Sunday, May 9, 2010

Fool for Love

Original Air Date: 14 November 2000
In a routine patrol at the cemetery, Buffy fights with a vampire. Buffy has the upper hand, but when she attempts her killing blow, the vampire turns her stake around on her, and she is stabbed in the abdomen. She tells the incident to Giles and decides to research how the previous Slayers were killed. She does not find any information in the watcher's journals and decides to seek the information from Spike. He tells that in 1880, in London, he was a bad poet and a shy good man in a non-corresponded love with Cecily. When he meets Drusilla, she bites and converts him in the evil vampire. Later, in the same year in Yorkshire, he meets Angel and Darla and is challenged to defeat a slayer. In 1900, in China, he is well-succeeded and kills his first slayer. In 1977, in the subway of New York City, he kills his second slayer. He advises Buffy that she must never be reckless and keep her death wish to survive.



Reference pictures from the show:


I recently made a cemetery for my collection. I wanted to make a scene for the cemetery that was pretty important to the show. Thinking back the one show that took place in a cemetery was from the episode, "Fool for Love" when Buffy got staked. Other customizes have made Buffy before so I knew I wanted to make it different. What I attempted to do no one has done before but I thought it was key to the whole show. To me, it is ridiculous to have a Buffy figure with her mouth closed when she got a stake in her gut. If someone is in pain their mouth is open. I wanted to sculpt a Buffy with a mouth open. In addition to that, I wanted to make the vampire to go along with this scene.

It is risky to cut up a figure and re-sculpt certain features...especially a 6 inch figure. I decided on using a Buffy Bot figure that way if it didn't work out, I wasn't wasting a good Buffy head. I first tried cutting the mouth open (after being boiled) and I pried it open to make it look like the mouth is open. This didn't look right and from experience I knew that upon boiling it again, the plastic would return to the original form, ruining any work I did to it. So I cut off the jaw completely.

To be completely honest the sculpting was rather easy to do. Once the clay held onto the head I could sculpt the jaw, and then mouth parts. For some reason uncured clay looks different from cured clay. I thought what I sculpted looked great but after boiling I noticed the jaw/chin was WAY too big. Here is a picture (and some funny pictures of Buffy holding her old jaw).






I didn't want to redo the face since it was pretty good so I used a scalpel to shave down the chin and cheek area. I made several more changes along the way (even after I painted the face and still was not happy). I think the final painted piece, when you see it, is good. It is rough in many spots due the shaving down in some areas. But, I am happy with the final product.

For Buffy I used the hole body (minus head and one had) from the Stargate figure, robotic Samantha Carter. I removed the jacket. I used a closed fist that comes with the newer deluxe figures.

For the vampire I used a Vamp. Xander head, and the torso from a Stargate figure (Colonel John Sheppard) and the legs from a Spike figure. I used the jacket as well, but cut it open and glued it to stay open.

Here are some pics of the parts:


For Buffy I sculpted over some of the joints in the legs. I then sculpted the sweater and sleeves. I realize the sweater looks a bit big on Buffy, but it was a big sweater in the show. I then sculpted her arms into place and the scarf around her neck. I then did the hair. She does have braided pig tails but it's hard to see. Here are some unpainted pieces.


Painting her was easy except the face. I really tried to mask some of the marks on the chin and for the most part I think it's pretty good (for being my first face sculpt). I'm not happy about the eyes. They don't really look like Buffy's eyes, but the Buffy Bot figure's head is not a really good face, either. I did make her face look like it's in pain but I'm not sure how it'll look magnified when you click on the picture.

Here is the painted Buffy (OH, the tongue looks really red in the pictures, it's not that red in real, the flash just highlights all the nooks and crannies!)

Some face close ups (I'll put my vanity aside and show you these)...


I didn't do much for the vampire. I sculpted him with the wild 80s hair. I sculpted over the Tshirt. I also sculpted over the joints in the arms and legs. He was supposed to be holding Buffy's arm better but this just didn't come together as I had wanted--he would be standing in the way blocking Buffy which I didn't want.

Here are some unpainted pieces, and painted pieces:





Here they are together first with a plain background, then in the cemetery: