 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Archive |
Site Map |
Model Workshop |
Toy Box |
Goodies |
Madness |
Of The Bizarre |
Beans |
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
Home |
Archive |
Site Map |
Model Workshop |
Toy Box |
Goodies |
Madness |
Of The Bizarre |
Beans |
 |
|
Having found a great head sculpt for my Cool Girl custom action figure of AC's She-Cat , as well as doing a bit of resewing on CG Ice's jacket to use as our favorite feral femme fatale's trademark Heike designed outer wear , all that really remained was 'Cat's romper . The Cutie Honey outfit was nicely suited , having all the pertinent styling for a simple customization .My big problem was that I had already customized my Cutie Honey togs for the Kumi figure . No problem , eventually it'd show up at eBay ; and it did . Lucky me , an auction came up for TWO of Cutie's jumpsuits and I got 'em . So here she is , in a rough draft , the legs have been removed from the Cutie suit , but the new hemline has yet to be sewn , still need to sew up her red boots and take off the collar and straps from the suit as well as do up a mask and repaint the gloves ; but she's lookin' more and more like the irrascible alter ego of Jessica Hunt . Stay tuned to Geeb-O-Rama for further updates on the creation of my second AC Custom Action Figure .   Mask Experiments
Superheroes are typically disguising their actual identities behind masks , of one sort or another , be it a simple half mask or a full head mask . In the arena of customizing this can present a bit of a problem , how to go about creating a removeable face mask . Previously I had executed a half mask for the character of Kumi by a simple trimming of the Barbie Batgirl doll mask . For my custom action figure of Ghost Tiger I utilized a combination of Cool Girl Chrome sunglasses with the helmet of the Cycom Ninja . Both of these were very simple customizations . For my Nightveil custom I am experimenting with creating a half mask from the sanded down and trimmed face from a Barbie Doll head , that I will then either paint or cover with fabric . She-Cat , however , has a rather distinctive half mask with long " ear " wings extending out past her temples and " cheek " wings . The only 12 inch action figure with a similarly styled mask is the Marvel Wolverine figure . Since I don't have that figure available to kitbash I was left with the dilemna of constructing She-Cat's mask from scratch . I have been considering this quandary for some time . I had thought about using sheet brass , bent and hammered to shape , the negative to this is that while flexible , metal can be bent . I had toyed with the idea of using fabric stiffener . I had also considered sculpting it from Kneadatite since when cured Kneadatite has a very plastic-like consistency . I had even thought about using acrylic paint built up slowly over a template and then peeled off since it too , when dry has a plasticity to it . None of these ideas seemed to be truly workable in the long term as regards stability and stress over the long haul . The mask needs to have a certain amount of form fitting shape and flexibility and none of these ideas appeared to incorporate all aspects necessary in conjunction . I hit upon the idea to utilize the plastic used in the trays of action figures to hold the figure and its accessories since it had both the tensile strength and the flexibility I was seeking . Additionally , if you heat it with a hair dryer , you can soften it up enough to reshape it ; the new shape is retained once it cools down again . Of course the sheer complexity of She-Cat's mask design definitely puts a different spin on this technique , but it seemed the most viable alternative so I decided to try an experiment . First I drew a pattern for the mask , which I then taped to a piece of tray plastic . I cut the shape out with scissors , and then removed the eyeholes with an X-acto knife . With this template I then heated the plastic with my hair dryer , bending and shaping as it heated up and got soft , by hand . The end result was not perfect , since there were some stress fractures and a few instances of asymetrical bending , but it did indeed work . It appears that with some additional tweaking , the mask pictured above could indeed prove to be a workable model , but since I am still not totally satisfied with my technique I am going to try a second experiment . Coming up in a future installment of my She-Cat custom will be my test of the above method using a sculpted form and inverted mold to press the heated plastic to shape . We'll see how that works .  Free forming the mask worked , but the inconsistency in the shaping process by hand led me to try the same process using a solid form . It took very little time to create since I was concerned mostly with creating the face section since that is where the tightest contouring needed to be to insure that the mask would fit tightly against the doll's face . I also created a negative push mold to fit over the positive form . The neat thing about this technique is that the plastic can basically be heated and reshaped as much as you may need or want to do . The negative push mold turned out to be redundant and not really necessary , as I ended up finessing the shaping process with wooden clay sculpting tools to press the plastic over the positive form for greater control . Once I had gotten the nose and brow sections of the mask shaped to a tight form fitting contour I then let that cool off and harden . I then made final adjustments to the ear and cheek wings by heating separately and reshaping by hand .  This experiment with creating a fairly distinctive face mask with such simple tools has been quite successful , opening up a great deal of potential for other masks and costuming details . I suppose the only drawback to this is that if you allow your custom work to become exposed to high heat all your work will be ruined . Chances are that is something that won't occur unless it is your intention .  