This was great fun for me. A good friend of mine created a character for a DC-based online roleplaying game. The character was basically a DC version of Spider-Man, but much younger at 10 years old. Randy McNeil, the son of a thief, he was trained in stealth and combat practically from birth. Bitten by a spider that had been exposed to kryptonite radiation, he not only gained the ability to scale walls, but super-strength as well. After the death of his father, he donned a skintight black costume and fled to Gotham City, where he did his best to fight crime. Robin (the character I was playing) befriended him, and Batman eventually gave his grudging approval. Of course, due to his krytonite-irradiated blood, he found people like Superman and Superboy didn't stick around him long.
Blackspider is one of my favorite characters, just as his player is one of my favorites to roleplay with. I'd always wanted to make a figure of Blackspider to scale with the various Batman Animated figures, but I never quite found the right base figure for it. I considered using a Tim Drake Robin, but I knew it would take a heckuva lot more work than I'm actually capable of right now. And then, quite by chance, I found this Manga-style Spider-Man figure. Perfect! Not to scale, but just what I was looking for.
It was a terribly easy custom, involving nothing but repainting. First I spray-painted it a flat black. One coat did the trick. Then I hand-painted the eyes and the little spider symbol on his chest white. After it had dried, I put a second coat of white on the eyes, and painted red over the white spider symbol. I'd feared the red just on top of the black wouldn't really show very well, but putting down a layer of white first really made it stand out.
Turned out rather well, don't you think? And the best part is that the figure is just about perfect with the Mattel 6-inch scale figures.
