Kamen Rider Black custom

The Rider that brings back memories Kamen Rider Black TV version custom ;D

This was my... 3rd custom i believe, done near mid of 2012. This was also my first full epoxy custom without using any vinyl materials, quite proud of doing that at that time as it was a step up for my custom expeirence.

I always wanted to make one version of Black coz he was my rider hero when i was a wee little kid too small to even have acnes. I will always remember the small scene in his opening/closing song when he walks slowly away from his bike. ahhh... good memories.

Right, so the custom is actually pretty simple. I used Kamen Rider The First as a body base since he bear the most similarities to Black.

The first thing to do is design of course. And here is how i intended to have him look like when its done. At that time, I was still unsure what to do with the complicated and minutely detailed belt but i went ahead anyway.

Now with the design in mind, I knew where i need to cut off the armor in order for me to have room to replace them with putty sculpts. I proceeded to shave plastics off his joints, his neck, his lower abdomen, his pelvic and the belt (those nubby stubs and his belt buckle) area. I also cut off his collar coz Black dont have a collar.

Then I sand those shaved off areas so that the epoxy putty will stick on it better. I used 2 kinds of putty for this custom, one is the cheap industrial type you can find in the hardware stores and the other is the tamiya hobby putty from hobbyshops which is like 3 times more expensive. I used the tamiya putty for the areas that required more sculpts or  where i need them to be smooth as at that time i was still not accustom to using hardware putty.

Next I cut off parts of his mouth as well as Black has a striped design instead of a insect design for his mouth plate. I also cut off a bit of his chest piece; the lower portion as The First has a slightly extended lower chest whereas Black has a normal looking chest piece. See pic below.

I then start laying in the epoxy putty. Back then I don't even know how to use blades so i used my trusty toothpicks and my fingers. For the mouth, i used my fingers and roll strips of putty and lay them on the face one by one. Those tendon like designs I slap putties on the surface and used a sharp toothpick to slowly edge the lines out. The lower abdomen I just put slaps of putties on it to look like body armor.

Now for the harder sculpts I use tamiya putties (the lighter brown ones you see in the photo below). For those lines along his arms and legs, I simply roll putties into strips (bigger this time) again and stick them on carefully. The patterns on the sides of his mouth plates i used my own hands to flatten the putties and then i cut up a toothpick to make it into a tiny spade that i use to pat the putties into a smoother flat surface.

The hardest yet most ingenius part was how to sculpt the belt buckle. I'll tell you this before you continue to wonder, I DIDN'T hahaha. Here's what i did...

For the belt buckle, what I did was I shape a lump of putty around the original belt leaving the transparent red part exposed. Now this part is funny. I was actually at a lost as to how to make those designs on his belt after stuffing in the putty on his belt buckle so I let it dry for a while. Dyring that time, I actually thought of an idea which works. Instead of painstakingly sculpting out the design, i reliased i can imprint it on the putty! So I went about looking for mechanical looking stuff and found W's trigger gun! I then use certain parts of the gun and place it on the putty to let the shape of the electrical design on the gun imprint on the putty. Look at the photo below. Those arrow tagged as "B" are the ones whereby the shapes were imprinted from the gun. The "C" shape which is a round button was actually one of the stubs i cut off from The First's belt. I added the "A" arrow just to indicate that I push the putty away from the transparent red part as well as the silver ring part around the transparent red part so that it appears to have a round design.

After that its a matter of letting all the putty dries. I should have then sand them to make them smooth but I didnt because back then I didnt know i need to do that ;p Then I repaint all the details and it now looks like the photo below.

Next is simple, repaint everything. Did some linings on the mouth piece, the lower abdomen and the belt. And there you have it, Kamen Rider Black, TV version :D

Next up will not be a Kamen Rider. It will be an SIC and tokusatsu but not rider hehehe something I wanted to try for sometime but didnt until now. Took a while as it requires some re-designing ;) See ya in my next post!