|
Started |
: |
Fall 2010 |
|
Finished |
: |
October 26th, 2010 |
|
Base |
: |
Marvel Legends 9 Gray Hulk |
|
Parts |
: |
SOTA Street Fighter Ryu Legs, |
|
Materials |
: |
Apoxy Sculpt, Fimo, Glues, |
|
Points of |
: |
~ 26 |
Character & Intent
Brütal Legend is yet another one of those underrated,
overlooked
video game classics. An involving story mode, a brilliant
multiplayer,
fantastic character design, tons of humor... but, above all, there
was
.
It would take a long time to list the ways in which this game was
and remains,
quite likely, the most heartfelt love letter to heavy metal ever
composed, but
know that, if you like any kind of metal music at all, it
WILL blow your mind.
And then, your soul. And then, your mind again. Also your
speakers.
The game, in story and multiplayer, is split into three factions.
There is
Ironheade, representing Heavy Metal in its classic form, the Tainted
Coil,
representing modern mutations like Industrial Metal and, finally,
the
Drowning Doom, representing the dark side that is encompasses
Death - and Black Metal.
Finally getting to the point; the Treeback is the Drowning Doom's
strongest
unit. Normally appearing to be a tree loaded with frenzied crows, he
is capable
of raising from the ground and revealing his actual body: A lumbering
monstrosity
much akin to the stereotypical horror movie hunchback. Almost of a
kind that is
prone to being named Igor, if he didn't also have the metal edge to
him.
Naturally, when I realized that I could make a custom
figure happen...
There was no way that I could not.
Creation
Like most of my projects, this one started out looking a lot easier
than it actually
turned out to be. At first, it looked like there would be very little
that I would have
to change about the First Appearance Hulk in order to make him the
Treeback...
But there was the posture. Very few figures are made to sport a
gorilla-like stance,
and even the already-hulking alter ego of one Dr. Banner was not even
close
to being articulated to assume that position.
The irony with this lies in a simple mistake in my reference
material. Since I could
not find any in-game screenshots and had been too lazy to snap some
of my own,
I relied on concept art, which was available more readily. What
I failed to notice
was that the stance had changed to a more upright one in the finished
game,
and that the grassy hill on his back had been revised into a much
simpler
hunchback. So, in consequence, I ran face-first into two taxing
design
problems which I simply could have ignored to end up with
a more screen-accurate result.
...Such is life.
The aforementioned hill turned out to be fairly easy to construct,
though.
it did take not much more than a cut-down yoghurt cup transfixed
with
hot glue and sculpted over with Apoxy. I did mix the apoxy with
quarz
sand and small pebbles for a more convincing dirt structure. The
tree
was taken from the McFarlane Ozzy Osbourne "Bark At the
Moon"
diorama. Originally two trees, they were taken apart and glue
back together with some sculpting at the seems in order to create
a larger, more gnarled one. I glue it directly to Hulk's back
through
a hole in the yoghurt cup for extra stability.
(cont. below picture)
The hip modification posed huge problems. I had to sand and
cut
Hulk's hip piece considerably in order to make the lines of the
bent body with its disproportionate legs flow reasonably
naturally
as well as to allow for appropriate articulation. An important part
of
my plan was to cut apart Ryu's hip and glue the parts into Hulk's
in order to give them the right fit and clearance. Unfortunately,
I bumbled my through this task in a manner that completely
obliterated that latter hip. In the end, I had to cut my losses
and
decided to just transplant hips from another figure.
Fortunately,
I did have a JAKKS piece that turned out to fit the pegholes
in Ryu's legs reasonably well.
Adding clearance and articulation range to the feet was a little
easier.
All I needed to do was to fix some wooden beads to the feet,
using
metal rods inside for the needed durability. Then, I drilled out
the legs
enough to turn them into pegholes for these somewhat primitive
balljoints.
Beyond those issues, this was a rather simple custom.
I sculpted a shirt
onto the upper body and re-sculpted the hip to sport a lower
beltline,
emphasized with string to represent the Treeback's rope belt.
The hair was made by sculpting a "master" using Fimo, making a
simple
mold and casting the final version with liquid latex (topped off with
yet
more sculpting to integrate with the head).
(To main)