Food-&-Snugglefest Buffy & Angel (January 2006)

For those unfamiliar with customising, the pale pink stuff is the colour of the 'super sculpey' sculpting clay that I put over the plastic figures. It can be translucent, so you can often see the original colour of the figure underneath. Once I've finished sculpting, I always completely repaint the whole figure.

This double custom project is from the 'I Will Remember You' episode.

This first set of photos show my initial positioning of the figures with a bit of the bed assembled. I used Angel's upturned stand for the bed and Darla's gates for the headboard.

I removed Angel's hips and dislocated the feet so that I could position them correctly. The covering is just the first layer to hold Angel's legs in position and the duvet will be plumped up.

As with the Spuffy pair, I've made them in separate pieces that I jigsaw together. This makes it easier to handle them for painting.

Buffy has no articulation. Her left arm stops at the elbow because the rest of her arm is 'hidden' behind Angel's back and obscured by the pillows. I kept articulation in Angel's right bicep and left shoulder so that I could move his arms out of the way to slot Buffy in and then reposition them.

For the ice-cream tub, I used the lampshade from an Angel stand and part of a screwdriver for the spoon.

I didn't dare boil the base because I already ruined one base. It warped badly in the heat. I rolled out 2 sections of thin sculpey for the sheet and boiled them separately, then glued them to the base. The pillows are also separate to help with boiling and painting. I'll glue everything together at the end.

I wanted to do something interesting with the duvet and also to strategically show/hide parts of the body. I didn't have any bare male legs to use for Angel but I wanted to take advantage of his bare feet. With Buffy, I wanted her bare legs to be showing, as she looked cool in the episode just wearing Angel's jumper. I also wanted to hide the Cordy sandals, though, so I worked out how to twist the duvet just so. I do that with a throw sometimes, when I want to just keep my feet warm, so it's an authentic girl move.

I painted Angel's face to look tenderly at Buffy and added ice-cream dribbles to his chest. I painted Buffy to look happy and dreamy.

For the bed linen, I looked at some William Morris prints for inspiration but simplified the design. There is a white/cream/blue swirl pattern for the sheets, several shades of blue print for two of the pillows, then the last pillow and the duvet cover are dark blue/green/cream. I put silver washes over all the bed linen to make it more uniform and get the silky sheen.

These are the finished figures.