Here is my 12 inch figure of Batman in his Sonar Suit as he appeared in the 1995 film, Batman Forever. This was actually a custom figure I paid a pretty penny for 15 years ago...and it was of dubious quality. Sometimes you get burned when buying custom figures. Well, I recently decided to give it a complete revamp. I pulled everything apart and scrapped the base GI Joe figure entirely. To my shock, the body suit was dark blue and had been spray painted black. I opted to use a 12 inch base figure made by Dragon for the new body. I wanted posable hands for the figure, so I used black colored hands from a GI Joe, busting open the forearms of the Dragon figure and inserting the new hands, then taping the forearms back up so that the hands were posable. I purchased a female leather-like jumpsuit from Ebay, as I wanted the body suit to fit tight. It was difficult to get onto the body, and the zipper busted on the back, resulting in my having to sew the costume shut. The model pieces were cleaned up, sanded, and trimmed, as the original custom's trim work of the model parts was sloppy, obviously done in a rush. I cut off the model hands and used the wrist gauntlets only. The chest piece was originally one large piece, and I opted to cut it into three pieces (abs, ribs, chest) to better fit the mold of the base figure and to get rid of the slight twist the original model's pose incorporated. The head was posed with a twist to the neck originally, so I cut off the throat area and resculpted it to to be straight using epoxy and sculpy. I spray painted the model body armor parts and head using Testors Blazing Black, a black color with a metallic sheen. I hand painted the belt buckle. I used gorilla glue to attach the armor to the body, and I used epoxy to attach the head. The pleather cape originally used had surface cracks in the polyurethane coating, and was worn at the neck, not to mention sloppily cut. I decided to scrap it, using a piece of leather-look material I had instead. I attached snap buttons to the base figure and to the cape, making the cape removable. The large clasps holding the cape to the shoulders were not included in the original custom for some reason, so I had to make them out of styrene plastic and sculpy, then glued them to the cape. My revamp of this custom is 1000 times better than the junk I received in the mail so long ago. I am quite proud of the end result, and I hope you like it as well!


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