Batman: Custom Bane Action Figure by
O.G.Trilogy Strikes Back, on Flickr
As with most of my custom figures, Bane here was born out of necessity and cheapness. There have been a few comic style Bane figures produced by DC Direct and Mattel. The DC Direct Knightfall version and the DC Superheroes version are usually pretty expensive on the secondary market and are not exactly sculpted to my liking. The DCUC Build-a-Figure version is out of the question because I'd have to buy a few figures that I don't want to collect each peice and even then he'd be ridiculously out of scale.
Since I did buy the DCUC Robin & Riddler figures (which came with Bane's head, lower torso & left arm) I decided to start looking for another figure that I could use for Bane's body. This was orginally a WWE Undertaker figure that I chose because of his tank top, boots and gloves.
The Undertaker came with a bunch of tattoos up and down each arm and on his neck. At first I tried to remove these with a Mr. Clean Magic Eraser which works but was taking a long time. My girlfriend suggested Acetone to remove the tattoos. The nail polish remover worked on the softer plastic arms, but completely ruined the finish of the figure's neck and chest which is made of a different kind of plastic. Unfortunately, this forced me to completely repaint the figure's arms and exposed chest because I couldn't find a paint to match the original flesh color. I carefully painted around the shoulder and elbow joints and was able to retain all of the figure's articulation except for the swivel bicep.
After the painting was done, I put the figure together. The DC Universe B-A-F Bane head is a perfect fit for this Undertaker body. I removed the Venom Hose frome the B-A-F arm and glued it to the Undertaker arm. The strap around Bane's bicep was cut from the Undertaker's removeable elbow pad. I had to trim the hose down a bit because it was a little too long for this figure's smaller frame.
The belt is from the DC Universe B-A-F too. It was kinda like a skirt that fit over the pelvis of the B-A-F, so I cut out the center and superglued the belt onto the new figure just under the swivel waist joint. I had to trim a few sections off the belt to fit this smaller figure.
I repainted the exposed fingers and made small dots for the knuckle holes in Bane's gloves. Finally I carefully went over the light gray parts of Bane's mask with a brighter white acrylic paint to make the eyes stand out more. Thanks for looking!
Batman: Custom Bane Action Figure by
O.G.Trilogy Strikes Back, on Flickr