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| Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn (Margot Robbie) and Katana (Karen Fukuhara) |
With books and movies forming a large percentage of what serves as inspiration for my miniature painting projects, it wasn't long before I started looking for Suicide Squad proxies to paint. Luckily, I found two in my collection that could serve as substitutes for Harley Quinn and Katana i.e. the Nocturna Models 80 mm Alice (Fairy Tale Girls) and 70 mm Soum, 13 Moons (Malefic Time).
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| Nocturna Models 80 mm - Alice (Fairy Tale Girls) tin box packaging |
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| Alice (Fairy Tale Girls) unboxed |
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| Resin miniature parts of Alice, Fairy Tale Girls |
Both are resin miniatures with fantastic details. More importantly both contain key features that allow me to link, ever so tenuously, to the subject matters that form the main inspiration. When doing a paint-job miniature conversion, I try to use appropriate colour schemes, freehand painting, and if possible mini-sculpts in order to 'convert' an otherwise unrelated miniature into proxies for the more well known characters which as mentioned above are Suicide Squad's Harley Quinn and Katana.
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| Nocturna Models 70 mm - Soum, 13 Moons (Malefic Time) tin box packaging |
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| Soum, 13 Moons (Malefic Time) unboxed |
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| Resin miniature parts of Soum, 13 moons (Malefic Time) |
One movie screenshot more than any other set off a light bulb in my head as to which miniature in my small collection I could use as the infamous Harley Quinn. It was one of her sitting in a cell, sipping on a cup of tea (see below). After that eureka moment, the creative floodgates opened and I began to notice many other features of the Noctuna Models Alice figurine which lend itself perfectly to a Harley Quinn-Joker themed diorama piece. Here they are in no particular order:
1. Said teacup in hand;
2. Pigtail-like hair for Harley's iconic tri-coloured hairstyle;
3. Large leg stockings which can painted to resemble her in-movie ones;
4. Playing cards which offer the opportunity to paint Joker cards; and
5. A large mushroom which can be painted in purplish Joker hues (not to mention the phallic symbolism it offers to represent Harley's relationship with the Joker).
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| The picture that, for me, linked Nocturna Models Alice to Harley Quinn |
As for Katana it was more a case of finding a miniature with oriental features who happened to be holding on to a traditional Japanese sword i.e. the character's namesake. Cue yet another Nocturna Models figurine namely Soum, 13 Moons of the Malefic Time series. She also had some workable similarities to her DC counterpart which made her, in my eyes, a suitable proxy:
1. Soum's katana which is self explanatory;
2. She's of East Asian ethnicity, also self explanatory; and
3. Round signage offers an opportunity for some Suicide Squad-related freehand painting.
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| With Katana it was all about finding a miniature with an Eastern Asian look and a ... well ... katana |
As alluded to above, there will likely be some sculpting as well as freehand painting that needs to be done. To keep things as simple as possible, I plan to sculpt Harley's baseball bat and Katana's face mask. Easier said than done for someone with zero sculpting skills but you never know. All those play time with plasticine way back during my kindergarten years could yet pay off (all tongue-in-cheek of course). Meanwhile, the easiest Suicide Squad-related freehand painting I could think of are the 'floating head' pop culture art for the respective two characters (see below).
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| "Floating head" art of Harley Quinn and Katana - inspirations for freehand painting |
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| Harley's baseball bat (above) and Katana's face mask (below) are iconic items which I may sculpt |
When on a budget, us miniature painters can't always get to paint the model we want either because they either don't exist or are too pricey if they do. Moreover it's rare to find proxy miniatures that closely resemble or have the potential to closely resemble the original characters. I don't want to jinx it but I'm truly excited by both these Nocturna Models figurines which show great promise as Harley Quinn and Katana wannabes. All that remains to be done is to turn that potential into reality. Huh? What was that? I should make blood sacrifices to the miniature painting gods for the skills to pull this off. Sorry. The voices. Ahaha, I'm kidding! Jeez! That's not what they really said.
