Frank Castle, aka "The Punisher," is one of Marvel's greatest creations to date.  I bought the very first solo Punisher comic riding my bike home from school one day and I still have most of the original series.  The Punisher series died down and went away and so did my enthusiasm for the character.  But with the latest revival started by Garth Ennis in 2000 and the film remake starring Thomas Jane, it rekindled my interest again.  But with Garth Ennis' adaptation of the new series, Frank seemed more dark and he also lost what I loved most of the original punisher - the classic spandex suit, white gloves and boots and the awesome ammo pouches over the Punisher skull on the chest.

This figure marks my longest running project to date.  Eight and a half months running before it is where you see him now.  I knew I wanted to make the original Frank Castle with the classic suit, but everything about him seemed to dwarf any type of challenge I've met so far.  Everything had to be custom made, worked on, repainted, resculpted, etc.  It was not going to be an easy figure I know, and the challenges I faced working on him made me want to give up several times over.

First and foremost is the muscular body.  After making Solid Snake, I tried to implement the same body sculpting for Frank.  For the most part, I got better with the bodysculpting and he looks more smooth.  Another thing is that I started to pay more attention to his articulation.  Snake was a total experiment and a lot of his articulation was lost when the big muscles came on.  Frank lost little to no articulation other than in the width of the arms raising up.  I spent at least twenty sculpting sessions on his body alone (I lost count after the 16th time), sculpting only a few muscles on each section at a time.

His ammo pouches, left and right leg holsters, back holsters, left and right chest holster and shoulder holsters were all hand-sewn with various leather and pleather materials.  His gloves and boots are also sewn with white latex.  Black bodysuit is another product from Skip and Robin Are of Project Are.  His black trench coat is sewn with pleather and I cut up the ends and weathered it so it looks more dirty and war-torn.  All the ammo and weapon compartments on the coat are hand sewn with black webbing.