One of the neatest things about the design of the Cool Girls are their boot feet . Compared to most other 12 inch action figure's footwear which typically consists of one piece molded plastic with very limited poseability at the ankles , Cool Girls have a heel and sole which screws onto the foot or shoe form , which is then covered with a boot sleeve . Not only does this allow great articulation , but also allows very simple boot diversity just be changing the sleeve . Boot sleeves themselves are very easy to make and really look better than their simple construction might lead you to believe when compared to the standard rubber molded shoes of Barbie or Dragon Models' footwear . The pleather material from Cutie Honey's pant legs that I removed to make 'Cat's body suit was re-used to make her boot sleeves . I did not need to make a pattern since the pant legs were already fit to the leg , I just used them upside down .  I adjusted the seam line at the back of the ankle to bring it in a little tighter at the top of the heel , and then sewed the toe of the bootsleeve , so that the top slips inside the pocket of the bootsleeve's toe . The material is then tucked inside the foot form and the heel and sole screwed onto the foot . I need to do some additional sewing to tighten up the fit at the arch of the boot , but for the most part , the right bootsleeve is finished . I'll repeat all this for the left bootsleeve .   Not that I'm that adverse at seeing joints , but some of the Femfans that have been following the customization process of the Cool Girl She-Cat have expressed that I use flesh colored lycra pantyhose to hide the joint articulation . My main views toward this method of disguising the articulation are mixed , it certainly performs the requirements , but the tradeoff of hiding the gaps of jointing is replaced by the wrinkles of fabric . Ah , well , it is just a toy after all .  Cool Girls come with a variety of alternate hands , so eventually as a collector , you'll end up with a veritable buttload of unused hands . I therefore had ample resources to use when I decided to change 'Cat's hands so that they had her " typical " clawing " pose . It's a fairly simple process , cutting off fingers with an x-acto knife , using a jewellers drill to make pin holes and then re-attaching the fingers on straight pin pegs on the hand . Shaving off the driving glove details from the hand and re-sculpting the trademark 'Cat fingerless gloves is another rather simple process using Kneadatite . I will be using the same plastic that I used to construct 'Cat's mask to make her long " cat claws " which will then be glued to her finger tips .   I happen to like Mark Heike's costume design for She-Cat , yet there are those Femfans out there that don't like the jacket she wears . Since I had removed her jacket in order to remove the remnant " Cutie Honey " straps from her top , I thought I'd have a bit of fun and put the half bustier from the Alternative Ruby CG on her to see how that would look as an Alternative FF2K version of the 'Cat costume . When I was pencilling Femforce , I would occasionally have 'Cat without her jacket , and gave her cat paw sleeves ; stereotypical perhaps but I liked them , and thought it made more sense for a fighter to have some sort of upper body padding over the strapless bustier type top that other pencillers gave 'Cat when her jacket was off . I like this alternative costume idea just because it has the elements of both the jacket and no-jacket versions of She-Cat's costume . This may be a " keeper " .    Pretty straightforward here , spray paint is used to color 'Cat's mask . Typically I would first prime the plastic and then apply several coats of Testor's enamel , but in this case I wanted to try a new paint from Krylon that is formulated for use on plastic , called Fusion , that bonds with many types of plastic without necessitating a base coat of primer . The spray nozzle is not really suited for small scale projects like this , having a spray dispersal that is fairly broad , but with careful application and several coats a nice uniform spray pattern can be achieved . Once cured it will be given a final clear acrylic sealing coat .  The glove sleeves could have been sculpted , but since I had scraps of the red pleather I decided to make 'Cat's sleeves in the same fashion as the glove sleeves on the CG Nikki figure ; just a collar of fabric that slips over the hand . Once the gloves of the hand are painted I fill actually glue these sleeves onto the hand . The primary benefit of this over a sculpted rigid sleeve is freedom of wrist articulation . | MicromanFemforce | PearlsofDarkness | Pearlsof Blood and Darkness | She-Cat | ScarletScorpion | Tara,TheJungleGirl | | Warrior Maiden | Femforce Customs | Jungle Woman | CopperheadPenny | CoolioGirls | WarriorMaidengallery2 | Race Bannon | sci-figal | biminirhodes | Catwoman | sorceress | Femforce Customs2 | A Mod Look | Jennifer Wetworks | OnnaBugei_sha | Gila Garnet | whisper | headsculpts | costume | Wigging It | Darth Fatalus | Swashbuckler | Finn O'malley | Darth Fatalus Diorama | streetfighter | MoonGirlRedux | dakota_montana | ZombieKillerBikerLesbos | Hair | Thaay Katar | halfbreed | princessofmars | HestervanWeiren | Autumn Bliss | BioSaber Ruby | Woman of Vanir | | CoolGirlCustoms | WildRoses | CoolGirl Collection | CoolGirl Collection2 | CoolGirl Collection3 | TheToysmith | CoolGirl Collection4 | CoolGirl Collection 5 | CoolGirl Collection 6 | CoolGirl Collection 7 | CoolGirl Collection8 | Kill All Robots CyberHuntress | CoolGirl Collection 9 | CoolGirl Collection 10 | Bad Amy | Buckaroo Betty | SimpleDetails | CoolGirl Collection 11 | coolgirlHQ | Cool Girl Comics | Cool Girl collection 12 | KisaragiKustom | AlternativeCutey | coolgirl_collection9 | DX-Style Yuni | DX Style Sanchez | Cool Girl _Akiko Fuji | CG Gallery | Samurai Figures | Cool Girl Collection13 | Cool Links | Triad_2 | Playscale ResourceCenter | Sword and Sorcery | | ReelArts Blue Bulleteer | Shocker Toys | Cool Girls | Triad Toys | KiniKomix | KiniKomix2 | Custom Action Figures | eBay Auctions | AppleseedTribute | Macross Valkyrie | Planet of the Apes | Horse Sense | WeaversUpholsteryToo | ToyBiz_Iron Man | Dirty Pair | On Display | The OTHER Gorby | Obitsu | | 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 | |
||