Ninjara
In an attempt to fill one of the most glaring ommissions in the Playmates line, I bring you Ninjara. This is also the most difficult custom yet. The base figure is Wolfsbane from the Toy Biz New Mutants line. The first step was to straighten the figure's torso. I used a heat gun to warm the limbs and remove them, and then heated the stiffer plastic of the torso enough to bend it at the waist and neckline. The limbs were then reattached (though in retrospect I would suggest others wait and do this later.) A forearm gaurd was added to the right arm with sculpty while the left arm received a sculpty band around her bicep. both legs had sculpty ruffles added just below the knee and sandles (I would suggest leaveing the hole in the foot open, the air in mine expanded making a bubble that had to be sanded down.) A strap was also added across her chest. One of the most complex steps was the head. The hair had to be trimmed down on the back of the head using a dremel. Several deep cuts were made to the back of the neck and then it was heated with a heat gun and then bent so that the head would be straight when put back on the torso. Sculpty was added to the back of the neck, the nose and both cheeks. (A word of precaution, the joints in the legs are very thin and over cooking will cause them to split open. I ruined one figure this was and the ankle joint on the final figure too!) After the sculpty was cured, a hole was drilled in the head and a small section of the hair from the tail was cut off and glued into the head to create the tuft of hair. The legs, torso, belt, head and all sculpty parts received a coat of testor's paint. The armor plate around her waist and the shoulder pads are styrene cut to size and painted. The Sholder pads were then heated with a heat gun inorder to give them the curved shape and a hole was cut in the rear plate through which the tail was threaded.