Science Patrol vs. Bemular

[Will Vale]

11 hours ago, Hunter Rose said:

Enjoying watching your progress Will, really dig the spikes and facial detail

 

Cheers! I was a bit worried about the spikes and added some wire held in place with clay blobs on the inside to the big ones, but I think it's easier to just make them and stick them on to be honest - once baked they seem reasonably robust. I've tried to make them of flattened cones (like thorns) so they have more support at the base.

 

10 hours ago, AndyRM101 said:

The smaller eyes look much better to me. The head spikes look great, as do the tendons on the back of the hand.

 

Thanks, I enjoyed doing the tendons although getting the clay onto the fingers was really fiddly! For the other side I wrapped a tiny bit around and pre-baked it in the hope that would give me something I could apply pressure against, but I think I'm going to have to make some grooves in that to key the surface as it's still slipping off.

 

My daughter has provided some translucent Premo (like Fimo) and I'm intending to open out the backs of the eye sockets, plug them with that and then place the glass eyes on top. Hopefully an LED will shine through from the inside well enough to make the eyes glow!

 

10 hours ago, Mike said:

That's really starting to look a teensy bit spectacular

 

Thanks Mike!

 

6 hours ago, rockpopandchips said:

He is look really very good, reminds me of a marine iguana. 

 

Thanks! He's at the more realistic end of Ultraman monsters (see above!)

 

This is all quite interesting - it's a very different set of problems to solve compared to "normal" modelling but the immediacy of it is great, like brush painting there's not much in between you and whatever it is.

 

(And to be honest, after not doing too well at our club competition with my big diorama I'm enjoying just making something loose rather than trying to get everything perfect!)

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Thud4444]

If this is you not sweating the details,  I'd hate to see you motivated!

 

It's clearly Bemular.  There is no definite version of Bemular,  but just like Godzilla or Gamera, you know Bemular when you see him. I'm amazed by how much you "get" the creature. There are people in Hollywood you could teach a thing or two. 

 

Mike's right,  this is getting spectacular!  

[Mike]

17 minutes ago, Thud4444 said:

I'd hate to see you motivated!

 

It's truly frightening... usually involves stockings & suspenders, from what I've heard

[Will Vale]

51 minutes ago, Thud4444 said:

If this is you not sweating the details,  I'd hate to see you motivated!

 

You're very kind, I tend to get stuck more when I'm trying to get something just right, and then it gets shelved and doesn't come out for ages/ever. This is definitely a better way.

 

33 minutes ago, Mike said:

It's truly frightening... usually involves stockings & suspenders, from what I've heard

 

Don't give me an excuse to make me post that picture again... That was actually a rare combination of being obsessive and actually following through on it owing to the deadline.

 

W

[Mike]

1 minute ago, Will Vale said:

Don't give me an excuse to make me post that picture again... That was actually a rare combination of being obsessive and actually following through on it owing to the deadline.

 

No... just no!  There's not enough mind bleach in the world to erase that from my memory the first time.  I've now got PTSD with recurring nightmares.

[Will Vale]

It's good for you to be exposed to different lifestyle choices

 

Did a bit more on Bemular, he now has two arms and a mouth:

 

 

The left hand is a bit awful (got the fingers angled wrong, need to build a better armature) but I can mostly hide it with a splash as it'll be right at water level. The shoulder blades were quite cool to do and might guide where to put some of the spikes later. They're another thing where the shape is hard to see.

 

I also drilled/carved out the backs of the eye sockets and made hemispherical plugs of transulcent Premo liberated from my daughter. The glass eyes sit into these, and they're held in with more Premo from behind which I pushed recesses into for LEDs. That all had to be baked for half an hour (it's slower than Super Sculpey)  so he's a bit toastier-looking than before! The eyes are very slightly wandering per the real thing, but you can't really see it because only one's visible at a time except from the very front.

