figure modification: Sephiroth to Kael'thas

Originally posted:  April 7, 2009, 18:51

Yesterday, Selly and I went to Home Depot and acquired a wall shelf so that I could begin unpacking my figures. As I went through them, I noticed that I had several figures I owned only because they looked cool or posed well and not because I actually wanted one of that character.

It was at about this point that I ran across a Sephiroth figure I've had for quite a while now. Being the obsessive person that I am, I noticed that his hairstyle is similar to Kael's.

While Sephiroth was indeed one of my favorite characters from FF7 back in the day, the major reason I owned a figure of him was because it looked cool and had fifty bazillion points of articulation. With this in mind, I began to ponder doing something I'd been wanting to for a long time.

As some of you may already know, I have a bit of an obsession with customizing or modifying things that I own to better suit my needs or my aesthetic tastes. This is most noticeably expressed in my work with BJDs, but I also frequently modify my clothing, electronics, and music.

Figure modification is something I've seen before and wanted to get into. I've just never found something I particularly wanted to modify (though I have spent over a year casually looking for something to do this with).

On the shallow basis of similar hair, I decided to make my Sephiroth figure into a Kael'thas figure.



One of the great things about some figures made in recent history is that they've started doing this neat thing where individual parts of the figure are not always cast together. This makes my job a lot easier, as I was able to remove his coat and shoulders without much effort.





Mello has, for now, absconded with the coat. The Shoulders are lying on one of my bookshelves with a rehabilitating Orochimaru.



While a lot of what was not removable could be easily repainted or covered up, the crossing straps across the chest needed to be dealt with. I got out my handy wood cutting tool kit and began chiseling away.



After a couple minutes, I'd eliminated most of the black.



I spent a few more minutes chiseling away anything that stuck out too much and then whipped out my supply of sandpaper. Starting at 150 grit and ending in 2500, I was able to smooth out the chest so that most evidence of the straps was obliterated.



<img src="http://pics.livejournal.com/andarton/pic/000q8xxy">



Somewhere during the sanding process I decided the hair was getting in the way, so I removed the head. Luckily, it snaps on and off relatively easily. This made my job of re-painting the hair and eyes infinitely easier.

I'm not sure yet if I'll continue this before school gets out for the summer. This part was incredibly easy, but doing clothing could get tricky and distract me from getting projects done.