Custom Figure: Sho and Kei from Moon Child

Custom Figure of Sho and Kei from the movie Moon Child.

Since I first became a fan of Gackt and HYDE and saw “Moon Child”, I’ve wanted to do custom action figures of the characters they played. I’ve actually been in the process of making Kei for AGES, but I got sidetracked by work, etc. I finally managed to square away some time to properly do them.

These figures are based on Kei and Sho from my absolute favourite scene in the movie, the fight where they first meet Son. I specifically posed them at the very moment they meet Son, with their backs to each other and holding their guns at him.

Kei is made from an Anya head, Oz body and “End of Days” Buffy arms.

I put the parts together, took off Anya’s hair, sanded down Oz’s t-shirt, then sculpted the new shirt, coat, hair, modified the nose and painted it. He retains articulation in the lower legs and elbows.

I’m not totally happy with the likeness of Kei. I think I made the wrong head choice and if I make another Hyde custom in the future (which I hope to do), I’m going to use someone different.

BUT…. I think his shirt turned out AMAZING. You can’t really see it in the pic, but it actually DOES say “SAFE SEX FOREVER” on it. I managed to get most of the little tiny details in there, which is a minor miracle. So even if the facial likeness ISN’T perfect, I’ll adore the figure forever solely based on the shirt.

Sho is a rather funny story. When I showed my younger brother the figure, I made him play a guessing game. It was “guess which parts came from a female figure”. He was completely wrong. The answer is very surprising: Everything except the head came from female figures.

The problem with making Gackt & Hyde figures is they’re so slender of build and action figure males are always… Not. I was lucky to have an Oz, since he was actually BUILT like Seth Green (and wearing similar pants to Kei). But with Sho, it was a lot more difficult.

For Sho, I used a Peter Parker head, Darla torso, Faith legs and “End of Days” Faith arms.

I put the parts together, sanded down Darla’s breasts and hips. I added some sculpey to the shins, shirt and jacket, I lengthed the shoes and sculpted the hair. And… Well…. I sculpted the crotch. Honestly, that’s a sentence I never thought I’d utter. But I was amused through the process.

The figures have a double base, with Yi-Che’s mural behind them. I know it’s not scene-specific, but I thought it was the best way to capture the main points of the movie. The base is two Angel bases glued together. I got screencaptures of the mural from the movie, Photoshopped them together to make a complete picture, printed it on sticker paper and stuck it to the base. I think it really completes the set.

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