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Impulse, fighter of crime, doer of good deeds, always
helping out the little guy and never looking where he's going.
A superfast superhero from the future, Bart was raised
in a virtual environment and can't quite get it through his head that
life does not have a restart button.
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TOP FIGURE:
The top Impulse was made from a new Batman Animated Robin. I sanded
off the details on his chest, added some Sculpey to the torso to get
rid of the belt line and to make his overall shape a little different
from Robin. I had to resculpt the arms b/c Kenner gave this pint-size
Robin the strangest knobs for elbows, and, of course, I had to get rid
of the sleeve line as well as the glove line. Then, I chopped his little
ears and half the top of his head off. I painted the figure first, and
then slowly added the Sculpey details: the strange straps for his gloves
and boots along with their buckles. Then I moved to his head and used
some yellow Sculpey to make the circle of the Hermes-like wings. After
I hardened that with the hair dryer, I made the wing-things themselves
and hardened those. (I've never had a problem with the hair dryer method
-- I simply blowdry the area for around 2 - 5 minutes depending on thickness
and then put the figure promptly in the freezer. I pull him out, let
him thaw and check the hardness -- very rarely do I have to repeat the
blowdrying.) After I finished the Hermes-wings, I made his hair as I
did the first Impulse's -- rolled little snakes of Sculpey. This time,
though, I left the little locks of hair from the original base figure
and I think it helped it look much better.
Impulse and Montoya are my two favorites.
FIGURE TO RIGHT:
This Impulse is made from an Animated Dick Grayson
figure. I tried to sculpt out some of the arm musculature (Bart believes
working out is a hard core video-game session). The rest of the body
was primarily a repaint. The trick was his head. I took the front part
of a couple of googly eyes and superglued them to his face. Then I tried
to use a highlighter to make them yellowish. Didn't stick. So, I used
a light wash of yellow and that worked better. Then, I rolled bits of
Sculpey and stuck them on his head. I was using the "translucent" stuff
(which isn't translucent at all, IMHO) and frankly he looked like a
Medusa. I scrapped it and tried again, trying to get that windblown
look in the front. He still looked dorky, but I thought it might be
okay if I painted it. Seems that all that was really missing was the
color because once I got that done he looked great. I was surprised
at how well his hair had come out after all. Then I compared him to
the comic and realized I'd forgotten those weird little Mercury speed
thingees by his ears. I made those out of Sculpey, but now I wish they
were more covered up by his hair to look a bit more authentic.
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