While my taste can be scattered at times, there are few figures that I truly want to do justice in every conceivable way.  Batman and Superman are probably among those few.  This custom Batman is certainly and arguably my most long running project to date.  I planned on making him when I first made the Punisher, which was about a year and a half back.  So, you can't imagine how insanely happy I am to finish Batman finally.  You ever work on a figure and, no matter how much work you put into him, you never feel that he's complete?  I mean, as good as I think Batman looks now, there's always "something" that I feel I could better him with.  This, of course, happened to me quite a bit so my year and a half of making Batman usually resulted in this.  I'd end up making parts of him, scratch the project, throw it away, then start all over again.  His bodysculpt took the longest because I never seemed happy with the way his muscles turned out.  Batman would always look like a figure with some clay just thrown on him.  Which, well, is exactly what was done.  You could never get a perfectly smooth bodysculpt without sacrificing some sort of articulation and it's extremely hard to do anything in between.

Planning his weapons were another issue.  Most Batman toys out there come with really horrid looking weapons.  They look like, uhm, toys. I mean what millionaire would use neon pink scuba gear?  How about zip-line Batman with turbo wings?  One of the things that I really liked about Batman was that he was just a regular Joe.  He didn't have any natural powers like Superman or a weapon like Green Lantern; Batman is just a guy in tights who could fight - which is always a plus when you're running around in tights.  So, a lot of his weapons and gear had to be very simplistic, but effective.  He would rely more on his speed and fighting skills more than anything else.  I made his punch glaives and ninja stars out of styrene.  His grappling gun is from a BBI Andromeda figure if I remember correctly.

His gauntlet blades were also made of styrene, painted black and glued onto his gauntlets.  His gauntlets and shin guards were something new I tried.  Instead of sculpting them, I tried to do a different approach - leathered armor.  Pieces of leather was cut out, glued, added eyelets and rivets, and held together with buckles.  I Frankensteined Worthfield's bendy hands to the BBI body.  I've been really addicted to the Worthfield hands.  Their body has great articulation, but it looks pretty darn weird without clothing.  But the hands are undoubtedly the best "hands down" bendy figures in the toy industry.  They can take whatever grip and pose you throw at them without deterioration.

The bodysuit is another Skip and Robin Are spandex suit that I modified for a tighter fit.  I sewed his gloves, leather underwear and cape, which I added wiring for the extra cool poses.  If you're wondering why his abs are showing up rather nicely, I added thinned down acrylic paint and some minor pastels to the suit to darken up and enhance his muscles.  Genius ain't I? Hehehe.