Handmade By Radish: MASS EFFECT 2

Sculpting the body

Sculpted with super sculpey - here was some pictures to show you how this thing built up over time...

I'd been sculpting him without a head because he'd have been too tall for my small halogen oven to take. A change of plans and a borrowed oven later meant that I could attach the head before baking.

It actually helped to not have a head there for the most part so that I could get to all those pesky nooks under the shoulders and around the clavicle.

The head was sculpted seperatley and then attached and blended with the rest of the piece.

Ta da! A head.

The Gun

I didn't have any spare styrene lying around at the time, so had to root around in my plastic bucket of 'maybe-babies' to pull out this little gem that was just the right size.

I needed an armature which I could later sculpt around and keep everything in scale.

Aluminium wire was wrapped around the guide for strength and to give something for my sculpting medium to stick too - plastic is too smooth yo.

I sculpted the gun with Milliput - the regular green one. The other plastic bits are offcuts from what was left over and the center tube piece was just the inner from a ballpoint pen.

Afterwards the gun was painted in acrylics and then given a few washes of colour for depth followed by light drybrushing with a metallic paint - I used Citadel Ironbreaker for that.

I didn't bake the main body until the gun was made so that I could re-position the arms if I needed too - he has to hold this thing in his hands! If i'd have baked it this process would have been near impossible.

It's the same reason I sculpted the hands last also so that I could form them around the gun rather than the other way round.

To make sure doing these things seperatly doesn't result in unintentional seam-lines I pick an area of the figure I can hide it in - there was a designed join area in the character at the base of the wrist I could use as a join point without altering the design.

Look it's the flop it around in his arms and see if it fits test!

When everything was ready to go it was time to paint. I used vallejo acrylic and sealed with a satin varnish. The more fleshy areas were given a touch of gloss - Citadel Ardcoat.

The base is 20mm acrylic with some grass scenary on there. The rock he's standing on is made from car body filler - no particular brand. The filler was spread across the hole surface of the acrylic to make it less flat.