FINAL FANTASY IV
SKULL PROJECT #640 CREATED: OCTOBER 2019 The undead skeletal creature known only as the Skull tended to lurk within the darkest, most secret caverns. Cecil Harvey and his fellow freedom fighters found one such Skull guarding a treasure box in the ruined castle of Eblan, and would later discover several more of them within the depths of Cave Eblana. It was likely these monsters were created from fallen Eblan soldiers, ressurected by Zemus himself to carry out his evil wishes. Cecil was well accustomed to dealing with undead monsters by this stage, despite the Skull being significantly more powerful than its cousins, the Red Bone and Skelton. Even their magical ability to cast Lit-2 and their tendency to Curse the targets of their melee attacks was not a major problem. They remained weak against fire and curative magic, and that was all Cecil needed to know. (Nintendo of America may have missed the intended pun of the monster's original name. Whle it was called simply Skull in the Super Nintendo release of Final Fantasy IV, its name in the previous Super Famicom release was actually intended to be Skuldier, a clever portmanteau of "skull" and "soldier.") I built my Skull figure out of an Aracula toy from Skeleton Warriors. He had four extra arms, so of course I had to remove those. I did some cosmetic work to the face, and also cut the jaw open so he could bare his teeth menacingly. He was a bit too tall compared to my existing projects, so I had to cut sections out of his limbs and spine to shorten his height. I also wanted him to be able to grasp his sword with two hands, so I created new working joints for his left shoulder and elbow. So much work—and these action figures were made of some very tough plastic! I hand-sculpted some new boots for him. After a fresh coat of paint (complete with plenty of weathering), the Skull was finally ready to butt heads with Cecil! |
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