Re: Batman Forever Sonar Suit & Robin WIP
Update on Custom Robin 1/6th Scale, First up I started with a Billiken Batman 89 Kit, I thought I would be able to just stick on the Robin Parts I saved from the Revell kit as posted in the first post. But I quickly found out that wouldnt be the case... So I bought some DAS Air Drying Clay in terracotta colour so I could see where it was going on the white sculpted kit. I must admit this was the first time working with clay and through trail and error... I realised that keeping my fingers wet was the best way to work with the stuff to some out details, I also bought a cheap modellers tool kit on ebay, well it was a cake sculpting kit but was listed as a model sculpting tool kit and was cheap lol
It really helped me out a lot! I found working with the one that looked like a dentist tooth scrapper worked best with me
so after about 3 days on and off I slowly built up the batman kit to look like robin.
Heres a few pointers to say here incase anybody wants to try this out themselves... the billiken kit is totally off in size compared to the other figures I have in my batman forever collection... they are all 1/6th scale for sure as they all sit nicely against my other hot toys, Well except for Mr ? aka Riddler who I had to swap around the Foot pegs to the longer versions to bring him up to the same size as Batman and Double Face aka Two Face.
1: First off I cut all the parts of the billiken body parts that came in the kit then glued them together... arms... legs... pretty basic, this is when I noticed the size was well off!! So I cut the ankles and put added a bit off length to them with epoxy putty to support the cuts, I also trimmed off the knee caps and boots details as the knee caps where no longer in the right place anymore... Also the boots details needed to go, as they are nothing like the Robin boots. I then started to build the left leg up with clay to match the robin costume the best I could as well as the crotch and lower stomach muscles, I know the stomach muscles are not 100% accurate but this kit give me the best option to work from.
2: I then finished off the other leg details and fixed the belt from the revell kit and also placed the boot tops on as well with finishing off the legs with new knee caps and making the clay flush with the old boot tops that where on the billiken kit which where way up the leg originally. I then cut off the billiken keaton gloves of the body and glued the robin revell gloves on, they where not a good match in joining to the body so clay was used to hide all the gaps, Also the hands on the revell kit look terrible as Robin was crouched down throwing a batarang on that kit so the hand was twisted in a awkward pose, so decided to cut the keaton hands of the gloves and attach them to the robin revell gloves, these worked out great! to my surprise and give the whole look of the arms a better look
3: After all that I took a break lol, then came back to it the next day and spent the whole day and night building up the upper body... first the top of the chest where that big hole was on the billiken kit for batmans head and cape to drop into, there was no way I was filling the whole inner body with clay... so I filled the inner body with sponge then covered it with some clear plastic from a soda bottle to give it a bit off support, I glued in into place so the clay I build on top wouldnt move, I then added detailing to the upper arms to match the Robin Suit as the Billken kit had no resemblace to the Robin forever suit in that area... Lastly I added the detailing to the suit by cutting small rectangles to run down the centre of the chest and cut a plastic cocktail stick to give him those unforgiving BAT NIPPLES!! lol, It had to be accurate! lol and lastly glued the R symbol I managed to cut from the revell kit.
4: I then moved onto the Head and cape, The head from the revell kit had a really bad neck shape as the head on that kit was designed to be crouched down looking up at the sky, so I had to cut that neck off and build a new one up, so it would be in a correct pose to sit on the body and cape, filled in the gaps on the cape joining parts and that was it finished
