One Piece Eustass Kid Custom Repaint

 Back from the dead!

Here, have a shitty YouTube video of my project:

So I bought 3 of these blind box Logbox Re Birth One Piece figures. And for once I’m happy to say I got exactly the characters that I wanted. The character I wanted the most was Eustass Kid, the guy with the giant metal hand. As I took the figures out of their boxes it was very apparent  that the Kid figure was lacking in details compared to the two others that I got (dino Drake and samurai Chopper). So! I decided to do something about it. And here we are.

I was too focused on filming so I didn’t take any work in progress photos so these are all before and after pictures.

The first thing I did before I started painting was give the figure a wash with soap and let it dry. 

My repaint again mostly was me using watered down black acrylic and “dirtying” /darkening the figure. I used this method on the base, pants, belt, coat, metal arm and the character's hair.

I repainted the boots black. I mixed a new purple color for the ruffles on the pants. I used gold paint to highlight details on the belt and on the goggles. Painted the lenses of the goggles blue. Added a few more red and gold details to the metal arm. I dry brushed silver highlights to the metallic parts and minimally on the base.

I retouched the scars, mouth and painted in some pupils. And I also gave the bare skin areas a very light reddish brown wash.

For the pink energy effects going into the arm, I thought they looked too matte. So, I mixed glossy Mod Podge and glitter to make them more “sparkly”.

Except for the energy beams I sealed it all with matte varnish, which again turned out more semi glossy, at least if you look at the coat. I painted the boots over with Mod Podge to give them a bit of shine.

I posted this elsewhere, and received comments that the eyes don’t look good, they are too “googly eye” another comment suggested I should give the character some lipstick.

So here’s a screenshot from the anime. Many interpret that the thick black lines in the eyes and the red lips are makeup. I’m not 100% convinced that is the case, but anyway. While I was painting I thought that the character was missing something, and after reading the comments, I realized that, yeah, it’s the “makeup”. I had already declared the project finished, but for a while there I was determined to get back to it and add the “missing” parts.

So when I finally picked up the figure again and looked at its face, my only thought was

HELL NO.

I’m not doing it. I’m not adding any eyeliner or lipstick. The head is too damn small for that. I was driving myself crazy just trying to paint the eyes. The other eye took close to 20 tries before I got it to look straight. I’m not going through the pain of trying to add the makeup. I don’t know if the one who commented realized how small this thing is. The face is less than 4 millimeters in size. I actually tried to use a magnifying glass while I painted the eyes, but I found it messed up my hand-eye coordination and didn't use it in the end.

Lego for scale

Regardless, I'm super happy with it, flaws and all. ♥

Catching up with One Piece

When they started publishing Eiichiro Oda’s One Piece in Finnish I was a reader right from the beginning, but when the manga reached Vol. 80 I dropped the series. Why? The main reason was money. I didn’t just drop One Piece, I stopped buying/reading other series as well, like Attack on Titan for example. Heck, I stopped buying all manga except for the Ginga series. 

Secondary reason was fatigue, I guess. After the Dressrosa arc finished, I felt overwhelmed with all the new characters to keep track of. The new arc that started, introduced a whole cast of new characters of course, by that point I had already exhausted all my attention span and needed a break from the series. The chapter of the new Zou arc failed to peak my interest, so that’s when I decided to stop reading One Piece. 

Now the roles have reversed. I was at the local store looking at the manga shelves and I was glancing through the newly published first volume of Ginga Densetsu Noah. The previous Ginga Last Wars ended on such a low note, I found myself having zero interest in the new series. I was debating myself if I should buy the Noah 1 when I laid my eyes upon the newest One Piece 97 volume right there next to Noah. I noticed my favorite character on the cover, that’s a good sign. I peeked inside the album and was immediately more interested in what was going on in the world of One Piece than what Noah had to offer. I bought the One Piece instead and left Noah at the store, no regrets. 

I read a few pages here and there, but then decided I wanted the whole context of the story to be clear and so began the hunt for the missing 16 albums I was missing between 80 and 97. It was a short hunt. I compared the prices between 3 websites before placing my order and I was lucky to get them all from one place at once. I spent the days waiting for my order to arrive by refreshing my memory by re-reading the previous volumes of One Piece.

When my box of OP manga finally arrived, I read through 4 volumes in one evening, and the next day I read 7 in one sitting! Probably a personal record for me. I loved it so much it was hard to stop. It took me about four days to read through all 17 books, probably would have taken me longer if I had to go to work, but I was on vacation at the time, thank goodness. I could stay up late and read as much as I wanted! And now I’m sad that I burned through them so fast, it’s going to take forever for the next volume to come out.

Also, I  really shouldn’t be allowed to visit any webshops at my peak hype on a series. I might have ordered some OP figures in my high…. ;D

Animecon XI 12.7-13.7.2014 Kuopio

This was actually the first time I managed to get a ticket to the anime concert and it was amazing! No wonder it is always sold out! Even though I didn't recognize half of the animes that were on the playlist! If they only would've played a half an hour longer that would have been even greater. But hey, I take what I can get. Such a shame I've missed the concerts of the two previous years. My favorite part of the concert was actually the encore song "This is Halloween" from The Nightmare Before Christmas

I've heard some people complaining about it being played since its western animation and not anime. So what? just listen to the amazing music that is being played for you!

Let's see if my playlist works...




This time I didn't go on a total shopping spree. I only sought out to buy one affordable yet a cool looking figure. In the end it came down to two Brook from One Piece figurines to choose between (I'm a sucker for skeletons). Brook before time skip or Brook after the time skip figure. I chose before time skip Brook because I like that look much better than the whole Soul King-thing he has going on now (and it was 7 euros cheaper). I couldn't be happier. ^_^