First, I'd like to thank my friend Crimson Vampire for bringing over his portable light studio and for editing these pics for me. Believe it or not, I don't even have photoshop, Dude, I am eternally grateful. Just bear in mind, you might have to do the same thing EVERY TIME I want to submit a new custom. Just kidding.
Now I realize that my first Abby submission was hardly more than clever accessorizing and a little paint on the arms. So, I decided to go all out the second time around. I went ahead and drybrushed the pants with a dark brown to give them that worn leather look. I added the little bow mount to her left leg using some tiny cut straps and some tna wrestlers elbow pad. But the other two details are what I am most proud of.
For her shirt, I Googled as many pictures as I could to try and extrapolate the intricate screen print. I'd seen a couple of customizers try to replicate it with paint, but it turned out looking more like a five year olds craft project because the details are freakin tiny. So I turned to my trusty Sharpee pens. Yes, they can get a little smudged over time, but it really just gives it a worn vintage look, so it works out for the best.
But the coup de gras, for me is how I pulled off her little arm blade. I'd seen some other people attach it with magnets or by just slipping it under the straps so that you could have it in or out. This was out of the question because I have three small children which means it would be lost about three minutes after I submitted the custom. So I cut off the blade from an old sword (Xena's?) and dremmeled a tiny hole through it. I rammed the ankle-joint peg from a Movie Iceman (that I had dismantled for my Nightcrawler custom) into said hole and then pushed the other end through another elbow pad, which I had cut up for the contraption on her arm. I had to dremmel a small divet into her arm to fit the peg and then just attached it with Krazy glue. (The pad, not the peg.) So, as you can see from the pics, the peg is free spinning so the blade can rotate between in and out positions. The simplest methods really are the most genious.
Hope this updated version is more to eveyone's liking.