Started	:	June 7th, 2003
Finished	:	June 16th, 2003
Base	:	"Ghost" (Dark Horse)
Parts	:	-
Materials	:	Revell Colors, "Das Pronto", Hot Glue, Kids Dough Clay, "Marabu" paint, rubber bands, net, laque base, clear laque, wire, tape, net

Character & Intent

My second custom from my Eternal Champions line
and once again one of my favorite characters. Actually,
Shadow is hardly more than a stereotypical ninja assasin...
But the way she was animated in the game made her
very intriguing - So much style, so much grace... And
she was good to beat the game.

 I admit to have mixed feelings about this figure.
while I like how some of the clothing and the
hair turned out, I am not quite satisfied with the
face - It's just not like it should be.

Creation

To be honest, a few days (okay, okay, four months !)
have passed in between completition and this writeup, so
this one is going to be a bit briefer than usual.

I started out by removing the soft bandana and hair as
well as the not soft neckerchief (glued in place, why is
beyond me).

Next up, I dremeled and sanded most of
the horizontal lines in her costume away.
The same goes for for the edges on
the upper sides of the costume and
some of the substance of her gloves.

Memory starting to get blurry....

 The... is there a name for that thing ?
I can't even figure out what it's good for...
Ah, let's just call it shoulder piece.
The shoulder piece of her costume is was
done with Das Pronto and lots and lots of
patience. It took quite a while until both sleves
and the "cloth" on the body didn't rub off any-
more while moving the arms.

Both the mask as well as the belt were made
with Kids Dough clay, the spikes were made
with Das Pronto. Actualy, those were supposed
to be studs, but in the end, spikes were easier
to make and fit the design the same.

 The hair is another piece of Kids Dough and
rest on a pile of erasers behind the figure while
hardening. I must say I'm pretty happy with
the way it turned out. While I am not a big
of the "animated" style of customs, it looks
pretty dynamic and still allows for head
articulation.

Working my way down the body again,
I used drops of hot glue to simulate
the studs on the wristbands which were
originaly just the edges of the gloves;
and rubber bands to simulate the tops
of her fishnet stockings. After priming,
I had this:

You'll notice that the eyes were left out;
that was done with a simple piece of
tape while spraying. (I needed to keep
the original paint job in that area).
Unfortunately, that was about the only
thing that went right with priming on this
figure. I had chosen a primer that later
turned out to be incompatible with Revell
paints- it all turned into a mushy substance
that hardly dryed at all. In the end, I was
forced to apply a thick layer of clear laque
finish over the all the mush to cover it up.

And this brings us to the paint job....
The asian skin tone was done with caucasian
skin color paint and sand-colored paint (Revell
paint is actualy made for vehicle models and
therefore doesn't pay tribute to the details of
the human epidermes).

You might not notice it, but I made sure to
use two different shades for parts of the
clothing which are supposed to be leather
and the ones that should be a fabric of sorts.
In the same context, I applied two different
finishes - Glossy for the leather and matte
for the rest.

For the final touches...
The strand of hair in front is carefully positioned
hot glue (attached with standard glue), her suspenders
consist of fabric and wire. Her fishnet stockings are
plastic net that previously carried cheese. Unfortunately,
it wasn't possible to color that one, so I took another
liberal hitch with that detail. The top of her boots
(covering the bottom of the net) is black tape.

Have I missed anything ?
Guess not.
Good.