Claymore Miku

I've been wanting to create a Claymore Figma. Sadly, the materials I have aren't enough to make one. Although, perhaps if I use a blank Busou Shinki body then it maybe possible. Anyway, I've been messing around with my vocaloid figma, Hatsune Miku. When I gave her the sword as an accessory it definitely made her more to my liking. After all, the possibilities with this character are enormous. So in developing her character for my story, I've experimented in some customizing. My first attempt was to turn Miku into a black rock shooter. However, an actual BRS figma is forthcoming so I thought to move miku away from that. My next option then is to customize her into something that would fit her broadsword or claymore as it might be called.

A Claymore Miku. An interesting idea, yet how can such an interpretation be approached. I have thought of 2 ways. One is to actually take Miku's body and customize it into a Claymore Clare body like this figure:

The second approach is to turn Miku's vocaloid appearance into an armored version. This approach will take less work but, the end result may or may not be to my liking. In the interest of experimentation I decided to try this approach.

First, I modded the shoulder armor so that it can be placed on the figma shoulder while retaining its articulation. I did this using some glue and rubber. Next I test fitted the chest piece to see how it would look with her tie.

Miku looks pretty good with just the shoulder armor and chest piece on. However, I decided to start the modification to her legs to see if that will improve it.

I took the two bottom leg pieces and sanded the black paint off of them. Then I started to paint it silver like so.

I then finished painting it and test fitted it on Miku. I took off the skirt since I may do a skirt armor. Or maybe the lapels on her shirt can act like the skirt armor.

This still needs some work and much thought.

Figma Supergirl: The Disaster

Last week I was working on my custom figma Supergirl. Unfortunately when I was prepping it for painting, I accidentally broke the peg that connects the arm to the shoulder. This means that the shoulder joint is useless. I then removed the joint from the body part as can be seen below.

I now have 2 options. I can do a shoulder joint transplant from an extra figma I have lying around and continue on using that body. Or I can instead use a Figma Archetype to finish this custom as demonstrated by Supergirl Mikuru.

Ryomou: "Oh shit! He broke your shoulder!"
Mikuru: "NOOO! What have you done to my body!?"

I'll now have to take my time and figure out what I'll do next.

New project: Figma Supergirl

I've had a cold for the past week now so while I rest and recover I've been thinking of what custom figmas I could make. A lot of the anime characters I want in figma form are already officially being made. All I have to do is wait and make sure I make a pre-order. The other characters I want in figma form are ones I doubt will ever be produced. These would be characters based on American Comics.

I've already experimented and did customs of a figma Dark Phoenix and Rogue from the X-Men. Those came out pretty well despite my lack of customizing experience. Now I think it's time I get back to making some customs of other comic characters.

So here are my choices or rather ones I'd like to do if possible:

Emma Frost

She's Hot and this artist has done the best rendition I've seen. She has a skimpy outfit that doesn't really makes sense in fashion logic, if there was such logic.

Psylocke

She's also Hot and the outfit has been the same one since the 90's. This should be pretty easy to do since all I have to do is follow the same procedure that I used when making Dark Phoenix and Rogue.

Batgirl

This batgirl is the Cassandra Cain version. I think she's the first and only asian batgirl and that makes her pretty badass. She's fought using a katana as well. Using her ninja skills to take down the baddies is pretty hot. This one should be real easy to do since all I have to do is paint a figma archetype flat black all over and use some putty to shape the ears. I should buy some putty.

Supergirl

That Supergirl is pretty Hot. I like the costume with its short skirt and midriff. I also like this artists rendition with a pretty face and flowing blonde hair. Hotness+1. I think this one will be fun to make, but of course until I learn how to sculpt faces, all I can do is make the bodies.

Let's see how I go about starting a Supergirl figma. First I procure the body that I'll need and prep it. The prepping process for this one is to sand the chest down as much as I could. Also, I used a modeling knife to cut a bit of the chest and skirt off to make them shorter.

Then after a bit more sanding and trimming, I put it together to see how it looks.

