Grogu (Baby Yoda)

[Andy Moore]

 

There seems to be something of a Mando figurefest happening on BM at the moment with @Hunter Rose's excellent looking Mando figure, and @rockpopandchips's equally cool Mando and Child already in progress. I thought I'd join in the fun with a figure I've recently printed of Grogu. The original file is from CG Trader, and is a very nice sculp, and conveniently scaled too as the default size for the print is 100mm to the top of the head meaning it can be easily scaled down to whatever size you need. I printed this one at 50%, so it's about 50mm high making it roughly 1/7 scale. I'll probably print another to 1/12, which would need to be around 28mm.

 

It's a four part print consisting of the body and arms, the head, and the left and right hands. At this size I could fit everything onto the build plate which cut down on print time. I printed it with a 0.05mm layer hight for speed, so the print lines are a little more prominent than they would be If I'd used my normal 0.025 layer hight, but it still looks pretty good.

 

 

Dry fitted, the sculpt does a good job of capturing the look of Grogu in the show. There's some nice texture on the fleece collar and cuffs, and good definition on the face. I spent some time cleaning up the marks left form the print supports from the neck and underside of the head, only to realise that they'd be completely hidden by the collar anyway.

 

 

I've made an initial start on painting the body after priming the parts with Mr Surfacer 1000. The cloth parts had a base coat of Khaki, followed by some highlighting along the folds on the cloth with Deck Tan. The shadows were then deepened with a darker shade mixed from Khaki and NATO Brown. The collar and cuffs are straight Deck Tan.

 

 

 

I then went over the base coats with some acrylic glazes to give more definition and darken the shadows further. You can see how some of the glazes have seeped into the print lines around the front flap of the tunic, but that doesn't bother me too much as it just looks like the weave texture of the fabric.

 

 

 

 

Next job will be to lay down a base coat for the skin, once I've found a suitable green tone.

 

Andy

 

 

 

 

[Hunter Rose]

Oh cool! Man we should have started a group build!

Off to a great start Andy, fantastic paint on his clothes

[rockpopandchips]

Oh nice start, that looks a really nice print. 

[Portaler]

Nice work on the body paint Andy. Love the tones. I'm assuming brush painted right ? 

 

Just out of interest what sort of brush style did you use ? Flat, rounded ?

[Andy Moore]

Thanks chaps

 

23 hours ago, Portaler said:

Nice work on the body paint Andy. Love the tones. I'm assuming brush painted right ? 

 

Just out of interest what sort of brush style did you use ? Flat, rounded ?

 

The base coats were airbrushed, then brush painting for the glazes. I think I used a size 1 round for that. I normally use smallish round brushes for most work. I'll use flats for dry brushing.

 

 

I've done most of the work on the head now. That started with a base green mixed from Tamiya and Gunze colours. I used a lightened shade of the same colour to add some highlighting to the top of the head and ears, then mixed some Tamiya flesh into the last bit of paint to get some colour into the ears. There's a tiny bit of that colour around the eyes and forehead too.

 

 

 

That base colour would be pretty good if this was Yoda, but Grogu seems to have a cooler green tone to his skin, as well as some pinkish tinting around his eyes, mouth, and cheeks. I switched to Vallejo, and added a overall glaze of green sky. I then added some further highlighting to the high points on the face and forehead with Vallejo verdigris glaze. The pink tinting was added to the face, along with more colour in the ears. The eyes were also painted in with dark brown for the iris and black for the pupil with a little bit of golden brown highlighting around the edges of the pupil.

 

At this point the face was looking a bit clownish and crude, and I was wondering whether to start from scratch again. In the end I decided to stick with it and see if some glazes of the base colour would tie everything together better.

 

 

 

The body has also had some additional work, starting with some oil washes to increase the contrast and define some of the details better. I also used the same wash to speckle some dirt and stains on the fabric.. The fleece collar had more shading added, followed by a dry brush to bring out the texture better.

 

 

 

The head has now had the glaze added using Vallejo green sky again, and it looks a little better than before. I'm still not entirely happy with the pink tinting around the face, mainly because I didn't blend the colour in very well so it look a bit like he's wearing makeup. I might have to glaze those areas over a few more times to tone it down.

 

 

 

I'm unsure yet whether to try and paint the short strands of hair on his head, or leave it like this. I'll probably see how it looks on a test piece first. I'm also in the process of making a small base for him to stand on, and I've found a little ball bearing to use for his control knob toy.

 

Andy

 

[rockpopandchips]

Very nice.

[Hunter Rose]

Looking good, great job with the eyes! 

[Portaler]

Nice job Andy. He looks great. Really love the colour variation on the jacket, collar etc.

 

Not sure if you've done this already, but for 1/6 headsculpts they always add a clear coat gloss over the eyes to give that eyeball effect. 

 

All the Grogu's I've seen have the hairs either punched in (no go with 3D print) or stuck on fibres. Usually seems to look OK. But this is pretty small scale.

Edited September 11, 2021 by Portaler

[Sgt.Squarehead]

Christ I'm so far behind the curve with SW.....I had to Google 'Grogu'.

 

TBH Disney is doing the franchise no favours whatsoever IMHO.....What next, 'The Wookie King'? 

 

But I would like to see how this figure turned out.