 

Once the Premo had cooled, I made up two white LEDs and resistors which fit into the arch of the skull with the LEDs clipped into the recesses. I covered over this with foil (after heat-shrinking everything!) as a light blocker and insulator, and then backfilled the palette and throat with clay. It took a bit of work to get it to stick down to the insides of the lips but came out in the end. Then I was able to sculp the palette, gums, some weird looking tendons etc. around the brass tube. I also added the tongue back in after re-shaping it a little and adding pores.

 

They do still light up too! The Premo works as a nice diffuser and the glass eyes shine pretty well.

 

 

I need to do the eyelids and things, which means fitting them in without really touching them as I don't want tooling marks.

 

Incidentally, I read up on polymer clay a bit and discovered it's not clay at all, it's vinyl with a plasticiser added which you cook out. Which explains the smell, and why it feels exactly like a vinyl kit when baked and cooled. That's useful because it means vinyl kit finishing techniques should work well on Bemular. (So CA is good, sanding needs care, no enamels, etc. etc.)

 

Cheers,

 

Will
 

[Thud4444]

On 11/14/2016 at 3:02 PM, Jessica said:

 

 

Never question the wisdom of Mittens. He was doing his best to prevent this-

 

 

 

 

Edited November 16, 2016 by Thud4444

[Procopius]

Bemular has surprisingly soulful eyes. 

[Hunter Rose]

The inside of the mouth looks really great, he's shaping up very nicely. I'm looking forward to seeing the eyes lit, up bet it looks cool!

[Will Vale]

They are lit up in that last pic It's not very bright but it makes a difference to the look.

 

I have finally done the remaining spikes (and the eyelids and some wrinkles)

 

 

One of the double spikes on the left looks a little bit cheesy but I think I'll prime before messing with it.

 

I was wondering about adding something to the upper arms - I tried some spikes but they seemed a bit silly. It's just that at the moment he's a bit Trogdor with the beefy arms stuck on...

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Carts]

Great sculpting Will,the eyelids certainly downplay the "cuteness" factor,but for the love of Pete,get some primer on it,that pink fleshy polymer colour is starting to freak me out!

[Hunter Rose]

1 hour ago, Will Vale said:

They are lit up in that last pic It's not very bright but it makes a difference to the look.

Oh right! Sorry i thought that was the camera flash causing that! The eyes look really great now the lids are in, so cant wait for the paint stage on this guy

[Thud4444]

This is looking better and better.  But if I'm honest,  I'd gotten used to fish eyed Bemular.  Now he kinda looks high. Or drunk.  

[Will Vale]

Well he's now got teeth, which is another thing to get used to after the gummy version. They're a bit long (how would he close his mouth??) but I like the snaggly look. I rolled tiny cones from Sculpey and dabbed them onto a flattened piece as a base. They got baked separately, snapped off the base, and then attached with tacky PVA and secured with CA. I got lucky - the whole thing was so light it fell off the back of the baking sheet into the oven, but thankfully landed teeth-side-up.

 

Before I did that I gave him a dry scrub/burnish with a piece of scouring pad, and a wash with soapy water followed by air-drying. The primer is Tamiya's Red Oxide and shows that he looks fairly smooth, but if you look at the high-res pictures on Flickr (click them!) you can see fingerprints and tooling marks. Most of them I don't mind but the fingerprints where I pinched the spikes sharper should probably go...

 

 

It's surprising how much detail there is which was invisible in the previous photos and hard to see in person:

 

 

The chicken-skin texture between the spines is a bit of a cop-out (it was easy to do...) but I like the grooves running up the spines rather a lot.

 

Now to figure out how to paint him  And do a bit more on the wee rocket ship.

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Andy Moore]

I'm not sure about a cop-out, as that texturing between the spines looks amazing, and I really love the way the spines actually look like they're growing out through the skin, rather than just being stuck to the surface.

I'm assuming you've already checked this, but will the clear rod miss the front teeth?

