October is Breast Cancer Awareness month.

This re-sculpted figure of Belldandy is made and painted specifically for the THINK PINK III CONTEST for breast cancer awareness (contest submission by 10/1/08).

CATEGORY: Traditional Art > Sculpture > Figurative

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9/26/08 EDIT: Replaced original photo with seaside photo (same angle).

WORK DESCRIPTION:

The photos are actual photos, no re-touching, only adding text.

This Belldandy is a resin figure that I custom built and painted. It was customized from a garage kit (GK). The re-sculpting work, modifications/build, assembly and paint work took over 250 hours, over a span of two years and mainly over the last nine months.

The figure is 1/8-scale, measuring 7-1/4" inches tall (18.4 cm), excluding the seaside rock base. Her face is about the size of thumbnail. For details on the re-sculpting work, please see: Belldandy from Teen to Woman.

She is entirely hand-brushed by me.

The following list shows significant modifications I made to the basic GK:
- Re-sculpted the entire face and head, including hair on head.
- Re-sculpted her physique (transformed her from 'teen' to 'young woman'.
- Re-sculpted the skirt, cardigan, and turtleneck.
- Re-sculpted her legs and hands.
- Modified and re-shaped the front hair pieces.
- Added lots hair strands and the Belldandy signature bangs.
- Sculpted pink hair ribbon, for the themed contest.
- Sculpted the tiniest pink ribbon on dA (it's on her cardigan).

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT: I am fortunate to have ~annya12345's help in improving the color design. The idea of adding a tiny pink ribbon on the cardigan came from pyramidcat of E2046 forum. The 'strawberry blonde' hair color was the preferred choice among my dA friends/watchers.
Thank you sooo much to all of you who have supported me in this project.

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ADDITIONAL NOTES (On the Meaning behind the Pose):

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.

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