DAINA

Parts Used
Head, torso & waist: Daina, midnight chinese variant - Arms: BAT v1 - Legs: Big Ben v6
Main Paints
Blood Red, Elf Flesh, Ice Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Chaos Black, Skull White, Mithril Silver
Accessories
Backpack, Ammo belt: Red Star - Mini-gun: Heavy Duty - SMG: Night Force
Playability
Very High, limited only by paint rubbing, 9/10

Daina was built for the Joecustoms.com group project "Mirror Universe". Here is my summary of the figure from the site:

Approaching the character of Daina I had a few problems - firstly parts available to me, second my overall goal and look I wanted and lastly the bio. Of course I needed to know what I wanted the figure to llok like before I started getting parts together, but I bid on a 'midnight Chinese' variant Daina on e-bay, as even if I didn't use it in the custom, it was a nice figure.

The first step was then to figure out her personality - she had to be the 'bizarro Daina', so I set about analysing Daina's personality / traits. First she is a sniper and a helo pilot, she is very skilled and tactically minded, but also 'bad tempered' (on the filecard, but more on that later). The obvious opposite is of a foolhardy, but ice cool customer - leaps into danger first sort of thing. To go along with the file card - I though about Daina in the toon - pink sprang to mind, and not much else, so scratch that. Next is what I remember about her from the comics - not much really, but she didn't seem angry from what I remember, though most of what I recall is the Star Brigade issues... in those she was up on a high ridge protecting the others with accurate shooting - mix that with being a chopper pilot (pulling the teams butt out of the fire) and you have a sort of protecting figure.

I didn't want to have a totally flipped character, more a 'walked the dark parth' version. With the discussion on the board about the themes for various sub-teams I suggested the OG being die-hard communists, refusing to accept the USSR was gone. That came from my modern history studies in high school, where we studied the cold war, and the collapse - including how many people (particularly veterens) felt lost and confused that all they had been though was gone in what seemed like an instant. My OG plot got a positive response, so the last piece was lomost in place. Then I was looking through my DVD's and saw Spriggan - a monumentally ridiculous anime action bonanza - with one of the vilians having a mini-gun for an arm. Hmmm...

I pieced together the idea of Daina being a Communist through and having suffered in war, she felt disillusioned by the ready acceptance of capitalism, and joined the radical fringe army led by an old commander.

Now I could work on the figure - I went with the comic pack head as it is very nicely sculpted with high cheekbones and a very stereotipical Russian look. First, the hat had to go - I also cut off the duck's tail at the back, giving her a smoother haircut. To offset this I added some extra parts to the fringe, before addign the hat. I tried to make one of the big flat Russian hats, but i didn't turn out very well, so she gets a hat like Brekhov. The torso was tricky, I really liked the cammo pattern, but didn't want to have her in an officers cap and DPUs without making them look 'formal' - which would require messing the cammo, a classic catch 22.

I left Daina to work on Buzzer, and while playing around with my fodder pile, I got the final idea - BAT arms, with the cammo being a combat vest over the uniform. I sculpted on the collar then painted it - quite nerve wracking as one big mistake would mess it all up. Fortunately it all came out very nicely - but when I pieced her together as a tes, I came to another crossroads. I liked the 'Scarlette' look, with the waist piece staying the light green, and the legs the dark, not matching. However I was also thinking of making the legs black to match the shirt and cap. If I went with black, the waist would stay green, otherwise she'd look like a Nazi instead of a Commie. I kept putting off deciding what to do until I had more done.

I painted the BAT arms silver instead of the dull gunmetal so they'd stand out more, and set about creating the mini-gun. It was quite simple in the end, but getting the arm peg to fit smugly was time consuming. I painted up the head, giving her red hair to seperate her as 'Evil Daina' and because she's a communist (subtle, no?) and because I like the webcomic Krakow. With all that done I decided to leave teh legs green, with black boots - I think the colours layer better this way black - light green + mid green - dark green - black. But it's probably one of those things I'll change in a few months.

With the figure completed, I refined the bio a bit more, adding the piano bit, giving her a reason to be so angry: "I could have beeen a great pianist, but I got my arms blown off for communism - and now you want to throw me aside?!?!" Put together the filecard and a few touchups on the figure and I was done.

The new Bio: Daina grew up in the working class tenements of Novgorod, and dedicated her life early on to the party. A gifted pianist, she was offered numerous positions by the state in orchestras, but she turned them down and joined the army - prefering to battle capitalism with weapons and will than music. Her finely tuned hands were soon at work de-fusing bombs and laying charges in Afghanistan, where she won many medals for her unshakable courage under fire. During the conflict many men defected or deserted, but Daina was firm in her belief that the party new best, and if they were fighting for the party, that's what she'd do. Her superiors noted this and promoted her to lead a squad of engineers, hoping her example would somewhat curb the growing indiscipline of the men - especially in a unit tasked with clearing mines and booby traps.

One day her unit of mostly conscript soldiers was ordered to go ahead of an armoured column under fire to clear a path through a minefield. During the fighting a conscript called for her help - he had leaned on a land mine. Rushing over between the hail of enemy gunfire, Daina set about disarming the live munition, even as bullets whipped around her. One of those bullets struck the mine, detonating it in her hands. The explosion tore off both her arms and sent huge amounts of shrapnel into her body. When she came to the first thing she asked was wether the conscript had survived. Impressed by her dedication, she was awarded more medals and honours, but she was facing life permanently hooked up to machines to replace her ravaged body. Worst of all she could no longer player her beloved piano, but then she was given an offer.

A man named Major Brekhov came to her with an offer, a simple yes or no - did she want to continue to serve the party and the motherland? She said yes without hesitation, and he arranged for her to be sent to a top secret Siberian test facility, where scientists were working on the next generation of soldiers - cyborgs. Not only was she fitted with new arms, but they repaired all the damage done in the explosion and more - new legs replaced her mangled limbs, and from the neck down she was encased in a glittering, bulletproof new skin.

Serving in an elite SpetsNaz unit under Brekhov, she took part in many opperations as the team's fire support and explosives expert, earning the nickname 'Reaper'. She displayed an iron hard resolve against all opponents, reserving a particular wrath for the American special forces team Cobra. They clashed on numerous occasions, usually involving the terrorist organisation GI Joe, but not always. Daina was happy in her new life, she new she was furthering the party and the Motherland, and at the teams base they had a grand piano which she could play at whenever she liked.

But then disaster stuck, everywhere communism started to fall to the decadent capitalists, even the USSR was crumbling, then it was gone. Daina was horrified, she had given her life, her body - everything for communism, and now people were going to throw it all away. She fought inside the 'Russian White House' in 1993 but the reformists were too many. Escaping north across the border into Finnish lapand, she lay low, and eventualy met up with old allies across Europe. Brekhov, Schrage, Horrorshow, Wong, Dragonsky and many others were all angry and vindictive against their enemy the capitalist west. They had a prime target too, Cobra, who for so long had bested them. But now they could play by their own rules, no beurocrats to tell them how to wage a war. They even tentativly allied themselves with GI Joe, as Stalin and Hitler had almost 60 years ago, but this time, when the war was over, there would be no doubt as to who would win.

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