Okay, not a bad start. I need to sand a little bit of the leg that's colored black so that the skin tone will show. I'll need to get a red cape for her too. I should start painting the chest part blue first.

Figma Meiya repaint part 2

Whoa, it's been a hectic couple of weeks for me as a figma fan. First Yui and Ui are announced and preorders for Yui have now been closed. Fortunately I was able to secure one. Mio was announced earlier this week and I hope I'll be able to secure a preorder for her as well. I guess I'll see on friday when it officially opens.

Now onto what I've been working on this week. I decided to get started on the arms for my Figma Meiya repaint. I did the usual cleaning and some light sanding to prep the arms. Then I separated the arms and proceeded to paint them white.

It took quite a few coats of paint since I didn't primer the arms before hand. After letting it dry for a day, I masked it for when I put some coats of blue down. The tape I'm using sux and I need some better tape. There's quite a bit of leftover tape and some seeped paint on the shoulder patches.


Anyway, looks alright for now. I can just touch up and clean up the bits later down the line. I still need to paint the hands and the other leg. Then I can give the parts to my friend Eddy who has painted the body for me.

FIgma Meiya repaint part 1

Happy New Year! My first post of the year and with a new year comes a new project. I've mentioned before that I planned a repaint and got my friend Eddy to help me out with it. He is painting the flesh parts for me, since it's a little intricate for my noobish skills, and I'm painting the limbs. Here's a preview.

For my past customs, I've always used water based Acrylic paints. However, for Meiya, Eddy uses Model Master Acrylic paint to paint the body and so I'm trying out the same paint. The thing is that Eddy is much more experienced, very professional, and he has the right tools such as an airbrush. All I have are a couple of brushes and so trying out new paint will lead to some mistakes. Anyway, it's good learning experience for me. Aother note is that he has my Meiya figma and all I was able to take home was the leg. So here's the leg on my other Meiya figma which I have at home.


So there it is. The leg is still not done though and still needs some white. It also needs some touch ups and detailing. There's also the rest of the figma, such as the limbs, to do. So that's my Meiya figma and this is how it starts.

Black Rock Shooter Miku Figma part 5

It's a bit of a hectic week with the holidays and all that, but what little spare time I have has been devoted to planning and working on some projects. So for my custom figma, Black Rock Shooter Miku, I've been checking out the weapons of Black Rock Shooter and she has both a black blade and a rock cannon. Below is a pic by Huke.

So, if my Miku is "borrowing" BRS's abilities, then she should also have a black blade (or two) and a rock cannon. That's why today I got started on Miku's Rock Cannon.

Like the name implies, it should be a cannon like weapon. Meaning big and powerful. I ended using the cannon off of my 1/100 scale Astrea. I started off by giving it a base coat of chrome silver.

I then let it dry. Based on the pics of BRS I've seen, the handle and trigger is inside the rear of the cannon. This means that BRS has almost half her arm inside the rear of the cannon.


That's where I stand so far for this project. After I finish painting the cannon, I'll start on the black blades. Then I'll do the touch ups on Miku and fix her coat. Finally, her bare arms are prepped and primed for painting. I don't have a lot of time right now due to the holidays and all that, but it's still fun planning and thinking of creative ways to achieve what I envisioned.

Black Rock Shooter Miku Figma part 4

Yay, I'm at the home stretch. I got around to making the belt for my custom figma. I took a bit of time to brain storm and gather some materials for my Black Rock Shooter Miku. I knew I needed a belt and using a rubber band again like I did for the boot flaps would work. However, the belt buckle is a different story.

I went through some old gundam parts and I found a backpack that was used on the EZ8. It has what seems like vinyl straps with plastic buckles for adjusting the straps.

I took the buckles and found them to be too big to use for my custom figma. So, the obvious route for me was to re-size it so that it would fit. What I did was cut the bottom side off, trim the remaining bits until the belt could fit, then glue the bottom side to the remaining part. As can be seen below, the modded buckle is now smaller compared to the original and can now fit my custom figma.

After resolving the size issue, I went about painting the buckle silver and the belt white. Again, I used Tamiya Acrylic paint which served me well.