 

Andy

[Madhatter]

those pictures look like CAD images...you cheating?

It looks really good. I can't see the finger print or tooling marks you allude to, but then, I am not really looking hard for them

Great stuff Will

How 'bout some colour images though?

[Hunter Rose]

Wow he looks great! Yeah seems weird seeing him with teeth now

 

I know its a bit late now, but in future sculpts with sculpey you can give them a soft brush over with rubbing alcohol / surgical spirit which will eliminate finger marks and can also be used to blend and smooth over details.

[Will Vale]

1 hour ago, AndyRM101 said:

I'm assuming you've already checked this, but will the clear rod miss the front teeth?

Barely! I did check, I'll need to be careful how I texture it at the mouth end (or use a narrower rod with a wide "plug" section, but I like the fat rod...)

 

1 hour ago, Madhatter said:

How 'bout some colour images though?

 

He's not very exciting - red oxide all over - and I thought the B&W would show the shape better. If you look at the back spines you can see the fingerprints towards the tips, but it's not glaring.

 

1 hour ago, Hunter Rose said:

I know its a bit late now, but in future sculpts with sculpey you can give them a soft brush over with rubbing alcohol / surgical spirit which will eliminate finger marks and can also be used to blend and smooth over details.

 

I did that, but I think the bottle I grabbed was let down with water for scenery purposes so may not have been strong enough? It might also be that I went back and touched it after I'd smoothed, not sure.

 

BTW I like the look of the grey stuff you're using - is that the Super Sculpey Firm? It makes it really easy to see the details, I was having to hold mine at a glancing angle to the light to check the surface which is a bit of a pain.

 

Cheers all,

 

Will

[rockpopandchips]

Looks fantastic, loving all the texture. You need to make a cast and start a production run......

[Kallisti]

Very impressive bit of sculpture! Watching this now...

[Hunter Rose]

4 hours ago, Will Vale said:

BTW I like the look of the grey stuff you're using - is that the Super Sculpey Firm? It makes it really easy to see the details, I was having to hold mine at a glancing angle to the light to check the surface which is a bit of a pain.

 

Yes it is the firm, one of the main reasons I picked it was because its grey. I know exactly what you mean, I sculpted some figures for a ma.k build a few years back and was doing the exact same thing to avoid as many marks as I could. It is great for holding small details though which was my other reason for getting it, when working with it with warm hands it goes just as soft as sculpey but when it cools its like carving soap.

[Caerbannog]

Great topic - and great sculpture. Excellent.

Rene

[Thud4444]

Well, he doesn't look drunk anymore. 

 

I guess it all depends on what look your going for. Realistic or a dude in a suit.

 

I think he looks really great.

[Will Vale]

Thanks all, sorry about the lack of updates. After the flurry of quake-punctuated sculpty fun last week I've been busy with the club newsletter and work this week.

 

Also I was putting off masking the VTOL, but then I remembered I had a second one and I could cut the masks on that. I had a go but it seemed like I was better off masking directly onto the painted model and cutting along the panel lines so I ended up going that way. Even with a new scalpel blade I found that on curves particularly it took two or three passes to cut the tape, maybe I was being too gentle but at least I didn't trash the paint.

 

 

The white bits are Flat White with a bit of Light Blue added, and the red is Flat Red with some pinkish highlights. I used Andy's sponged masking fluid chipping, which is easy to do but a bit hard to see what the results will be until after you've done it all. I used a combination of a tooth pick and putty rubber to pick off the masking after. I had to do the yellow rudder with GW Yriel Yellow and a brush because I forgot to spray it and couldn't be bothered to set up again for 10 square millimetres of yellow paint.

 

I need to add the remaining (non-livery) decals and then look at some gentle weathering and panel line treatment to clean up the edges of the paint a bit.

 

 

Cheers,

 

Will

[Hunter Rose]

Nice tidy paint job Will, it looks nice