Sarafina: Rock Ninja with Sword, Guitar, Microphone stand, Bag of snacks, Zaltar "Yes You Can!" portrait, figure stand, and window box For a while now, Sarafina has been mentioning wanting an action figure of herself. Well, we all want action figures of ourselves, right? It's how you know you've "made it." Fortunately, Sarafina is with the right guy for this sort of thing. For Christmas 2008 I set about making an action figure of the woman I love; because she is both a rock star and a ninja, Sarafina: Rock Ninja was the result. RECIPE, ACCURACY, AND INSPIRATION Materials: * Yuffi Kisaragi (Final Fantasy VII: Advent Children) action figure (body, sword, figure stand) * Lemmy Kilmister (Motorhead) action figure (guitar, microphone, portrait backing) Sarafina mentions Final Fantasy III on a regular basis, and after touring the entirety of the Silver Snail looking for suitable base figures for the project, the Final Fantasy action figure line seemed to hold the most possibilities as the basis for the toy. Of the available options, Yuffi Kisaragi gave me the most to work with (which in this context means: was wearing the least clothes and had the most Sarafina-accurate hair). Because I was treading into new territory (I don't think I've ever used a non-Star Wars figure as a base for a custom toy?) I actually generated some Photoshop concept art before buying the figure, just to nail down some design ideas and have at least some assurance that the final piece would end up looking the way I wanted it. Concept art: it's not just for movies any more. The action figure is pretty amazing in terms of quality - the plastic is soft and cuts easily, the joints hold together well under stress, and there was a lot of room for creative solutions. It's a well designed toy. If it was in scale with the Star Wars figures (and if I was still doing this sort of work any more, at all) I'd greatly prefer to work with these than the Hasbro toys, even at the higher cost. I sheared off Yuffie's vest and hoodie, and the ribbon in the back of her head, along with her utility belt. Since all were molded as separate pieces, they came away pretty easily, getting the figure down to her most-naked-without-being-naked form. The vest was pegged into her back which required some Dremel-work and paint, but the dress covers the worst of the resulting scar anyway. First problem: the figure's legs were disproportionately long. Fortunately, the legs disconnect just below the short-shorts for articulation purposes, so I popped the legs off and sawed off a centimetre of each thigh (valiantly ignoring the creepy Boxing Helena vibe throughout). I then used my Dremel to create new peg-holes and popped the legs back on. The resulting proportionality was so girlfriend-accurate it actually made me laugh out loud, and because I preserved the use of the articulation pegs through the creation of the Dremel-holes, the thighs work exactly the way they were designed to by the toymakers. They're just shorter. I had to Dremel down the straps of the tank top to bring it down to bare skin, which worked out a little rough, but I was afraid to go further for fear of completely eliminating the figure's breasts and collar bone. I also took the opportunity to Dremel away the bottom of Yuffie's tank top, as it would have gotten in the way of Sarafina's paper dress. I decided to paint and spray the figure first, then build the dress, because a layer of Dull Cote would probably have killed the bright red paper dress. I painted her hair with a burnt umber base coat and then applied some lighter browns as a wash, which brought out the highlights rather spectacularly well so I left it alone after that. The boots were redressed in various shades of brown, and her right cuff was painted black to match the left. I painted the pink ribbon on her upper left arm black as well. I painted the tan Lemmy Kilmister guitar (actually it's a bass, but it was the only such object even close to being in the right scale) a deep red with some rose mixed in. I added pthalo blue highlights to the guitar strap to match the actual guitar strap I got Sarafina for her birthday. Then I sprayed the guitar with gloss cote and the figure proper with dull varnish, which came out a bit sticky unfortunately. I then went about making the dress. The dress was made out of medium red card from the art supply store, which I "tailored" with a few test-patterns in plain paper before finally cutting, taping, and gluing the final version with the correct materials. The white ribs were thin slices of card glued overtop the red dress. Because the dress is 2 parts - above and below the bust line - it's still possible to pose the figure using her rib-joint (somewhat). For further accessories, I cut Yuffie's four-bladed sword thingie down to a single blade (using the axel as the pommel), and fashioned the portrait of Zaltar out of some of the card-back from the Lemmy K

Day 196/365, July 2nd, 2011. I got a haircut today. I scheduled it for 2pm because i assumed we'd all be in for a mandatory Saturday but since everyone got caught up-- no work today! I made my way into my salon where a good friend can be trusted to cut my hair exactly the way I want it. This is, apparently not as easy as you would think. She's the only stylist I've ever seen more than once-- and it's not just because she's my friend, but because she actually LISTENS to me, and does what I want... even if she doesn't always agree with my style choices. Classically, at this point in the summer-- I give up completely. I walk into the salon and say, "CUT IT OFF." I have very fine hair... but an over-abundance of it. And even in shorter styles it gets a bit oppressive in the Texas heat of summer. She's used to it by now. And she's great about trimming away all that I consider excess... leaving me with enough to spike if I'm feeling feisty, but not much else. Imagine her surprise as I plopped into the chair and advised her that I didn't really know WHAT I wanted to do... but that I didn't want to do the same old summer shear. She asked some questions, I told her what I've been doing lately, and said I trusted her. We still took off a lot of the weight of it, she thinned out so much of the volume of it. But instead of my spike shear, I ended up with long soft swoop of a bang across my forehead, gentle accents next to my ears, and a beautifully shaped cut that framed my face. Long enough to tuck some behind my ears, but short enough to still feel like me. I walked out smiling, feeling beautiful. It's funny, lately I've been really starting to... embrace myself. My body, my looks, my physicality. I'm learning to be visible, and to feel comfortable being seen, being noticed and yes... being complimented too. Because it seems to more confident I am, the more people notice me, the more compliments and encouragement I receive. And it's not that my looks have changed. They haven't. I'm still the same size I was last month, 6 months ago, last year. But now... I'm really learning to love the body I inhabit-- just the way it is now... and to realize that the only person who really got caught up in what people see when the see me... was Me. And I'm beginning to get vocal about it too. It's as if defending my body from my own attacks has created in me a new advocate for ALL bodies. I used to fear that people looked at my size and judged me. I used to worry they thought I was lazy, or ugly, unworthy. And what I'm realizing as I move through this journey of visibility is that people will judge. People will always judge. The important thing is to know that no matter what society wants me to believe... I AM beautiful and worthy and valuable just the way I am. Just as I am now.