Daddy's-Home Giles, Willow, Buffy & Anya (October 2004 & January 2007)

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.

Back in October 2004, I made a custom figure called Daddy's-Home Giles for the "Grave" episode. Although he was quite early work, I'm still pleased with him.

For the same buyer, Annette, I've now made Buffy, Anya and Willow to go with him.

Reference Photos

Sculpting

For Willow, I used a Dark Willow figure. I removed the hair and sculpted her more messy hair style. I removed her upper arms, then sculpted them pressed to her torso and with the cuffs showing on her lower arms. I sculpted her jacket with more creases and open at the neck, with her jumper showing.

It took a while to work out how to make the magic ring. I decided to use a green glow bracelet with some other material around it. I tried setting molten resin into a ring, with some green paint flecks. When it had set, however, the jelly broke too easily to be useful. I ended up chopping the jelly into small chunks and encasing it in two layers of bubble-wrap, with the glow stick as an inner tube.

I bought 4 sets of green glow hoop earrings, 5" long. Once you do the bend-snap-shake thing, the glow lasts about 12 hours. I had to fashion the bubble wrap casing such that the glow ring inner tube could be easily replaced. I'm going to send 6 more sticks to Annette, so she can replace them, when she wants a glow. They are quite cheap, so she can buy more on e-bay.

For Buffy, I used a deluxe Buffy head, Joyce arms and Willow body. I removed her hair and sanded her bodice. I sculpted her short hair tied back in a pony-tail. I sculpted her v-neck jumper, the top of her jeans and her belt. I tried to make her body language look vulnerable, as she's so relieved that "daddy" is home to help her.

For Anya, I used a Wedding Anya head, deluxe Buffy arms and Joyce body. I removed Anya's hair and sculpted it back in a long pony-tail. I reduced her waist and sculpted her top. I positioned her arms so that she's fiddling nervously with her fingers.

With all the customs I've seen of "Grave" Anya, I've never been satisfied with how the trousers were painted, no matter how good the customiser was. I came to the conclusion that it's not possible to achieve the lined-lace trouser effect with just paint. It needs to be sculpted.

Painting

I've started using a new spray sealant, Testors Dull Cote. It works much better than my old one, which was sometimes shiny or sticky. You have to make sure not to sniff the spray, though, as it'll make you infertile. Yikes!

I added some paint and metallic pen to the outside of the bubble-wrap, so that it would look interesting even without the inner glow. I used paint to highlight parts of Willow's face, hair and clothes, to look like a green light on her.

When Annette gets hold of these, she will take some photos of the girls with Daddy's-Home Giles.

With Giles

Annette has now got the figures and put them into her Magic Box set with Giles. I think they look dynamic all together.