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Angel was built from a GI Joe 25th Aniversary Scarlett action figure. The height difference is caused by the changes to the feet. It's hard to tell in the pictures, but I angled the neck back, and modified the mid torso joint to stand up straighter.


 
Early resculpting involved removing material from the chest, neck, shoulders, and the gloves. I also cut the neck off, and angled it back. I drilled holes into the neck, and the large internal block in the chest, that provides friction for the shoulders and torso joint, for a pin made from brass rod. This kept the glue structurally strong. Then, I could add the fur, wrist brace, and halter details. I also added some definition to her neck and collarbones.
The legs required the boot detail to be removed. I only had to worry about smoothing out the shins, since the calves were covered with Kneadatite, to represent the feathers (long fur) on her calves.

I had to cut off the fronts and bottoms of her feet, to get a base for proper bare feet. They were one of the first thingsI tried to sculpt (ever), and I was pretty happy with how they turned out. They're far from perfect, but not bad, for some with my toal lack of experience.

I drilled new peg holes, so I can use figure stand on her. The holes are just slightly smaller than the peg holes used on modern Joe and Star Wars figures, the flexible nature of the materials that make her feet stretch enough to let her use existing figure stands. The extra tightness isn't nessecarily a bad thing, since the holes are also more shallow than the ones on most production action figures. She also works great on the stands I've been making, with styrene sheet and tubing. The tubes can be a little loose, in most figures' feet.
I made the straps on wrist brace in such a way that the ends actually stick out a little, similar to how I draw it in the comic. The joint that allows the wrist to rotate is just below the upper most strap on the brace. The hand strap, while thinner than the others where it crosses the palm, drastically improved her grip on most accesories. Scarlett could have used this, as she can't even hold the pistol and crossbow she comes with. Her left hand does seem to be a little bit better, in that respect.
The gauntlet is made from a piece of 1/4 OD inch styrene tubing, and a lot of Kneadatite. The flat circular piece at the front was made by using a peice of the  same tubing the gauntlet is made from like a cookie cutter, in a flattened out chunk of the Green Stuff. It was superglued to the tubing at the angle I wanted, then bolstered up with more Green Stuff.

The glove on this arm was carved down just far enough to fit snuggly into the tubing. Once the Gauntlet was finished and painted, the arm section (also painted) was glued in place. This picture is long begore the the final assembly.
Scarlett's hair was a seperate piece, that was glued in place. Once I had that pried off, I was free to start sculpting Angel's hair. The Green Stuff is great for this, because of it's flexibility. I can have long thin pieces that aren't fragile, and will move out of the way, for posing. The ribboned off lock of hair was made by twisting the Kneadatite.

Before I could mold in the new nose, I had to take a bit off the original. I also carved out the cleft in the lip, but otherwise left the lips intact.

The chest flare wound up being a little harder to make, than you would think. The piece kept trying to lean over, when I tried to put the detail in. I also had trouble getting it smoothed into the rest of her chest.

The rings in Angel's halter were put in place, before the fabric parts. This let me mold the fabric around them, without fear of flattening out the rings. I let the first side I molded dry, before I did the second. Otherwise, I would have just screwed up one, working on the other.
I had a single bottle of Testors pink paint. This bottle was over ten years old. It actually had a Pactra label on it, which tells you something, about its age. I'd opened it once, a few years to match up the paint on a Transformers Arcee kitbash. As I recall, I wound up painting that part black.... The paint was fine then, but had since dried up. I wound up raiding the crafts paints, downstairs. One shade of pink was perfect for Angel's nose and ears, but the only other shade of pink, was metallic. The hue is great for Angel's clothes, if a bit shiny. I love the look on her ribbon, but I'm not sure about it, on the rest of her clothes.
The Gauntlet's force field emitter was made from yet more green Kneadatite. The black triangle is .010"(.25mm) thick black sheet styrene. It represents a holographic display/interface. This is based on a redesign I'm planning for the comic. Small grooves were engraved to represent the slots that the blades come out of, but they're hard to see in person, and near invisible in photos.
The skirt is made from a piece of an old T shirt. (yes it was clean) I'd originally planned to make it a lot looser, to better portray how it's supposed to be in the comic, but fabric and gravity don't really scale well, and it ended up looking like a tent, around her waist. The inherent stretch in the fabric makes up for it.

Her tail's made from a piece of white patch cord. It's actually just hte insulation, with a couple of wires from a cat5E cable inside it, for stiffness. There's a bit of Green Stuff sculpted to be the tip. Most of it isn't painted, because the paint would just flake off, from the flexing. the difference in color isn't as noticable in person, as these pictures might make it out to be.

This picture also highlights the blue wash I used on her, to bring out the shadow tones I use in the comic. This picture makes the wash look overly bright.
The same wash was used on her hair. There's a doll house hinge linking the two pieces. It gives a little more room for posing, without getting stopped by her sword or scabbard. Otherwise, her hair would stick out all the time, like she was in a wind tunnel.

I had orginally made the hair a single piece. I started with just the basic shape, and let that cure, before I started adding the hair detail. The hinge was added after I realized that the hair wasn't going to be flexible enough, on its own.

