Started	:	May 27, 2007
Finished	:	June 1st, 2007
Base	:	Buffy Deluxe Graduation Day Faith
Parts	:	Fantastic Four Boxset Invisible Woman head (Cast), A Lego Turn Plate
Materials	:	Apoxy Sculpt, green stuff ("B-Yellow"), Glues, Citadel Paint, misc acrylic paints, synthetic resin, plastic strips
Points of Articulation	:	~ 33

Character & Intent

Today playing in the
"shows I never wanted to like but ended up loving" theatre...

Indeed, it was a little hard to get over the premise of a Disney show
mainly targeted at girls on the "not yet" side of the teen fence. But sometimes
in life, giving things a chance pays off. And verily, once boredom won over
seemingly better judgement, I came to realize that "Kim Possible" was offering
not only solid humor, but also decent continuity (for which I suspect Greg Weisman
to be at least partially responsible), fluent animation and (most surprisingly of all)
even nicely-choreographed action scenes.

Another surprise was the title character itself. Especially in later seasons, Kim was and
is being written with a leveled personality with not nearly as much stereotyping as one
would expect and realistic flaws. All in all, I like the character. And when I like a character,
I want a figure.

Unfortunately, the only official offerings were odd doll-figure hybrids that naturally didn't
see much commercial success. However, I knew that I wouldn't really be able to duplicate
the show's art style in figure form. So I went back to my old, yet experimental "Comic
style approximation" approach.

 Creation

First of all, I have to point out that one would actually have to add an
undetermined amount to the worktime on this one, as I had started the
head in advance. That's just something I do. I like head. Can't help it.

 As for the body.. I have to admit, this was almost TOO easy. Faith had
the body type I was looking for AND the dresscode to go with it. All she
needed were a new head, some tiny sculpt-ons and a waist cut.

It is beyond me why Diamond didn't include one in their Buffy Deluxes, but
fortunately enough, it turned out to be a very easy fix. After carefully using a
paper-thin dremel cutting disc to seperate the waist from the pelvic area, I found
a very suitable swiveling part in the form of a Lego turn plate.
(Element IDs 368026 and 4211439 at Pick-A-Brick, if you'd like to know)

All I head to do was to cut the edges of the lego swivel unit parts down to fit
the body and glue it into place, followed by some minor sculpting on the outer
edges.

As you can see, there wasn't much sculpting needed at all. Only the Sue Richards
head needed thorough modifications. Even though its semi-cartoony sculpt fit the
idea of this project nicely, I still needed to modify the face and hair to create something
one could mistake for an actual likeness. I especially tried to match the small nose,
dominant upper lip and hairstyle. I used B-Yellow for any hair that would hang low
to make it somewhat flexible. Another b-yellow chunk became the trademark strand
over hair that hangs into Kim's face. It made it a seperately so I could paint the areas
underneath and glue it on top later on.

Speaking of paint, it was as comparatively easy job, as well. However, I did try to
make her skin appropriately light for a redhead - And the hair that goes with it
as realistic as possible. I found that mixing a little gold into the uppermost
drybrushing layer gave it a neat "pop". I was to regret all those choices
a little later on, as these colors, along with the purple shirt, are a
NIGHTMARE to photograph digitally. It took ages to
get shots that wouldn't wash them out.
But I'm not complaining.
Okay, I am.

But all in all, I'm quite satisfied with this custom. The likeness is as
good as I could have hoped for in this context, and there were no
major problems slowing me down. Fun one.

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