CLASSIFICATION: KITBASH
BASE FIGURE: SLASH
MATERIALS USED: ACRYLIC PAINTS; HOBBY KNIFE
FIRST APPEARANCE: "SLASH, THE EVIL TURTLE FROM DIMENSION X"

"You tricked me!  Everybody tricks me!"

Preamble:  Slash is one of those tragic characters whom I've come to love.  The poor thing is just terribly stupid, and he ended up being manipulated by just about everyone he encountered (even Bebop, who had owned him as a pet before accidentally mutating him).  This isn't to say Slash was completely ineffective, of course.  Armed only with a pair of shaolin swords, Slash tore up the TechnoDrome, crushed April O'Neil's news van with his bare hands, and managed to beat all four of the Turtles single handedly.  Even the greatest villains have their weaknesses, though, and Slash's obsession with his only worldly possession, the tiny toy palm tree he called "Binky," proved to be his undoing.

The toy concept was obviously to come up with an evil counterpart to the Turtles.  They even armed him with twisted versions of each of the Turtles' weapons, in addition to some decidedly Shredder-like gauntlets.  As always, the cartoon incarnation of the character was somewhat different.  Aside from carrying different weapons, Slash as he appeared in the cartoon had the same skin color as the other Turtles (the toy was sort of a teal color).  Also, while the toy was originally released with a purple belt like he's got in the show, it was changed to black after the initial production run, which is the version I ended up with.  Well, Slash was one of the duplicate figures I got in an eBay lot, and I immediately set him aside for this project.

Construction:  I barely changed Slash at all on a structural level, but ended up making lots of little cosmetic changes that vastly improved the overall appearance.  For starters, I cut some of the spikes off his shell, got rid of his tail, and carved away at the copyright stamp since it was interfering with the contours of his shell.  I yanked off his Shredder claws and carved away at his hands to create the illusion of finger gloves, and transposed the spikes on his elbows to his new gloves.  I also gave him actual fingernails, using some of the leftover plastic from the spikes I'd cut off, gluing them to grooves I'd cut out of his fingertips.  Since the belt he wears in the show actually wraps around inside his shell (don't ask me how this is possible), I cut the belt in half and glued on the octagonal belt buckle and one of the skulls it was adorned with.  I wanted him to be able to store his swords in his belt like he does in the show, so instead of gluing the belt in place, I attached it with sections of paper clips on either end, leaving the rest of it hanging loose to leave room for his swords.  The straps that originally hung from his belt became the new straps holding his shoulderpads in place.  I also cut off the straps on Slash's bandana, cutting away at the bandana to make it look more like the metal headband thing he wears in the cartoon.  Probably the biggest and most important change I made, though, was to get rid of all his teeth except for those whopping incisors he's got.  I cut away at the inside of his mouth, essentially resculpting the plastic, and even gave him a tongue.  The swords originally came with the Somersault Samurai Leo toy from the Ninja Action assortment.  I ended up cutting away at the blades to change their shape a bit, and also cut out that little chunk that's missing from one of them (watch the episode when he first grabs them off the TechnoDrome wall).

Comments:  The only real problem here is that Slash (much like Metalhead) needs to be just a tad bigger in order to be to scale with the other Turtles.  Other than that, I'm quite pleased with him.