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Actually, the ribbing should
have very thin black lines
separating the red from the
white, but there comes a
point when you scale down
to 1:6 that some details will
invariably get lost.

At least I managed to get the
thin black stripes on his
shorts' waistband and leg
cuffs.

I used iron-transfers for the
Bulls logo, the NBA logos,
his name and number, but
ironing them onto pro-mesh
was trickier than I thought.
Apply the heat from the iron a second too long, or a degree
too hot, and the whole thing melts into the holes of the fabric.
 Apply too little heat, and the darn think won't stick to the
fabric.  It was through much trial and error that I figured out
the right amount of heat and duration for proper transfer.

For the sake of this hobby, I've learned to sculpt, paint, sew,
and now iron!  Sheesh!

When I finished his outfit, something seemed like it was
missing.  I checked the reference photos and realized that
Jordan has almost always worn an armband on his left
forearm near his elbow, and a "calf sock" (Is that what you
call it?).
After adding these two items,
I added the red elastic band
Jordan wears on his left knee.
All in all, I'm pretty pleased with how
the figure has turned out. There
are, however, a couple of things I've
noticed since finishing it that I'm not
quite happy with.

The headsculpt, because I did it
from scratch from a lump of
SuperSculpey and Fimo, was a tiny
bit out of scale (I think it's a little too
big).  But, since the body has
features a little thicker than they are
in real life, the head actually
completes the figure well.  
Unfortunately, there's no neck joint,
so if I glue his head to the post to
keep it from falling off, it won't even
be able to turn side-to-side.

And as long as I'm nit-picking, the
red knee band came out more pink
than red.  Oh well.

Stil, I think it's one of my favorites
now.  Him and Spielberg...
Fortunately, there's no shortage of Jordan pics on the net, so
finding reference photos was no problem.

Finding the tight-weave pro-mesh nylon, on the other hand,  was a
bit of problem.  No fabric store I went to stocked it.  It's a cheap
fabric that doesn't get used by non-mass-producers, they said.  So I
ended up combing the five(!) thrift shops for shorts and jerseys in
red and white.  I finally found a jersey and a pair of shorts.  Let the
sewing begin!

The most time-consuming part of making the jersey was figuring out
how to do the trim, the ribbed collar and arm-holes.  I looked
everywhere for properly scaled ribbon in the right color
configuration, but no luck.  Even if I had found it, I discovered some
Barbies and SLU figures had used plain ribbon and it looked bad
enough to spoil the illusion.

I decided to use elastic trim.
Accessories, altogether, for this
figure include:

-   away Bulls jersey
-   away Bulls shorts
-   signature black
     armband
-   scale Spalding NBA  
     game basketball
-   white cotton socks
-   red/black calf sock
-   Nike Air Jordan XI
   (1995-1996) athletic   
   shoes
-   black figure stand (not
     pictured)
MICHAEL JORDAN,  CHICAGO BULLS #23,
 1984-1993, 1995-1998

The greatest basketball player of all time
surely deserves being immortalized in 1:6
scale.

Mike's 6'6" in real life, so that would mean
about 13" tall.  Fortunately, about four years
ago, Mattel bought the NBA license and
produced a few figures at this precise height.
 McFarlane Toys has the license now, but
they're not making them 1:6, let alone
poseable.

Mattel only produced four figures for their
"Super Stars of the NBA" series:  Scottie
Pippen (Houston Rockets at the time), Kobe
Bryant (LA Lakers), Grant Hill (Detroit
Pistons, then), and Tim Duncan (San
Antonio Spurs).  The first three had bodies I
could use (Tim Duncan's figure was molded
in a very light skin tone, so converting him to
Jordan wasn't feasible).

I'd thought about modifying an existing
headsculpt to save time and to ensure the
final product would be in the right scale, but
none of the head sculpts seemed easily
convertible, so I decided to do Jordan's head
from scratch and test my steadily increasing
skills at head-sculpting.