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.

HALF LIFE - STRIDER

Given the tricky nature of Strider I may have somewhat underestimated certain things from an engineering perspective, after all - making a 19 inch tall figure on really thin legs stand on its own with no outside armature support was always going to be tricky.

Nonetheless.. this is what I did.. Including what I think I should have done differently - so if any body sees this and thinks 'hmm I might try that' there are a couple of things I did that you should... maybe not do?.

It begin-th

To start I gathered bit of reference and again managed to stumble upon a 3d file which I could open and view in Photoshop!

From this I was able to scale it up to the size I wanted and print out some plans to build the armature against.

These flat plans were printed onto paper and the armature was build on top of it to get the sizes just right

not a 'thingy'

There are many different techniques to get skin textures into a piece - and I'm still learning my way around that - for this piece a sewing needle is scratched into the surface using various amounts of pressure through a sheet of cling film - the cling film softens the marks you make rather than scratching directly onto the surface.

For the gun pieces that stick out of the figure I used bits of a ball point pen cut to size.

I painted the figure in Vallejo acrylics, followed with washes of acrylic in various shades of brown and then lightly dry brushed to bring out some of the texture to the skin and sealed with Plastikote satin sealer.

 

A master of the legs was sculpted from Super Sculpey and moulded in a condensation cure silicone. 

These were then cast in this resin from DWR plastics - there are a few variations - but this one is the not so smelly version. It cures a little on the brittle side, so when I came to casting my strider legs I did so with a steel rod embedded into the resin to make them a little less flippy flop.

The top and bottom parts of the legs were joined together with another rod and Milliput - but I straight up did this wrong!

These should really have been one continuous piece - they'd have been much stronger than what I ended up with - this thing is 19 inches tall and I go and design a weak point into the legs - I should have woken up and smelled what I was shovelling.

They aren't total weak sauce - but they could have been much stronger.

ANYWAY

The legs had their little stripy stripe painted on (Vallejo orange rust) and again sealed in satin clear coat. They were attached to the body using a square rod (K+S brass tubing). A square rod would stop them waving about too much.

The tippy top cover of the strider was finished up with a gloss coat. (I used Citadel Ardcoat).

And this was the first time it stood up on its own.

With the strider sorted it was time to start work on the dioramamama.

The Diorama

For the diorama, I wanted the strider to look like he'd stepping in something - something like this...

Interesting? This car was going to be painted as if it had been abandoned for some time and had become a bit busted - rust effects coming right up!

I wanted something with a quicker working time than Milliput - so to fill seam lines and small holes I used this stuff - it can be cleaned up with water and is good for small gaps or cracks and things like that. I give it 7 thumbs up (Simpsons joke.)

One of the strider's legs was going to have gone right through the roof. For this I carved out an opening and applied some scraps styrene to give that bend in and pierced metal look. I also cut open the door with a scalpel and snipped the roof to bend it in a little. The gaps were then filled in with milliput. 


I also bashed a dremel around the surface to roughen it up a bit.

Bullet holes were added by drilling holes in two stages - a first hole going all the way through and a second slightly larger hole just a bit of the way to taper the edges.

Before

After!

The rust effects were done using hairspray - something I learnt from a model maker chap. I sprayed the entire car in the rust colours I wanted, then applied a couple of coats of hairspray which will act as a barrier to whatever you paint on top. I applied my top coat colour and waited for that to dry and then applied a wet brush to the areas I wanted to rust - the top coat just comes right off.

Some spatters of paint are also interesting if you spray your paint through a mesh or sponge.

before

after

The glass part was sanded with various grades of wet and dry sandpaper until it was smooth but foggy looking - I then carved out sections of it to look like a young scallywag had hurled a rock or two through it at some point.

And when it's was all put together it looked suitably ropey.

The kit itself was a simple one and the whole process with the car was really quite quick. It was pretty cool to do an airfix kit as I don't usually do those... perhaps another project in the future may call for something else... a jet? an old warship? hmm.

The figure was mounted onto the base after much guessing and worrying about it falling over. When it finally stood on its own unsupported it was time for a cup of tea.

the crowd goes wild

The smooth base has bits of car filler lumped onto it places to create a more natural uneven surface.

 

Decoration was done with that scatter stuff model-people use for their railways and game tables - it's really cool stuff - I'm going to put it on everything now - necessity be damned.

There was a lot to do - so much so I had people round to help.

Little details added afterwards such as this rusty lamp-post have a battery powered orange LED dangling out of it. It was made out of bits of a disposable razor and a bit of aluminium wire covered with a drinking straw.

The rockery. Made out of foam. Carved with a dremel tool.

The Finished thang

These shots were taken on a long exposure, painting the parts we wanted out with a blue light. Smoke was occasionally blown in for added atmosphere.

Thanks for looking.