Head: 25A Roadblock
Body: Build 'n Brawl Umaga


Design:

Although Hasbro released a painfully reimagined Hard Master figure, there has never been a Soft Master figure. Surprisingly, there are few customs of the this character crucially linked to the origins of everyone's favorite ninja commando, Snake-Eyes. There had never been a good figure to use as the base for the Soft Master, so I never put much effort into making a custom. I wanted to make a more or less comic accurate version of the character.

Then I saw the Build 'n Brawl Umaga figure and knew I had found the base. The Umaga body is a bit stronger-looking than the comic flashback appearances of the Soft master and also has a smaller belly. But it's very close, so I opted to make this the Soft Master slightly younger than the comic appearances. Perhaps a decade or so before he was introduced to Snake-Eyes, when his hair was a bit thicker, too.

Sculpting & modifying:

All of the gi is made of masking tape. The belt is also masking tape. This is my fourth or fifth figure which uses masking tape to emulate cloth. Some customizers enjoy working with real cloth, but I've always thought that the "fold lines" on real cloth aren't crisp enough to look right at the 1:18th scale. The biggest trick, which seems counter intuitive, is to not cover the shoulders at all. Once the paint goes on, it doesn't even matter.

The head was also fun to make. I took a 25A Roadblock head and removed the mustache/goatee. I also cut out the bugged-out eyes and thickened the jawline. The hair is hot glue.


Colors & paint:

Orange. And lots of it. It's a very overpowering, and silly, color if not done right. The best way to tame it was to put a dirty grey wash over the whole gi. Much to my surprise, the wash made the gi look more realistic than I thought it could.

It took all of my will power to paint the belt white. I really, really wanted to make it black. But, in keeping with the flashback appearances, I kept it white.

The hair is darker than when we first saw the Hard Master in the Marvel Comics, but has some lighter streaks in it.

Thanks for looking.

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