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 Playing around with wigging options for my Toshiro Mifune samurai figure . I have considered sculpting his hair in the traditional samurai hairstyle , but there is a certain appeal for having realistic hair , thus I decided to try out a wig . There are some positive aspects of this , as displayed even in these preliminary fitting shots , the real question will determine itself whether i have the requisite skills to style this wig into the proper chonmage .   Aside from utilizing a wig , I also have the option of drilling holes into the headsculpt and gluing in hairplugs . While a far more labor intensive process , the hair plug method would allow a far more precise method for creating the hairstyle , while also making the styling process somewhat easier . The only downside to this is that I would have to be very careful in designing the pattern for the drill points the plugs , once they are drilled it pretty much seals the fate of this head as far as hair options .  The CG Version 1.0 body of my Sky figure was the first casualty within my beginning Cool Girl collection , suffering a broken ankle cup . I tried several methods to fix the broken cup with no success , so I designated her body to the " body banks " ; my so-called sacrificial pit where I take apart bodies to study how they were made and to serve as "spare parts " for kitbashes . I also had the bodies from my two Yamato Bounty Hunters there , figures that had relatively crappy articulation at the hip joints yet still had a fairly nice sculpt as well as fairly decent upper torso articulation . My " body banks " serve my whims to experiment with alternate body types , and rigging up alternative articulation methods . Everyone has in their collection , bodies that have pros and cons ; aspects that they like and those they don't and it is thru my " body bank " that I experiment with taking the bits and pieces i like and combining them into a new figure . " Franken-Ice " is one of my successes , where I have taken the upper torso from a Yamato figure and rigged it onto the CG Version 1.0 body at the waist . I replaced the Yamato wrist posts with CG wrist posts and hands from a CG and a Soldier Story body . I originally had Skynet barefeet from a Lady's Mission figure on this body , but I wanted a gal with bigger feet so I replaced those with the feet from my " Talking President " Abe Lincoln figure , yep , they're man-feet ! HaHaHa . C'mon , some gals have Big Feet! Get over it!  I picked up an " Ellen " wig from Monique because I liked the look of it . The actual wig was a lot less impressive in real life , not nearly as full as the item pics from the manufacturer and the fit , despite being a size 4 was " baggy " on a CG head . Still , there were aspects of it that I did like , so I decided to play around with it . I was able to enhance the volume of the wig simply by putting it on over the Ice headsculpt without removing Ice's original root job , just working the original hair around along with the wig hair . The Monique wig had some crimped strands that were done in a Z style , it looked nice but the hard shape of the Z crimping looked artificial , more like crepe paper strips than actual hair . I wrapped the headsculpt in plastic and then did a " boil dunk " to reshape the wig's head band for a tighter fit to the head as well as to tame down the Z crimp . The bangs also were a bit problematic , being somewhat assymetrical , like the weaver slipped when attaching that section to the wig . The " boil dunk " helped a bit with the bangs , but I still need to go back and do another " dunk " on that section alone to restyle it a bit more . I'm not sure what I'm going to do with this figure yet , but at this stage she looks a lot like a character I created 20 years ago for a Dungeons and Dragons game named Briseis so she might end up becoming a 1:6 scale version of her .  I picked up this Volks Neo Excellent Body before I started collecting Takara Cool Girls , and it has been sitting in my " neglected figures box " for over three years . This body blank is quite nice , but due to it's thin , willowy manga style I just never really had any idea what to do with it . My initial reason for purchasing this was to use it to create Femforce characters , but just because of it's style I found that for such a use it just wasn't right . My next thought was to perhaps use it to create Dirty Pair customs , but again I just wasn't convinced that it was the right body type , too many joints to costume in the Lovely Angel's trademark action bikinis . So neglected it remained . I have two of these , and one was utilized as a practice form for my first re-wigging exercise ( still unfinished ) .  