As I am not in the business of completing any one collection in particular, just certain characters here or there, I set out to get the main cast from the Tim Burton movies, Batman (1989) and Batman Returns (1992). To my surprise, besides the NECA 7 inch Batman figure I already had, there was an Alfred (Michael Gough) and The Penguin (Danny DeVito) already available by DC Multiverse. This was great news as that meant I was only missing Joker and Catwoman. Figuring that Joker being the one I would have the most trouble with (which will be documented in a future post) I decided to work on that one first and learn the ropes but it turned out that Catwoman would be a lot more troublesome and for the stupidest of reasons.
So I like to scour the Internet for either the actual figure, or customized versions and/or any head sculpts that may be available. Although I found a figure painter that recently posted a smiling Michelle Pfeiffer Catwoman 1:12 scale painted head sculpt, I've not received any information where the sculpt can be found. This sculpt could be a scaled-down version of the NECA 1:4 scale version but she is not smiling in any of those head sculpts, but she is smiling candidly in the Catwoman 1:6 scale figure by ACPLAY.
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| The 1:6 scale by ACPLAY. |
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| 1:12 scale painted by Christina Cruz (https://twitter.com/christinaconan/status/1241848248324763650) |
I could only focus on what looks similar and the DC Designer Series Catwoman body was good enough as well as the head from DC Essentials Knightfall Catwoman being a good candidate.
I began by reshaping the ears and doing a mock black paint to get a feel for it, and I figured I would just paint the rest of the details but this was far more intricate because of the eye makeup and not so much matching a skin tone but make it where you can't see the brush strokes. The original outfit was made to look like a makeshift costume with a corset covering the torso. I had some wire that I shaped and after a lot of trial and error I finally got it glued to the figure, gave it a quick paint and it looked perfect.
But THEN I had the wonderful idea of "hmm, wouldn't it be better to sand down the mask so that instead of painting over any crevices by the openings of the mask, I could just make it all even?!"
Spoiler alert: I completely fucked up the head sculpt. I had two choices, either buy another Knightfall figure just for the head or buy another, cheaper, alternative. So pro-tip to anyone without sculpting skills looking for alternate Catwoman head sculpts, try Batgirl's. So my next victim was the DC Essentials Batgirl ONLY for this:
The only thing I had to do was remove the hair and refill the space, sanded it down and did the same for the ears so that it's one seamless black cowl.
Several coats of glossy black paint have given a sufficiently shiny "latex" look to the suit, eventually I will work on the stitching details and some other details to try and make it as best looking as possible with my tools and limited knowledge.
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