Will Reid's Custom Barbies |
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Here is a group shot of all of my Barbie based figures: Batgirl, Grey Suit Catwoman,
Black Widow and Sue Richards-The Invisible Girl... And one of Black Scorpion... it was my first figure... and I was learning!
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I have been using Bath Boutique Barbies that I have bought at my local KB Toy Store.
Using Sculpy, I redo the jointed hips and fill in the seams making them seem more human like than the original. Spot heating and curing the Sculpy with a hot air gun, then I sand it down and paint it with acyrlic paint. After this dries I coat over it with ether a satin or matte acrylic varnish. On all the figures I do I apply a coat of satin varnish on the figure's eyes and lips... it seems to make them seem more alive. I know this seems to be a lot of work... but hey it keeps me off the streets!
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Yvonne Craig as Batgirl.
For the Batgirl figure I did the entire figure... but farmed out the cape to a friend who lives in California. I'm all thumbs when it comes to a needle and thread and she's really good. I made the utility belt out of a piece of ribbon and the compartments out of square pieces of balsa which I painted yellow. I took a fine tip pen to ink the flaps. For Batgirl's buckle I wanted for find a oval flat piece of ether plastic or metal but I had no luck but was able to find a oval shaped bead at a local craft store that was flat on the back and sanded the domed plastic front down till it seemed like a flat oval. I then painted the oval dark purple and edged it and painted in the bat symbol with gold paint.
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For the Batgirl figure I used matte varnish on the gloves and front part of the mask which is a dark purple like the real
costume and satin varnish on the rest of her costume. For her Batgirl symbol on the chest I took a piece of adhesive white plastic, the kind that boat numbers are made out of and drew and cut it
out. Then I painted it yellow with acyrlic and edging it in gold.
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Custom Catwoman inspired by Julie Newmar character from the old Batman series.
In the case of the Julie Newmar Catwoman I used a Josie doll from the JakksPacfic "Josie and the Pussycats" movie collection. I used a piece of floral wire and made sort of a baret for the top of her head and made the cat ears out of Sculpy and positioned them on the wire and painted the whole thing black and varnished it before putting it on. For her necklace I found a tiny jewelry chain in the jewelry department of my local Hobby Lobby and guesstamated the size and position of the coins on Catwoman's necklace. Also on the Catwoman figure I took tiny pieces of Sculpy and made the claws on the tips of the figure's hands and painted them silver. For Catwoman's belt I found a piece of gold ribbon at a local fabric store. Made the buckle out of Sculpy.
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A custom of a 12" Lara Croft figire from the movie
Also hope you like the Wonder Woman in her Blue Diving Suit
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Update 3/5/04
These are recent images of my customs -- LiveWire from the Batman/Superman animated series.
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My newest custom, New Batgirl.
This is made using a Skipper doll. I am trying to get into fine detailing in my figures and I am really happy on the way this one turned out.
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Here is another of my more recent custom figures. For younger comicbook characters I decided to use the Barbie Skipper
as a base. I have created Death from the Sandman Graphic Novel.
The Death custom includes buckles that I made out of wire. I also painted the skin of the figure white... as well as painting the eyes black to match the character.
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Here is Wonder Woman in her blue diving suit with Wonder Girl if she had a diving suit too.. as in "What if Wonder
Girl had a diving suit in the Wonder Woman television show." I redid Wonder Woman in her blue diving suit to replace the first one I sent to a friend who lives in Florida.
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As always I used Sculpy and acyrlic paints on the figures, but with these I really got into the detail. And created things like
the buckles for more realism.
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Here is a image of a variant Custom Wonder Girl I just completed. The costume is a combination of the comicbook version
and the TV version of Wonder Girl's costume from a drawing I saw on the internet.
I used a Skipper as the base...
Will Reid
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