| KAIN
PROJECT #17
CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: BATMAN BEYOND LASER BATMAN
PARTS USED: MULTI-ARMED SPIDER-MAN (HANDS), XENA: WARRIOR
PRINCESS GABRIELLE (STAFF)
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, SUPER GLUE, PAPER CLIPS, MODELING PUTTY;
ACRYLIC PAINTS
"I did not betray, but came to my senses."
Preamble: Kain was a Dragoon warrior,
a member of the elite Red Wings squadron, and best friend of Cecil, the Red
Wings commander. He was devoutly loyal to King Baron, following even
unsavory orders because he lacked Cecil's strength of character to question
the wisdom of these commands. Golbez exploited this weakness in Kain's
character when he secretly took control of Castle Baron, secretly brainwashing
Kain into a subservient role. For a time, Kain couldn't even be fully
trusted, even after he was freed from Golbez's control. In the end,
Kain learned to make decisions not because of who commanded him, but what
he felt was right, and by story's end he has traveled to Mt. Ordeals
to become a Paladin, just as Cecil had done.
Like Cecil, there are several different game designs
for Kain depending on what part of the game he's in (the battle screen differs
from the world map, which are both different than the subscreen portrait).
Using the computer animation model I found in Famitsu PS magazine,
which was based on Yoshitaka Amano's original art for the character, I came
up with a fairly reasonable amalgam of his different appearances.
Construction: I was amazed at how
nicely suited the Laser Batman toy
was for this project. He already had most of the right protruding parts
on his armor. I chopped off the flames coming out of the rocket boosters
on his boots; I debated keeping the boosters intact (maybe they could aid
in his special Jump skill) until I realized how silly that idea was (the
world of Final Fantasy II is decidedly low-tech) so I turned them
into more protruding armor parts instead. I also chopped a couple of
these parts off his arms and glued them to the front of his chest armor.
One minor stumbling block was the fact that
the Laser Batman toy had two closed fists, but I wanted Kain to be able to
hold his spear. I chopped off his hand and replaced it with one from
a multi-armed Spider-Man figure (hey, he had six of them so I figured he
could spare one). I drilled a hole into the new fist and arm stump
and inserted a piece of paper clip to support it before I secured it with
super glue. And yes, I remembered to make Kain left-handed.
Laser Batman came with this missile-launching
backpack with obnoxiously large wings. I realized that if I flipped
the backpack upside-down and chopped off part of the existing wings, I could
turn them into his Dragoon wings. After removing the missile-launching
mechanism, I briefly considered using the backpack as weapon storage for
his lance until, once again, I realized how silly that was.
Crafting the mask was the tricky part. It
was the most important part of the project because it had to capture Kain's
essence perfectly. I used some of the leftover wing parts that I'd
cut off, carving them to the right shape and gluing them to his head. A
little modeling putty filled the gaps between the visor and his head.
The lance was fun to do. The blades are
made from more extra wing parts, secured with a piece of paper clip. I
drilled holes in the sides of the blades, drilled another hole through the
staff, and super glued them together. The tip of the lance is a pick-up
stick, whittled to a sufficiently sharp point using my X-Acto knife.
Comments: Kain is blue on the world
map but sea green in battle, so I compromised by making him blue with sea
green highlights. His poseability is somewhat limited because the figure
only had five points of articulation to start with, but surprisingly, the
fins on his chest don't impede the movement of his arms. |
