CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: X-FACTOR FUTURE SHARD
MATERIALS USED: HOBBY KNIFE, SUPER GLUE, SCULPEY MODELING COMPOUND, ACRYLIC PAINTS
FIRST APPEARANCE: TRANSFORMERS #68

"I'm not a tool, an object to be used as you see fit.  I suggest you remember that!"

Preamble:  Katrina Vetsosky, known to her Neo-Knight teammates as Rapture, has the unique ability to lull her targets into a catatonic, dream-like state, bringing their innermost fantasies to the forefront of their minds in order to distract and subdue them.  She and Thunderpunch were recruited by G. B. Blackrock as part of his task force to deal with the increasing Decepticon threat to Earth, and along with Dynamo and Circuit Breaker, form the group called the Neo-Knights.

Rapture was the last of the four Neo-Knights I immortalized in action figure form.  This project presented a number of problems, partly due to the quality of the base figure I used and partly due to my own mistakes.

Construction:  The original Future Shard figure had this bizarre ponytail, so I had to get rid of that before I could do anything else.  Dipping her head in hot water softened up the plastic enough that I was able to pluck the rooted hair right out of the back of her head.  This left a rather large gaping hole in her skull which would need to be addressed later.  Shard also had quite a few belts, straps, and other assorted protruding things on her body that would have to be eliminated in order to create Rapture's skin-tight outfit.  A sharp X-Acto knife took care of most of these, but the remaining parts still looked a little mottled, so I went back and sanded her legs down with sandpaper until their were reasonably smooth.  I did the same thing with her upper sleeves, which were sculpted to look like thick material.

Making new hair for Rapture was daunting at first, but it turned out to be easier than I imagined.  The existing hairstyle was too short for Rapture, since it was all shaved off from the ears on down.  After shaping a gob of Sculpey into an extension of hair for the top of her head, I went back with my rusted X-Acto (no sense wasting a good blade, I figured) and carefully sculpted new strands of hair.  Her hairstyle seems to change with each artist that portrays her, so I went with the basic style that Dwayne Turner gave her from her first appearance.)  After a few trips to the oven, the Sculpey had hardened to the point where I could touch it up here and there with my blade.

Unfortunately, curing the Sculpey in the oven also messed up her forearms a bit.  The extreme temperature must have reshaped the plastic knobs holding her poseable forearms in place, which were already weak to begin with.  After a few failed attempts to rebuild them and save the articulation, I finally decided to just glue them together.  I figured it was better for her to have arms that actually stayed in place than to have extra joints that fell apart every time somebody sneezed.

I made new new shoulder pads out of some thin plastic sheets that I had previously considered using for Thunderpunch.  They're attached with super glue to the smaller shoulder pads she already had.  Two things I didn't want to alter at all were her boots (I didn't want to completely demolish her ability to stand up) and her collar (which I couldn't change without eliminating the articulation in her neck).

Painting her was easy enough, though I had a tough time matching the magenta color of her outfit.  I think I came up with a reasonable approximation.  Was it a mistake to actually draw the divider line between her red and magenta colors?  They're almost indistinguishable, so I thought the line would help to separate her colors a bit.

Comments:  I couldn't find a good accessory to use as her rocket pack, which is depicted in the comics as this rectangular box with shoulder straps.  I rationalized this by saying that this one looked stupid anyway.  I do have a backpack from a Voltron 3D figure that looks reasonably good on her, though.  (At least it's the right color.)  She still retains eight out of her original ten points of articulation, so at least that's something.