After it dried, I glued the belt onto miku's shorts. I fit the buckle in before gluing the rest of the belt onto the shorts. The results looked pretty good.

Then I brainstormed on how I can make the bra top for miku's chest. After all, black rock shooter didn't go around topless. I was going to used some black latex, but dirt and stuff tend to stick, so the final result may not look good. Then I remembered about the vinyl strap on the backpack. I took that and cut 2 triangles, a short strap, and a long strap and glued those onto miku's chest.

The glue I use doesn't take long to dry so after about a minute of waiting I put miku together to see what the final result looks like.


Oh yeah, not bad at all.



But it's still not finished. I noticed some paint rubbing off the shorts that needs to be touched up. I also need to replace the figma joints on the knees and the ponytails.




I'm also in the process of making some bare arms for swapping out the coat sleeved arms. That way I can take the coat off and her arms would be none sleeved. It's been a great learning experience so far and I'm glad I'm at the home stretch on this custom.

Black Rock Shooter Miku Figma part 3

Today, I set aside some time to work on this project. Specifically, the flaps on the boots. I took a piece of rubber band that we use at work to bundle up asparagus (really, I did). I cut it into appropriate lengths. I then paint it flat black and then I painted the white stripes using flat white.

As can be seen above, I also painted the white stripes on Miku's shins to represent the zipper. I let the fig sit there to dry and got to painting the left ponytail of Miku's hair. I also painted the joints to match and I painted the hair ties white.

The hair is pretty much done, except for a couple of little spots. I'll paint those when I finish this up. While the hair dried, I took the rubber flaps and glued them onto her shins. I sort of messed up on the left leg, but it's not that bad. I then put the fig back together to see how she looks.

Not bad so far. With the boots done, I can now move onto the belt. I still need to make her bra and I've gathered some materials for it. I also need to paint her hands black so that she's wearing gloves. Looks like I'm nearing the completion of this project and it feels pretty good.

Black Rock Shooter Miku Figma part 2

Continuing from yesterdays post, I did some more painting and stuff for this project today and I'm pretty happy with the results so far. I started off by painting the arms black then I gave it a white streak. The only thing that needs to be done to the arms are a clear coat or a sealer.

I then painted the boots black and the calves up to just below the knee black as well. I still need to paint the zipper for the boots and put some flaps where the zipper zips up.

I then continued painting the hair black. I'm going to have to replace the figma joints for her pigtails to match. I still need to do some more painting on the left pigtail.

After it dried, I did some test fitment. I also replaced the old coat with one that is bigger and has a hood on it. I've still yet to do the bikini top so BRS is topless right now. :D


This custom Black Rock Shooter Miku is progressing well so far. I've still got to make a white belt to go around her waist as well as the stuff I mentioned before. If I have the time, I might be able to finish this by next week.

Black Rock Shooter Miku Figma WIP

Yay, back from a busy and delicious Thanksgiving. On to something I started over the past couple of days. I decided to do a Black Rock Shooter version of Figma Miku. The inspiration came from a pic of BRS done by 2d from 4hands seen below.

First I started off by priming the figma archetype:She that I have. It's all gray because of the primer and it looked kinda funky.

Then I base coated it with some Model Master light skin tone then I did a wash mixing some Tamiya flat flesh, flat white, and a drop of the MM light skin tone. Since I'm still new to painting flesh, the recipe I used was a straight up experiment.

The figma looked all better with the wash since it gave the otherwise dead looking flesh with a warm look. I should've just picked up the MM warm flesh tone while I was buying the other paint. Anyway, I masked the figma parts and painted the areas black. Below is the top of the thighs painted black which will be part of the shorts. I also tried painting on the bikini top, but that didn't work out as planned and I totally messed it up.

I re-painted the body and I started to paint Mikus hair black. I also took the arms off of my Haruhi figma and I'm going to paint that black. The boots also needs to be painted black and the legs need to be painted black up to just below the knees as part of the boots.

There's still more that I have to do with this one like making the bikini top, but at least it's going better than the other figmas I thought of doing like Clare and Rider.