DC Direct's Batman Family Multi-Part Statue
I don't do customs too often. I usually only attempt them to make a figure better (as opposed to making an entirely new character). And this motivation usually only happens when I make an excitable purchase but am disappointed in some details of the product. This was the case with the Catwoman figure in the Batman Family Multi-Part Statue from DC Direct in 2010. Now, I purchased this entire statue with the full intent of breaking up the characters into individual statues (Specifically to add the Huntress figure to my Cover Girls collection). Huntress, Commisioner Gordon, Batman, and Robin were all great, but Batwoman, Nightwing, and Catwoman all needed some tweaking in my opinion.
The sculpt by Oluf Hartvigson is great, but unfortunately I thought her face suffered from a poor paintjob. Also, just my personal preference, but I hate when tops are zipped down too far and anatomy starts to defy physics. So I repainted her eyes, lips, and eyebrows, and resculpted her cleavage area.
Here is the original sculpture, followed by some cell phone pics from when I first painted her this past autumn.
I used the CoverGirls statue as inspiration for repainting her eyes.
Cheers!
Fantastic work! I love the eyes!
ReplyDeleteBeautiful work!
ReplyDeleteThanks! She was in storage for a while and I just unpacked her a couple weeks ago. I honestly forgot that I had customized her until your comment reminded me :)
Deletei know this post is a couple years old, but hopefully you'll see this and respond.
ReplyDeletei just bought this statue the other day and haven't received it yet, but i'm really interested in how you got Catwoman separate from the rest of the statue (Robin and the base). i bought it with the intention of display only Catwoman but just found out that she is permanently attached to the statue's base, so any tips on how you so cleanly got the gargoyle and Catwoman separate?
also i really love the changes you made in the face, looks so much better, wish i had the courage to try and do that.
I get email notifications whenever there's a comment :)
DeleteI won't lie, these figures took some effort to separate from each other. Cold-cast porcelain is no joke. Structurally, I know porcelain is made of very fine particles that fuse together at a much more tightly-knit level than other ceramics. So the material is dense, strong, and creates a lot of fine powder as you cut through it. Make sure you wear a mask!
To make the actual cut, I used my standard cheapo Dremel Tool. The main bit I used was the 9931 (https://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accessories/Pages/SubCategories.aspx?catid=2071&catname=Structured+Tooth+Carbide+Cutters) based on the suggestions from the guy at my hardware shop. For parts of it I started with a bit like the 9905 (https://www.dremel.com/en-us/Accessories/Pages/ProductDetail.aspx?pid=9905) to perforate the cutting line with holes punched through the base every centimeter or so. Essentially scoring the cut line.
It took a long time and was messy (I did it inside during winter and it made a MESS), but it was satisfying. I spend a little bit of time on it after work for several nights because i felt like it might overheat my little Dremel doing it all at once. It was also difficult to maneuver around Robin's cape so it will take a lot of patience. It's a good idea to have a couple hacksaw blades handy to manually run back and forth when you get to a tricky area.
When i was done I used some grinding attachment to smooth out the cut line then a mixed up a gray paint and painted the edges. Overall it was quite an effort, but it was worth it. I had also bought the entire set so I repeated this process several more times.
Good luck with your project and let me know if you have any more questions!
Thank you so much for getting back to me, i was waiting to write you till i had the statue in hand, in case i had any other questions, i did receive the statue in the mail yesterday, but unfortunately it arrived broken, Robin broke at both ankles and the hand that was touching the base, the gargoyle broke also at both ankles and his right hand and some fingers broke. i dunno if its fixable, i never tried to repair a broken statue before, so im not sure i will be going forward with the separating process
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