garbageboxlove

Drusilla customs

Last updated: 6·19·2003
another pic, at the end of the page


My custom Vampire Drusilla is inspired by and based on the prototype of the mini statue.

I'm going to use the regular Dru body with the Vampire Dru's head. Regular Dru has a better skin tone, and the lower part of her dress is already black. (I was going to paint the Vamp Dru dress black as a sort of primer / undercoat.) And no blood splatters to remove from her hands and lower neck area. Just a relatively simple head swap... plus, I'll have some extra accessories to use for other projects. And I can make a custom regular Drusilla out of the leftover parts...

I used the boil and pop method to remove the two Drusilla figures' heads. Thankfully they are interchangable, so no problem getting them back in place when I'm ready. I added some Super Sculpey (SS) to Dru's forearms, because they look so anorexic. She might have been weak and sickly at the beginning of Season 2, but damn... Anyways the SS worked out very well. Especially since that was the first time I used the stuff. Boiled the figure to cure the SS, as someone informed me (the package says to bake it in your oven). I might need to sand the SS a little bit, and then paint it... I was hoping to leave the figure's skin alone, so I wouldn't have to paint it. But I just had to add some meat to those bony forearms.

A word of caution. Be careful how often and for how long you boil a figure. The regular Dru's body now has some spots on it from the boiling. I'm not sure what caused it exactly, but it's a good thing I'm repainting the figure...

I got another idea. Good thing I'm thinking of these things while I'm painting, before assembly. I'm making the Drusilla heads removable / swappable. I cut down the neck peg so the heads pop on and off easier. I'll end up with a few different Drusilla bodies, colored differently, and different heads so that each one can be "human" or "vamp" faced. I got a few more Drusilla figures, which I plan to customize as well. I'll change the hairstyle of one of the regular Drusillas so I can have two different "human" heads.

So I'll end up with:

FINALLY some pics for you! Click on the description to see them. Notes about the pics are below:

I was using a dark green color called Pike Green (Apple Barrel # 20847), but it just looked too dark. So I bought Christmas Green (AB# 20529), which is much closer to the emerald green color I wanted. I'll end up using the Pike Green for the lower dress, because it looks darker in that pic of the prototype statue.

The blue stuff on the shoulders and neck is masking tape, which I'm using to keep the paint from getting all over the figure. It may seem silly, but I don't want to waste time cleaning up stray green brush strokes. It took a while to cut and tear the tape into usable pieces... but it'll be worth it.

You can see the trimmed neck peg in the first two pics. It's almost an even cylinder shape, so the heads slide on and off. They fit snugly, and I'm rather glad it worked because I really don't know how well my magnet idea would have worked. (Would the magnet's strength have pulled them from the glue that would have held them in place? Hmmmm...)

The super sculpey is visible in each of the pictures. It's the somewhat-fleshy colored stuff on her forearms... I need to finish sanding them down. But I'll do that after I paint the dress (in case the paint gets on the arms).

I can't wait to finish this piece, so I can move on to the other things I want to make!

I've made more progress, though this is from a month ago. I'm almost done painting, just need to finish the arms and repaint the skin.