Capcom's Devil May Cry series set the standard for a lot of games.  Double fisted gunplay and super cool characters dominate the game with a style all of its own.  Though the first game was the best, the second game slightly enhanced the characters and the gameplay a bit.  I liked Dante's second costume a lot better and he seemed more dark the second time around.

It's funny where your inspirations can come from. Although I have always wanted to do Dante since I got into the hobby, I never found the time or the urge too.  I've looked at various figures and even drew out plans on how I want to make him, but I shelved the project because it was too damn hard.  But due to a recent post at the Men With Dolls Forum, urging fellow collectors to do a horror-themed figure, I found the passion for Dante again. Coupled with the fact that my CD player broke down and all I could listen to was heavy metal for three weeks (heavy metal gets me thinking of gothic themes), I had to do Dante.

If I ever become a customizing instructor, my final grading assignment would be to do Dante.  This project represents my longest and hardest figure to date.  He culminates and combines everything I know (or thought I know) about customizing.  Real hair, painting, sewing, gluing, weathering, sculpting, casting, you name it.

The biggest task was getting his clothes.  Boy was that hard.  I sewed day and night, about five hours each night for three weeks straight.  I hand sew everything in case you're wondering why it takes so long.  While machine sewing looks good and is a lot faster, hand sewing gives you more control - especially with leather and moving around smaller areas.  All of his clothing are custom made from red pleather.

The next hard task was getting the right head.  Dante is a half demon so he had to look like a badass.  I spent several days going through IPKevin's index of Dragon heads to see who best matches Dante's likeness.  Anyone want to guess who the base figure is?  Once I selected the figure, doing Dante's super cool hairstyle was another crazy task.

I give credit where credit is due and in this case, James Van Spronsen is the man I give thanks to.  Gluing hair is really nothing new.  Hayashi, the Eastern God of Customizing, started the hair gluing technique a few years back with his female figures.  IPKevin then started his Van Damme mullet and once I saw that, I started my Wong Fei Hung figure, but James Van Spronsen had a rather radical idea.  Up until I saw James' figures, I've been using Barbie or synthetic hair.  Instead, James had been gluing rabbit and animal pelt on!  The technique, though simple in concept, is rather hard to pull off.  You cut out a small piece of animal fur and line it up to the figure's head, apply glue and you're done.  Easy right?  The hard thing is to line it up with the head so it doesn't look like his hair line is receding or going too far over his forehead, etc.  That's the hard part.