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Started |
: |
November 3rd, 2003 |
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Finished |
: |
November 6th, 2003 |
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Base |
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"Beastman" |
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Parts |
: |
- |
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Materials |
: |
Revell Colors,
Fimo, |
Character & Intent
Slash is my third Eternal Champions custom and - depending
on your point of view both the most and the least true to
the model.
While Slash isn't actually as hairy and also darker-
skinned, the battlestance, body type and face
of the base figure seemed to fit the character
almost perfectly.
Of course that's also the main reason
why I made this figure in the first place...
Creation
This one was another rather quick and easy
task, but it I had a blast going trough with it.
The first step was the removal of Beatman's
knee- and elbowpads. They were just glued
on, so I got to preserve them for future customs
in perfect shape - Nice !
While it was also very easy to shorten the loincloth
(scissors !), the shinguards and wrisrbands as
well as the belt detail and additional belts on his
arms required some dremeling.
Fortunately, I happened to have Fimo sculpting
material in the exact same color as Beastman's fur
was, so I got to see immediatly how well my
sculpting over the the gaps and dremeling marks
worked. I must admit that I'm pretty proud
of the nearly seamless results. (Given you
don't have a look with a magnifier...)
A slightly darker shade of Fimo made up
Slash's long mane. As soon as I had the
hair in place, I fixed it's base position
from underneathwith a drop of hot
glue while holding the figure upside
down.
The detail of the hair surface was
achieved using an old hairbrush
and therefore the sweet irony
of customization.
The leotard is a big chunk of Fimo.
At this point, I attempted to harden
the fimo parts in the oven, but had to
stop when Beastman's back started to
produce tiny bubbles. Not wanting, to
unleash Beast-Mogwais into an unexpecting
world, I cancelled the operation.
Instead, I poured boiling water over the
figure (What were those no-gremlin
rules again ? Oh, shoot !). Of course
this made the Fimo pretty brittle, and
parts of the hair broke off soon there-
after. Fortunately, gluing it back together
and replacing the broken tips with hot
glue left no visible marks after the paint-
job later on.
Once again, the ornamental skull
on his loincloth is made of Fimo, and the....
uh.... crotchlace ? Whatever it is that is
dangling from the skull was made by using
a stitching needle to line up several tiny
pieces of of the same material. Learning
from my mistakes, a baked those parts
seperate from the figure. The claws on
the lower end of this supposed symbol
of fertility are bottle cap cuttings.
The armguard was made by gluing some cotton
cloth onto the arm, painting it, sculpting rings of fimo
over that and finally once again giving it the hot water
treatment.
Again once again, one of the rings fell apart soon
thereafter and had to be glued back together before
painting.
Next was the paintjob. I had mixed a shade of orange
to match the original loincloth with the orange material
of the leotard, but the paint ended up looking even better
then what I aimed for and I painted the entire thing.
If you look closely, you'll notice that I drybushed a few
spots of the fur with the brown I had used for the hair
and beard to give the figure a dirtier, more lifelike
look. The same applies to his dirty nails - Just
using black instead of brown.
Finally, Slash's club was made by sculpting fimo over
a kebab skewer, carefully making sure that the handle
would still fit the hands. The thorns at the tip are cut
from Beastman's furry mantle.
All in all, I had a lot of fun making this figure and
deem it a more than worthy addition to my collection.
