WIPEOUT RACER

The race-hover-ships are cool looking things - especially with all the artwork from The Designers Republic covering them. I've only ever played the demo of the original game for the first Playstation - but seeing some of the newer race ships in the more recent games inspire me to make my own and improve some of those more hard-edge model making skills.

This entire thing was made from scratch over the course of a few weeks - here's how I did it.

 

PLANNING

A great help to the project was stumbling onto a 3D obj file of the ship I wanted to make (a lucky find). As with before in my Halo Hunter build I used the 3D component of Photoshop to take cross sections.

Using the 3D file I was about to take cross sections as specific points and then mark their position on the plans. These cross sections were used to build the main frame.

BUILDING

A frame was built out of styrene using reference to get the size right. The frame was filled with insulation foam and covered with car body filler. The whole thing was sanded until the styrene frame started to show though. 

The whole thing was sanded until it was the right angle - I check the angles with a contour gauge to make sure both sides were symmetrical.

Styrene panels were added onto the main body and the cockpit area was carved out.

Styrene sheets of varying thickness was used to give more interesting panel lines and make the whole thing a little less flat.

I struggled with the cockpit for some time as I wanted it to be fairly detailed but I'd also have to make it up myself - as I couldn't find any reference for what the cockpits actually look like! In the end I used various recycled pieces - in particular a seat left over from the model car I used in my Strider build.

The rear section of the ship has more complex geometry than the front - something which stumped me for some time. The 3D files were a great help here.

For grills like this I used mesh from a kitchen sieve.

With everything together it was time for a test fit.

PAINTING

 

In order to do the white stripes I decided to paint the whole thing white first. I did fine mist coats to keep the surface as smooth as possible. On the last past I gave it a quick rub with 1200 grit wet and dry to remove any imperfections.

The red is Hycote Mars Red. To get the masks straight I used the full width of the masking tape. The masking wasn't perfect but this would work well with the weathering (....hide the crimes)

The stickers were tricky. I didn't want to use water slide decals as these are too delicate - plus I didn't have to capacity to print white or find anyone who could. In the end I found a place (diginate.com) which could print clear vinyl stickers and print them full colour and in white!

FINISHED FIGURE

 

Thanks for looking!

ODDWORLD - SCRAB

A fairly straightforward sculpt - but I learnt some interesting things notably creating more realistic looking drool and skin textures. If you're interested some progress shots are below. Otherwise skip to the end for finished shots.

Sculpting

Skin Textures

There are many ways to get good skin textures - A technique I learnt to get them was to first use multiple passes of sewing needles with varying levels of force in a criss-cross pattern through cling film - the cling film is to soften the edges of the marks. After that dab it over with a brush with hard bristles to uneven the surface - this seems to give the appearance of pores and blend the lines. It looked pretty cool in the end and seemed to get the random skin patterning I was after.

For the more reptile skin on the head I experimented with various dome stamped I'd made.

I pressed my stamp into a test piece of sculpey (see above). I needed a shape that wasn't too perfect otherwise it'd look mechanical (and fake). I did a whole load of tests with different shapes until I got the effect I wanted before going at it with the actual sculpture.

Moulding and Casting

To add strength to the final figure I cast the legs in resin. I used a condensation cure silicone I hadn't used before - but the results were top notch. I worried about shrinkage in the cast pieces (condensation cure silicones unlike their addition cure brethren are subject to shrinkage sometimes) I hadn't experienced any.

Sculpting the legs separately from the body meant I could easily adjust the pose of the figure when it came to putting it on the display base.

The foot talons at the bottom of each leg are also done separately so that the figure can be removed from the base easily.

This was going to be a one part block mould - to save time I didn't want to have to sand away seam lines.

The master was screwed to the base to stop it coming loose from the base as the silicone is poured in - this has happened to me before by gluing in a part, dumping in silicone and then coming back a few hours later to find my master floating just under the surface of the silicone... such rage.

The mould base is sealed with hot glue to stop naughty silicone escapes. These escapes cost money - ain't nobody got time for that.

Painting and assembly

Painted with Vallejo acrylics - these pictures show the stages from priming, initial coats to highlights and contouring...

After painting the figure was sealed with Satin sealer and the mouth was glossed.

The display base it made from plywood. The ground is built up with layers of tin foil and body filler. Sand is added and painted with various shades and sealed with matt sealer.

Teeth?

They're made from Translucent Fimo - it kinda looks like enamel.

Slobber?

poster placement anyone?

The slobber was very interesting. It's built in layers - the first is deluxe materials 'making waves' to add a thicker drooly layer. The stringy drool is a Bostik all-purpose glue from a tube - you know when you glue something you always get a stringy bit coming out of the tube? well you can pull these thin strings of glue from the tube and connect these strings to wherever you want. The best part is the strings retain their shape and are quite strong - they'd make great miniature spider webs I reckon.

Finished Figure

Thanks for looking.