Unpainted , the face always seemed odd and unappealing to me ; however , over at the Men With Dolls forum there were always examples of painted Volks and Obitsu dolls that were just fantastic looking and I decided that I really needed to get off my duff and see just what could actually be achieved by fulfilling the potential of this body blank . Since I have two running themes in my 1:6 collection , sci-fi and a sword and sorcery , I figured that I could utilize this gal in one of those either as an alien or an elf . To that end I started painting her face , and I believe I am going to make her into an elfin character . Unfortunately at some point , the vinyl of the headsculpt got some staining issues from some unknown source , and thus far my attempts to remove those stains has been unsuccessful . I still have a few untried methods to remove those unsightly blemishes .  It always seems rather wasteful to purchase new materials when creating a new custom figure when one considers the amount of flotsam and jettison that accumulates over the course of a series of kitbashes . I've got two large boxes of stuff that are " leftovers " and so when I decided I'd turn this Volks figure into an elf I figured I'd rummage around thru the discard bin to see what I could recycle .  Well , much as I was fighting the impulse to do yet another figure garbed in black , it would seem that most of my discards are just that very color ; at least those that would lend themselves to an elfin character . Hey , ya work with what ya got ! I grabbed the Miss Fear gown , slapped the sleeves from Triad's Gothic Lolita on it and added the obi/girdle from the DX Alex white Kabuki set and I had her dress cobbled together . I'll probably sew on some trim of some sort just to liven it up . I began wefting the mohair in sections in order to create her wigging , as well as braiding the forelocks , these I will add some kind of ribbon/wraps , again just to liven her up . I'm thinking of her as kind of a spell caster so I'll also be giving her a staff , and am contemplating using a clear acrylic icicle christmas ornament for that . Right now this is me goofing around and seeing what turns out .  As I was planning the collar for this jacket , I got a sudden inspiration to use some professional costuming to help my own amateurish attempts , that might possibly help this project look a bit better than it actually was . That came in the form of the waistcoat from my Abraham Lincoln Talking President . I had no real use for it and it was sized close enough to sew into the interior of this jacket and its collar serve as the collar for this exterior suit coat . A big plus was that the waistcoat was silk , thus adding a little pizazz as well as textural contrast with the rest of the jacket . Once sewed into the jacket , and with the addition of fasteners and buttons , this jacket is starting to look much nicer and I'm really happy with the way it's turning out , despite the flaws in its execution .   Recently acquired Dragon's " Jennifer " , a figure I've wanted for some time . I'll probably end up doing some repainting on her , and maybe some lip work , just because her lips just seem way too big and harsh to me . Unlike the " Amy " figure , the glossiness of Jen's face makes her look far to oily skinned for my tastes and I hope to be able to diminish that aspect as well . I've begun my customizing by adding a plug of synthetic hair for her ponytail . This I basically bundled up and sewed/weaved together to form a plug which I then glued into the hole in the head where her original plastic ponytail went .  Big , fat , poofy lips are not exactly my cup of tea . I would never slight lovers of Angelina Jolie or Jennifer Garner or downplay their attractiveness solely on the basis of the weight of their lips , one of the aspects of the Jennifer headsculpt that i liked the least was the harshness and size of her mouth barrel and the jutting out of her lip line . Part of this was due to the paint op on the head , and part was just the nature of the sculpt job itself , not incorrect or bad in any way , it just seemed to be too exaggerated . I took a small sanding bit , and using the dremel shaved down the upper lip of the head , and then used a microfilm abrasive sheet to smooth down the surface . I will be doing a repaint on her lips merely to soften the edges . I may do additional re-paint ops on her , but I do like the rather natural and no makeup appearance of the stock headsculpt .  Well , this time out I have chosen to disregard the standard process of repainting ; namely using non-acetone nail polish remover to take off the original paint op prior to repainting the face . I have taken this approach for the simple fact that I'm not that great at repainting and I figured I could utilize this face to practice . And practice , and practice , and practice ! Eyelashes are my weakest skill , I just can't seem to capture the deftness that is displayed by oh so many facial repaint artists . This is most likely due to my inexperience and I'm sure that as I do more repaints and eyes , I'll slowly begin to develop the necessary hand and eye coordination to render lashes comparable to the truly great repainters .  