Belldandy from Teen to Woman

This collage shows a heavily modified, re-sculpted figure of Belldandy that I am making for the THINK PINK III CONTEST (for breast cancer awareness; deadline 10/1/08). The re-sculpting work is finally complete; the next step is painting. Yay! Her outfit, of course, will have a pink theme to go with the contest theme.

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For those who do not recognize the character, she is the Goddess of Present Belldandy from the manga Ah! My Goddess (character copyright: Kousuke Fujishima).
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WORK DESCRIPTION:

Transforming a Belldandy Kit from a 'Teen' to Young-Woman Sculpt

Some of the Ah! My Goddess (AMG) kits capture the right 'moments' that I cherish so. But somehow, the sculpt of the kits seems 'off' in one way or another, making them imperfect to my taste. Since one of the drivers that motivate me to build AMG is to capture certain 'moments' or essence of the Goddesses of Fates, I inevitably modify something here and there, as you might have seen in all of my figures...

Anyway, Belldandy's always-positive outlook reminded me of hope springs eternal. In the manga, there was this seaside scene that showed Belldandy in cartigan and mini-skirt twirling carefree amongst seagulls, by the seaside, while 'deep thoughs' were exchanged between Keiichi and Peorth about whether the goddesses would remember time here with Keiichi. My! That image epitomized pure and fancy-free essence of Belldandy.

Unfortunately, the kit was sculpted as being 'too young' - meaning the form and proportions were that of a teen just turn puberty, and not that of a young woman, as portrayed in the seaside scene. On top of that, the skirt was done way too short, i.e., a la with the distasteful style of Japanese anime panty fetish.

Back in 2006, I had the skills to pin the parts together. Back then, I really wanted to do this kit, but didn't have the depth in skills to 'transform' her from a puberal teen to a more mature young woman. By that, I specifically mean changing the proportions of the figure and modifying the soft-tissue shapes/forms. Now nearly two years later, I finally have the skills to re-sculpt her the way I intended. Hope you appreciate the results.