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Back then I bought 2 Oreimo figures off a second hand website for $19. Not really a big fan of Oreimo but what caught my attention is the fact that they are wearing the costume of ClariS, a J-pop duo.
- Ore no Imouto ga Konna ni Kawaii Wake ga Nai - EX Figure - Irony Jacket ver. (SEGA),
Kousaka Kirino & Gouko Ruri
Although the costumes are actually from the cover art of their debut album 'Irony', I recognised them from the song 'Nexus', which is their 3rd single, where in the music video both Clara and Alice were wearing these costumes.
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| Nexus (short version) Music Video - Apple Music |
So logically they are to be displayed together, but the bases are so huge for such a small figure its absurd. Displaying them on their original bases takes up alot of space and they are so far apart, so I decided I should make them a custom base and save some space in my display cabinet!
1. Figure Position
First I needed to figure out how to pose them, after playing around with the figures I came up with a rough idea of how I wanted to pose them. To make the positioning flexible, I used bottle caps as makeshift bases and poked holes in them for the figure pegs.
With bottle caps as base I can easily twist and position them to my liking, but they are not sturdy as a permanent base.
For reference to how small a base I want them to be in, I used an acrylic riser as a border.
I'm planning to use airdry clay to make the base so I went with a simple rectangle shape to make things easier. Once I'm satisfied with the position, I traced them onto a cardboard piece and drew a rectangular border. And then its onto sculpting the base.
I stuck 2 wooden sticks at the sides so the corners for molding the clay into a rectangular shape, from here onwards its just shaping the clay into a rectangle shape by folding and rolling it. Unfortunately my hands were too dirty to take pictures.
Once I got it to fit I cut off the excess from the exposed sides. I then covered the surface with cling wrap and stabbed the figures into the clay.
Afterwards with alot of clay bits and water I shaped and made the surface as smooth and flat as possible.
Once satisfied I left it out to dry for over a week because of how thick the base is.
After a week I tried fitting the figures in, but the holes I made were too tight, so I used a drill and pins to slowly chip off the corners to widen the hole until it fits.
Once I got the holes done I used sandpaper to clean the corners of the slab and tried making the surfaces flat as possible.
Afterwards is onto painting, I painted the slab amethyst purple with a water based paint, after that was fully painted and dry I coated it with 2 layers of gloss varnish, both were bought from Daiso.
Im not an expert of paint types, so I'm not sure if the paint I used was suitable for airdry clay, but it turned out good so I'm satisfied, but I it had the sticky feel, so I taped the bottom of the slab with tape to protect the bottom from the surface I'm displaying it on.
Here is the end result!
Of course I have the Nexus album I found in Japan, so here it is .