The Jennifer headsculpt is my third attempt at a repaint , and as such , I have done and redone the lashes quite a few times . Since I am repainting over the original paint , the benefit of the sealant of that stock paint allows me to take water and cloth and wipe off the attempts that just weren't working . I wasn't counting the number of times I painted and removed it but it WAS A LOT!! I'm somewhat satisfied at this point , it's not perfect but I'm getting better . Doing the hairs on her eyebrows and around her forehead and temples was actually far easier for me than trying to do her lashes ; go figure . I will also be redoing the actual eyeballs as well but at this point have not yet tackled that part . I am also likely to take some synthetic hair strands and add some stray hairs around her forehead and temples , maybe even adding bangs . Jennifer is beginning to lose some of the harshness of her features and might actually make to being sorta glamorous looking . Time will indeed tell .  I used a mix of red , cream , and flesh acrylic paint to paint over the black eyeliner on the interior of Jen's lower eyelid , which has two benefits , one being that it thins out her lower lash line and number two making her eyes larger . I have also used those same colors , along with the addition of a touch of yellow to begin repainting her lips . I've applied the paint in several thin layers , my main purpose to soften the appearance of her lips and give them a more natural rather than made-up look . An added benefit of softening the color of her lips , is that the contrast against her skintone is lessened which warms up her color much more and doesn't make her appear so pasty .   I might end up putting some twinkles in her eyes , but I feel pleased enough at this stage to say my repainting on Jennifer is complete . It sure turned out better than I was expecting .    Nearing completion on my re-wigging of Sideshow's General Ursus figure , and while I was examining my reference photos , decided to redo the leather coif of the general's helmet to more closely match that of the film's version . I did keep the wire insert through the hem to allow posing dynamics .   Prepping Moon Girl For Triad Style !!
A recent costuming accessory released by Triad Toys , Sci-Fly , a stylish all leather combat armor set really had me twitching big time ; and I needed a gal to deck out in it . One of the first action girls I added to my collection was Sea International's " Moon Girl " based on the manga " Zero Metal " has languished a bit in my " parts " bin having sacrificed her costume to Gila Garnet and her stylized appearance not quite finding its place within my collection . As a whole I liked the figure , but there were certain aspects that I didn't like . Her boots were nice , but being 1 piece casts didn't offer the ankle articulation that I really wanted and with her bootsoff there were limited options when it came to new feet and those that worked made her exceptionally short . Playing around with her headsculpt on different bodies I made the discovery that she fit quite nicely on a CG 2.0 body , and actually worked on the modified neckpost that Hot Toys did on the Soldier Story body for their Female Bounty Hunter . Having decided shortly after buying the HT Bounty Hunter that I wanted to transplant the headsculpt of that figure to a smaller 23 cm obitsu body for proportion's sake ( she just looked pin-headed on a 27cm bod ) it was an easy decision to finalize the body and headswapping from Moon's Sea International body to the Soldier Story body ( the SS body being one of the nicest inexpensize alternatives to the classic Takara CG body ) . Once that transition had been accomplished I knew I had a great figure that would be more than appropriate to deck out in Triad's Sci -Fly set , she just needed the base costuming to integrate with Triad's Armor set .  There is a lot of trial and error with a kitbash , and I played around with a lot of different costuming options before settling on the base set that you see here . I have plenty of girls in one piece catsuits , and for this one I decided I wanted a two piecer . The top half is a cut-off Blaze catsuit and the pants are Triad's wetsuit bottoms . I added the pleather vest from Sky to complete the top and pulled out the Alternative " Game Version " Ice's boots to complete the costume . I'm using the HT Bounty Hunter pistol rig as her sidearm and a temporary fitting of AJ McLeod's Swat Jumpsuit belt to hold it for visual- ization purposes since the Sci-Fly set has a belt of it's own that will replace it . She's wearing Blaze's choker and I decided to give her Triad's Female gloved hands from their Hand Accessory set . I put on AJ's knee pads simply to get an idea of how the suit would look with armor pieces but these are temporary until I see how they might be integrated with the Sci-Fly set . I 've tossed around the idea of repainting Moon Girl's face paint ops , but she has a nice look to her stock so i am not decided on that yet . I am planning on doing some mods to her hair , gluing on synthetic hair to emulate her short punked out do real hair having considerable aesthetic enhancements compared to molded hair .  | 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 | Diorama Technique 3 | | 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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