Thankfully, the bangs and ribboned lock of hair are still flexible enough to move out of the way.
The belts and pouch are made from cloth backed vinyl. There's a piece of sheet styrene inside the pouch, to not only give it more bulk, but also to provide an anchor for the small brass nail (one from the doll house hinges) that holds the belt closed. The buckle on the front is just some piano wire, bent and glued into place.

The shoulder strap goes through another piano wire loop n the shoulder. The loop's main purpose is to keep the strap from slipping down her arm. In the comic, Angel has a black leather epelet on her shoulder, that does the same thing. Just down from that, is a small piece of piano wire that holds the whole strap in place. I wasn't able to do a proper fake buckle, here.

I made sure that this was all removeable, so that I can still fit her into a vehicle. I figure that the tail will cause enough trouble trying to fit her into a seat, her scabbards might make it impossible. I won't really know, untill I get something for the team to ride around in.

I've been rather surprised by how stable she is in poses. Especially, considering who made the feet.

Tooth and Nail were made from sheet styrene of various thiknesses, two sizes of styrene tubing, and some Green Stuff for the detail bits and pommels.

The scabbards are made from more of the brown vinyl. I've been wanting to dress up the scabbards in the comic, and decided to go ahead and add metal bands at the opeing of both, on this figure. they're made of the same thin styrene I used as the display, on the gauntlet.

More angles of the same pose can be seen here, and here. They show some of the Mr. Surfacer I used to smooth out imperfections. You can also see where I used Green Stuff to fill in where I made the slot in Tooth's blade too long.

Everything's painted, here.  Not easily visible, is the black thread I wrapped around the handles  of Tooth and Nail.

The small stand is the very first thing I made with the Kneadatite. It was really only made to give me an idea of how the stuff worked. The stand itself is reall too small to actually hold up a figure, unless it's already pretty close to being bablanced.

Same pose front and back.
Better shots of the scabbards, and how they normally hang on the figure. The strap for Tooth's scabbard has extra slack in it, to let it move out of the way of the hair, for posing.

This also shows the thread wrapped around the handles, to duplicate the wire wrapped look from the comic.
Better view of Nail's scabbard. I used silver elastic thread as a decorative chain for it to hang from. It also allows for some give, in case I get hamfisted. I need all the help I can get, to keep me from breaking things. The frog that holds the chain to the belt is more of the thin sheet styrene. I was surprised at just how well the paint I used on it matched the vinyl.

I didn't glue it place, so that it can be moved into different positions.

These pictures were taken after some reworking, of Angel's gear. The most noteable differences are the smaller pouch, that's now made from styrene plastic, and the buckle on the shoulder strap. I also added the missing piece from the belt buckle, and made a new shoulder epilet from styrene. The belts and scabbards can longer be removed. I decided that the removeable gear just wasn't worth the details that had to sacrificed, especially considering how difficult it could be to fasten them on, and the way the belt kept riding up her hips. Not really visible here, is the completely reworked tail.


I made new tails out of styrene tubing, heated with a candle, to bend them. More Green Stuff was used to make the tips. They fasten onto a ball joint, taken from a Minicon class Transformer. I still have the original bendy tail, modified to work with the new mount, but I'm hoing that the four rigid tails I've made, will be suitable for any poses I want to put her in.

The tightly S-curved tail, is for dynamic action poses, and was used in the crouch pose, above. The nearly straight tail is for poses that need to impart speed (or if I have her riding an open vehicle). The loosely curved tail is meant to be a default, though I may adjust its curve, at some point. The curled tail that's shown attached is meant to be for a neutral standing pose.

Angelline Jessica "Angel" DuPree

Forward Scout
Primary Weapon: Mystical Short Sword "Tooth"
Secondary Weapon: Mystical Dagger "Nail"
Backup Weapon: Retractable silver plated bades in her gauntlet
Other Weapons: Sharp Teeth and Claws, Limited Elemental Magic

Angel lost her parents when she was very young. Young enough, that she doesn't remember them. While she somehow survived the car crash that killed her parents, her lungs were burnt from the hot air of the resulting fire, and later became infected. She grew up with chronic respiratory problems, while being bounced from one foster home to another. At age 12, she found herself in an abusive home. One final beating, left her crippled, and blind in one eye. Worse, her best friend tried to protect, and was killed, for his trouble. Angel watched him die, but his dialing emergency services, before he was attacked is what ultimately saved Angel's life.

When the Travellers came to her Earth, and started abducting and altering people for slave labor, they discovered Angel's inate ability to understand and master new technologies. This made her perfect for repairing their electronic systems. She, and few other of the Traveller's slaves were finally able to escape, when the Traveller compound was attacked by Technothropes.

Angel has become the team's forward scout. She can send video of everything she sees, directly from her visor, along with exact cooridinates, even when operating on planets without global postitioning sattelites. The information this provides on not only enemy postion, but also intervening terrain is invaluable.

It's unclear when she she came into posession of her mystically enhanced sword and dagger, but they've repeatedly proven their usefullness against Technothropes, and the other creatures the team sometimes runs across.

Since joining the team, there's been some awkwardness betwenn Angel, and Toby. The friend that died trying to save her, was her universe's version of Toby.