Eiichiro Oda's epic masterwork, One Piece, is an amazing and captivating story of 'Captain' Monkey D. Luffy and his crew of unique 'Straw Hat' pirates on their way to find the "one piece" and become king of the pirates. Full of fantastic characters, awesome locations, and intelligent story-telling (often times incredibly humorous), "One Piece" is a manga which should not be missed.

On one of their earlier adventures the Straw Hats encounter a rival band of pirates who challenge them to a Davy Back Fight. The purpose of the Davy Back Fight is to play certain games in order to "win" a new crew member taken from the rival's cast of pirates. After playing two out of three games, the Straw Hats and the Foxy Pirates are at a stalemate. Winning the third game is up to Luffy, who is challenged to combat by the rival captain: Foxy the Silver Fox!

Luffy's sharpshooter and resident liar Usopp convinces Luffy to don a pair of boxing gloves, a menacing chest-tattoo, and a huge afro. He explains: "Afro's give your punch more power!"

So here is a tribute to one of Oda-san's most exciting and fun story arcs, the Davy Back Fight contestant: Afro Luffy!

*Luffy started out as a P.O.P. 1/8 figure.
*I sculpted the Afro, boxing gloves, elbow pads, and foot bands out of Sculpey III.
*The gloves were painted using Tamiya Acrylics red and orange, and given a gloss coat to make them look more authentic.
*The chest tattoo was made using solid-color vinyl sticker sheets - cut out the design with an eXacto and heat-shrunk it to the body.
*The shading was done using Tamiya and Testors Model master Acryl paints.
*The blood and scuffs were made with Tamiya red and clear paints.

If you haven't read any of the One Piece mangas, I would highly recommend them. This version of Luffy is a fan-favorite, and one of my personal favorite designs as well. I am extremely pleased at how he turned out and I hope you all can enjoy him as much as I do! Thanks for looking!