Rachel Grey (Marvel Now)
What up everyone? Back again with another commission reveal. This one was a lot of fun to make. Ive wanted to make this version of this character for quite a long time. Its one of the few modern costumes that actually appealed to me in a big way. Here is, Rachel Grey (Summers) in her Marvel Now look.
This was made for the very patient @quilombo29 on Instagram. When he requested this look, he immediately went to the top of my commissions list. I was genuinely stoked to do this custom. And although I had a few minor issues with the build, I had a ton of fun making her.
Rachel was made using a Lady Deadpool base body. I kept the belt from Lady Deadpool but swapped out the Knees with Mocking Bird. I changed arms with Typhoid Mary (and took her jacket while I was at it) and stole a head from Songbird to complete the build.
As I was prepping the parts, the standard happened when working on this particular upper torso. The neck hinge broke. No surprise. Ive used this torso 3 times now, every time it has broken on me. Not sure why. This time I wanted to try something different. Instead of utilizing a hinge I implemented a double barbell neck joint (similar to more recent Star Wars Black Series).
To do this, I simply used my Dremel to hollow out the soft plastic neck big enough to accommodate a barbell. I then rebuilt the neck using Green Stuff. This provided me a new neck joint that could provide all the necessary range of motion one would need for any dynamic poses.
I did a decent amount of sculpting on Rach. Majority of the work on the body was done with Apoxie Sculpt. I sculpted all the detailing on her legs and arms, redid the knee pad design, torso details and shoulder design. Also added the shoulder armor, detailing on the neck and the x logo on the belt.
Rachel’s ‘bendable’ tails on her jacket were made using ProCreate, a sculpting medium that can retain flexibility after it cures. Using a rolling pin and baby powder, I rolled the Procreate into a thin layer about 1/2 the thickness I was ultimately trying to achieve. From there, I placed some fine gauged, straightened wire on top and used the rolling pin to roll it into the layer as I achieved my required thickness. With a bit of smoothing and blending with my finger, I was able to get it into the layer of procreate seamlessly.
I used a 3rd sculpting medium in this project called Green Stuff. Not only did I use it to rebuild the neck (As previously stated), but I also sculpted Rachel’s hair using it. The spikes on her shoulders were also made of green stuff that I rolled out , let cure, and cut to the appropriate size and inset into the shoulder armor.
The paint job on this one was really challenging. Finding the right shades of red so she didn’t look monochromatic was really important to me. In the end, I did the jacket a bit darker then the source material showed her in, but the customer liked it and so did I, so we left it. The face on Rachel is probably the best face ive ever painted and its the first time I was actually satisfied with the makeup job Ive done. Everything from the skin tones, to the eyes to the face markings, it all turned out awesome and im so happy about that.
I did have to add a bit of liquid latex to my paint for the jacket to give it just a touch of flexibility upon drying. I didn’t want the paint to chip off when the tails of the jacket were posed, and this helps prevent (doesn’t stop it from happening but gives the paint a bit more durability).
I also made her some cool power effects Can of Beams style. I just used some clear plastic from a picture frame and used my Dremel to shape them. I added texture using some clear apoxie and coloured it using clear Tamiya Orange and Yellow.
This figure was seriously so fun to make. I really enjoyed putting her together and bringing her to life. The jacket was a bit of a challenge but I managed to make it happen and the rebuilding of the neck was a blessing in disguise as I intend on making this a norm for my future female customs. So it was a very educational piece overall. Looking forward to hopefully working with the customer again on his next project - Maggot. Coming 2022. lol. See ya’ll next time!
