|
Started |
: |
~Unrecorded~ |
|
Finished |
: |
May 31st, 2004 |
|
Base |
: |
Hollywood Hogan |
|
Parts |
: |
Head of Hardcore Holly |
|
Materials |
: |
Revell paint,
Marabu |
Character & Intent
Lobo has been one of my favorite characters
for many years now, and I'm not alone in that.
That is no surprise, of course. An invincible, immortal,
foul-mouthed, metal-listening, skirt-chasing, bounty-hunting
space-biker who killed each and every member of his own
species just to be able to refer to himself as "The last
Czarnian".
How could anyone not adore him ?
Lobo has never been drawn fully consistently in the comics.
Since he is a satiric character who doesn't depend on costume
like common heroes and villains do, he lends himself to slight
outfit tweaks and modifications here and there.
I am no different from all the artists who got to work on him
before (well, apart from my lack of talent), and made this
my own version. Most notably would be getting rid of the
tanktop and fully ignoring the recent redesign from
"Lobo Unbound".
I'm not fully satisfied with the way the head (source of
much grief, but more about that below)
Creation
It all started with an old Hollywood Hogan body
I had lying around. The body type seemed appropriate
for Lobo, so I decided to give it a shot.
The first thing I did was breaking the torso apart to
remove
the action feature, which would not have been practical
with this custom. The, I sculpted the kneepads and
shinguards onto the legs. (Note: The skull is actually
molded from a spawn figure, as is the belt's)
Next up was the... hm..... Zipper ?
This one was sculpted using Fimo. Unfortunately,
the oven-curing once again bent the torso a bit,
so that I had to switch to epoxy putty for the
skull, which didn't work half as good and easily.
Next up, I cut off the hands and inserted nails
into them to add wrist articulations. Along with
extended fimo gloveends to cover the seam, it
took quite a few attempts to get right.
Now for the perilious chapter of this custom...
The Head.
After recently having mastered the art of making
ceramik headcasts, I first attempted to use a such
made from a current He-Man figure.
It actually worked out well, but unfortunately,
I realized that it would be a tad too small
only after it was almost finished.
In my second attempt, I utilized a WWF Hardcore
Holly headcast. Work on it was going rather well
and I was making good progress. UNTIL....
After taking the head out of the oven from
some curing of the sculpted neck, it slipped out of
my fingers. That wouldn't have been too bad, if
the oven I use for sculpting wasn't located in
basement. Actually, that wouldn't have been
so bad either, if said basement didn't have
a sink to release stray water from the washing
machine. You can imagine what happened.
In perfect comedic timing coupled with
mental slow-motion, I found myself
unable to act as the head rolled swiftly
over the age and went down with a
swift plop, followed by a
not-quite-as swift "WAAAAAAAAAH"
coming from myself.
All I could really do was start over.
And start over, I did.
Fortunately, work went rather well during the
second attempt. It went even faster this time
around, and I put that onto one factor
exclusively:
I started using a heat gun to harden the compound.
(I hope that didn't sound dirty...) I can't even begin
to explain how much better this is than using the oven...
Much quicker, much less plastic damage and all
the control.
Back to the head.
There is hardly anything left of the original face.
I re-carved the mouth and the folds around it,
and sculpted the jawline, nosetip and chin as
well as the neck and forehead... A process
whichrequired much patience as well as
countless heatgun sessions. (The secret to
large,detailed areas is slowly building them
up instead of finishing in one go)
The neck peg is one of my trusty ALs.
With the use of the heat gun, sculpting the
rest of the figure was sheer bliss, as I could
sculpt directly onto it without worriying about
melting the plastic as long as I was careful
enough. Here's a pic to show you just
how much sculpting went into it:
As you can see from the picture, there's a sculpted area
on the right arm. That's because I have inserted a small
magnet into it to keep the chain attached.
The paintjob didn't have much noteworthy aspects to
it. The stubble and chesthair is made from pencil
shavings, with mixed results.
As for the accessories:
The chain is just that, a chain. The hook is actually a large
clamp from a postal package, bent into shape and covered
with Fimo.
The necklace actually comes from the loincloth of
Martial Arts He-Man. It's "chain" is a string covered
in silver paint, as it would've been impossible to find
a real chain that size.
Finally, the display stand is no more than the result
of several failed casting results, glued together and
loosely decorated with hot glue and random shards
of plastic. Pretty neat recycling, isn't it ?
I guess that would be all.
