Figure Build 4: Black Cat from Spider-ManHey all, I'm back with another build. So recently, I found myself gravitating toward the Hot Toys Spider-Man figures, particularly the ones based on comic book suits. I currently only own one 1/6 Spider-Man, which is the Classic Suit from the PS4 videogame. In my opinion, this is the quintessential comic book look. A classic suit with a modern flair.
I also have a couple more figures ordered, and again, both of these are comic book suits. I don't really care for the movie suits (Maguire, Garfield, Holland, etc.)
I found myself wanting to add a 1/6-scale Black Cat to the collection. Her and Spider-Man are probably my favorite comic book couple. The problem is that I doubt Hot Toys or any reputable manufacturer will make a licensed figure of Black Cat with a comic book-inspired outfit. I think it is too "revealing" for the current day.
So, I had to turn to the unlicensed manufacturers to find a 1/6-scale Black Cat figure. Luckily, I saw that Verycool had made a Black Cat figure back in 2019. I'm late to the party regarding this figure, I know.
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t1533-new-product-verycool-accessories-series-1-6-catwoman-catwoman-set-including-head-carving-vcl-1001So now I was tasked with finding this Verycool kit that was almost five years old at the time of writing. The kit was sold out pretty much everywhere, but I luckily managed to find a brand new VCL-1001 kit on Yahoo Auctions Japan. The seller was based in Hong Kong and sold to Japanese customers. So, I had to use a proxy to order it. I was thinking it was a scam, but I lucked out. Though I did pay an aftermarket price of roughly 1.5x the retail cost.
Now, while the kit itself is high quality for the most part, I do have a bone to pick with some aspects of the kit. To start with the positives, the suit is gorgeous with a nice hexagonal pattern. The quality of the suit is comparable to Hot Toys. Though I do think there is an issue with the faux fur, as it easily flakes off, maybe that was just me being too rough with it. Anyway, the major problem I had was with the head sculpt.
The sculpt doesn't look like what I imagined Black Cat looking like when portrayed in a realistic style instead of the usual comic book style. I wanted a sculpt that had the playful, seductive expression that she is known for. Also, the rooted hair is the wrong color. It is a warm white, almost gray, hair that should have been pure white. I might be biased here, but I also don't like open-mouthed expressions on head sculpts.
Another issue I had was with the mask. The shape of the mask makes it difficult to wear on the head. It also has two holes on the left and right sides, which accommodate an elastic string as part of the attaching mechanism. I think it looks very unsightly.
I was looking for inspiration on how Black Cat might look with a realistic style and turned to the cosplay scene. I found some examples that I think looked suitable for what I envisioned.
So, basically, I wanted to create a new Black Cat head sculpt. I more or less scoured the entire 1/6 head sculpt market to find a suitable sculpt. I wanted one with the aforementioned seductive, playful expression and one not based on an IRL person. Lastly, I wanted a head sculpt with a suntan skin tone to match the original head. I settled on a head sculpt by Super Duck, the SDH040.
https://onesixthfigures.forumotion.com/t6149-new-product-super-duck-1-6-sdh040-mixed-blood-female-head-sculpture-ab-c-d-four-styles
This head sculpt fits the criteria I mentioned. It has the correct skin tone, has a playful smile, and is not based on an IRL person. The next thing to do was to find a suitable body. Verycool suggested using the S23B, S19B, or S21B bodies. I wanted to use a body that was slightly smaller since I wanted her to scale well when compared to the Hot Toys Spider-Man figures. The older TBLeague bodies tend to run on the tall side. I ended up getting the more petite S33B suntan body.
The skin tone of the body was a 100% match for the head sculpt.
Next, I would need to find suitable hair for rerooting. For some reason, finding pure white hair is extremely difficult. The white hair ends up being either warm white or cool white. After carefully searching, I managed to find a seller on Taobao that sold pure white hair.
I picked up more than needed for one head sculpt since this is a new material for rooted hair, and I wanted to make sure I sent the artist I work with plenty of hair to experiment with. In the comic books, Black Cat is sometimes depicted wearing earrings, so I wanted to add that to the head sculpt. I purchased these 1mm fake pearl beads on eBay years ago. I've used them on some other head sculpts in the past.
Next up would be finding a replacement for the mask. Instead of searching the 1/6-scale market for other 1/6 masks, I figured it would be easier to go the 3D printed route. I looked for Black Cat masks intended for cosplay. I found one on Cults3D.
https://cults3d.com/en/3d-model/fashion/black-cat-mask
One issue with using .STL files meant for cosplay and scaling them down to 1/6 scale is that the parts can end up being extremely thin. This was the case here. Luckily, I know a guy who is a full-time 3D printer and has printed tons of my stuff in the past. I figured he would be able to tackle it. Using the Chitubox software, I scaled down the 1/1 scale mask to 1/6 scale. Because there is usually some variance between 1/6 head sculpts, i.e., some head sculpts are bigger than others, I decided to scale the base 1/6 mask by ±2.5% and ±5.0%. This way, I would have a good selection of 1/6 scale mask sizes to choose from, and hopefully one of them will work for the SDH040 head.
The masks were printed successfully, and I found one size that was a perfect match for the SDH040 head. One thing to note is that with this particular mask sculpt, the eyebrows on the head sculpt will be essentially hidden. Not a big deal for me, though.
With all the "logistics" taken care of, I sent everything to Headartfactory, the artist I work with, for the repainting and rerooting. I specified I wanted blue eyes, red lipstick, and real eyelashes. Here's what that ended up looking like:
Now that I have the head sculpt, we can proceed with the build itself.
There are two small modifications I am making to her outfit. I'm adding a split ring to her zipper, like how she is depicted in most comic book appearances. Secondly, I'm replacing the stock whip. The stock whip is too short and is not tapered at the end. I found a 1/6 "Catwoman?" whip on eBay that looked suitable. It has a cool cat head sculpt on the handle of the whip.
As mentioned previously, I'm using the S33B body. Though I source my bodies from a Japanese artist on Yahoo Auctions that customizes them. I'm glad I do too; as many of you know, TBLeague now censors all their bodies. Here's what that body looks like, if anyone's curious.
Image removed on request.I just contact the seller, tell them the body I want, and what customization I'm looking for. I told the seller I wanted the body to have large areolas since I wanted them to "peek" through the outfit.
Putting on the suit was much more difficult than I had imagined. I figured I'd have an easy time if I applied cornstarch before attempting to do so. But, no, putting the outfit on took almost half an hour. My fingers were throbbing after all that tugging. The material used for the suit is great; there was no damage even after all that pulling.
For the pose, I ended up going for this one. Credit goes to csyeung for posting this picture in an older thread.
I did realize after taking photos that I had set up the belt wrong. The loops were not adjusted properly. I did correct it after, but I did not feel like setting up the light box again and taking new photos. I'm slightly annoyed, but it is what it is.
Here are a few pictures of everything put together. I'm happy with how she turned out!
And here she is next to my Spider-Man figure. I mentioned earlier that I did not want to use a larger TBLeague body since she would dwarf Spider-Man in size. But I think the S33B is a good match. She's slightly shorter than Peter Parker when wearing heels.
That's it for this build! I have more customs I'll be posting in the near future.
(P.S. If any of you US-based guys want the old head sculpt + mask, let me know.)
. Nice work.
. 
Here's a comparison with the stock ASToys body:
