a rigid form . With each separate application of sculpey , you will want to sand down the finish , so each of your successive applications will be smoother and finer making the finishing surfave prep that much easier and that much more smooth . By the end , the surface will be easily painted and finished to achieve that metallic appearance . A brief note on the grooves cut into Bim's head . Once the initial head sculpt is completed , the head is partially cured . This makes the head hard , but not fully so , akin to greenware . A needle is then used to score the grooves into the surface , making a crisp clean cut without any chipping that could occur with a fully cured material . The carving of the neck and jawline on the otherhand , were done AFTER the head was fully cured . The primarily reason for this is to allow hard cuts of a much deeper nature in contrast to the shallow grooves of the scalp scoring .  Not exactly thrilled with the Aki Ross body as a base for Bim , I had the opportunity to snag a clear Hasbro GI Jane body and decided to use that instead , opting in the bargain to redesign my robot girl . Having originally been inspired by the Sexy Robots of Hajime Sorayama when first developing Bim I have decided to revisit those roots with her creation in 1:6 scale .  Combining mediums has always been a favored technique of mine since different materials provide different effects . By combining model kit parts in conjunction with toy bits and scratchbuilt pieces the overall appearance of the custom is enhanced since there are some aspects , especially with a subject such as a robot girl , that are just extremely difficult to achieve using one singular medium such as sculpey for example .  The clear Jane body , the flesh colored sculpey head , the dark grey access port at the back of the head and the pale green model kit parts that make up Bim's aural receptors can be rather distracting when reviewing the custom in process . In order to gain a better view of the work as it proceeds removing all the color is quite helpful . Also , since I will more than likely rethink Bim's color scheme while I am redesigning her , these shots will be much easier to colorize when I reach the point where I begin to finalize that aspect of her . Oh , BTW , yes those are indeed real Philips head screws that bolt her aural receptors to her skull .   Apparently , yes . When I first created Bim , I figured that like people her robotic race would also wear clothing in order to cover up their metallic nakedness , so it was always my intention to create a suitable set of clothes for her . Her original incarnation was basically a metal bikini bottom and a breastplate ( no cups on the breast part though , her boobs were exposed , GO FIGURE ! ) As I have continued with this figure I decided to continue the " robot clothing " theme and stole the skirt from my 1/48th scale Soltic mecha since I felt it could work as a suitable miniskirt for Bim once I removed the crotch area on it . I need to go in with some kneadatite to fill in the gaps at the waistline , and then install a magnetic attachment system along the seams of the front and back halves of the skirt .  Side by side with a Cool Girl , just to show how Bim compares to a normal 1:6 action girl . I plan on outfitting Bim with a Battle Suit but wish to try to maintain a very " girlish " appearance to it . I scavenged some pod covers from a 1/144 scale Japanese Mecha thingy that will be used as breast covers for her new breastplate ( I guess she's grown modest over the 20 odd years since her original creation . ) It is my hope to be able to bash a majority of her costuming and detailing from model kits . KANAE from MWD recently reposted some shots of his custom Battle Angel Alita that I found extremely inspirational and there are a lot of things he did in his creation of Alita that I hope to be able to incorporate in Bim . | Mail-O-Rama | Geeb's How To | Head Sculpts Using Polymer Clay | Customizing The Batcycle | 1/6 scale diorama | terrain diorama | 1/6 Scale Boots | Re-Rooting Hair | BimBott | Read_A_Book | WorksInProgress | Aki Ross Repaint | Gun-Bashing | painting heads | | Return Home | Updates | The Archive | Gorby Site Map | Geeb-O-Rama's Model Workshop | Geeb's Toy Box | Geeb-O-Rama Goodies | Movie Madness | World Of The Bizarre | Cool Beans | |
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