The recipe (long)
Tools:
Exacto blade
Lighter
Testors? Paint kit
Sable (horse hair) brushes of all kinds or for less expensive brushes, synthetic Sable, or whatever, it all works.
Sculpting:
Well I used a Marvel Select Black Widow, boiled a small cup of water in the microwave to remove the head and lower arms.
Then I pulled off the Shi head and boiled and pulled the lower arms off with small round needle nose pliers, if you aren't careful, they will scar or cut plastic so be patient.
Cut the Shi left hand with an exacto blade between her index and middle finger, and hollow out the extra plastic under the thumb. Shi's plastic is very hard, be careful not to slip, I've lost more blood that way. Keep a cup of recently boiled water next to you as you sculpt, reheat as often as needed. The Shi plastic will be soft for 5 seconds for every 20 you keep it dipped in boiling water, a real pain try it a couple of times to get the rythm.
The hardest part is the stupid Shi top knot. Fortunately, her hair is much softer than her body. What I did was, well, sliced it off, revealing the white inside. then take some spare soft female hair (the rubbery kind) and glue it on over it, lining up the strands as best you can (it doesn't matter what color, it all gets painted black.) there will be a frustrating seam left over no matter how thinly you slice the hair. Take your lighter and slightly melt the perimiter of the offending seam (DO NOT touch the flame to the hair, hold it really close, until you see a little smoke or see tiny, TINY bubbles) in this state, the rubbery plastic hair will be SCULPTABLE, just like clay! Use a tool or (stupidly) your finger nail to smooth out the seam.
Painting:
I gave the Black Widow body a base coat of Testors? brand gloss red on her costume areas only (1 part black to 10 parts red roughly.) Be sure you are leaving the belt, sheath and straps black, and leaving the zipper and colar silver. Don't bother painting the inside loop of the zipper-pull it should already be black enough.
(If you screw up, let it dry, then get revenge on the little screw up with light exacto blade scraping)
Mix a paler skin color using the two paints available in the Testors? 3.99 paint kit (12 colors and two mixing cups built into a black plastic base) ad apply to the Shi head. And mix a slightly darker skin color for the shaddows above her eyes (where the original Shi figure has purple eye shadow)
set her aside, drying time is about 5 minutes. (do this in an extremely well ventalated place!!) Then painted the Shi arms red, leaving the silver trim. Paint the Black Widow shirt gloss black.
Paint the Shi head hair gloss black and the lips bright red, then go over the upper lip only with the mixed dark red, and a little on the lower lip. the point is to make her upper lip look a little darker (as if in shadow) and leave any areas you want to "highlight" with the underlying bright red.
(do all painting of one color at once, mix way more than you think you will need, it still will come up a little short.)
Accessories:
Shi comes with a sword that fits perfectly into her right hand, and the old marvel legends Elektra came with sai that fit into Shi's (modified) left hand.
any other swords or knives will work, just be aware that no guns will fit into her hands, due to the angle and sculpt of them, which is fine, Elektra hardly ever uses guns.
the sash "holding back" Elektra's hair is three tiny strips of real cloth, carefully glued (using super glue and the point of an exacto blade) placed one on top of eachother, then painted the same dark red to seal them in from pilling or fraying.
the extra black curl of stray hair was from a X-men movie Jean Grey, seems kind of silly to buy her just for that, I just keep a big bin of old parts for stuff like this, so I already had her (head.)
Cost:
Marvel Select Black Widow= $14 to $20
Shi action figure = $10 to $14
Regular Legends Elektra = $8 or less, if you dedicate yourself to this custom, you probably already have it!
good luck!

excellant work. I haven't done a female custom yet, been thinking about it. do you mind posting the recipe? you don't have too, just curious is all.

Thanks, she is my personal favorite! And thanks for changing the profile pic!

That's great work Will. She looks so much better than the Marvel Legends version. The costume is definitely more practical too.