Friday, January 17, 2014

Resin Model Part One & Some Exciting News!

Hey, all! Well, let me start with the exciting news! Harper Voyager (yes, this Harper Voyager) has offered to include me in their Harper Voyagers (US) (for those who don't know, the Harper Voyagers is a group of readers who are being sent books over the span of six months to read, review, and help spread the word about)! I entered their raffle in hopes of being involved, and I am honored that I was chosen. That said, please expect quite a few blogs in the coming months revolving around the great books I will be reading! I cannot wait to share them with you!

Now, onto the next part of my post. As promised, this will be a blog about the early stages of designing the master model for my resin Eti for the Denver Comic Con. First, just so you know which clay I'm using (surprisingly few people actually posted what they used when creating masters for resin molds...hmmm!), I chose Sculptex, which is supposedly the best replacement for Klean Klay. Seeing as I've never even attempted something this massive before (or anything like it, period), I went by the best suggestions and reviews, and went with Sculptex.

One thing I really like about this clay (which you can get here) is that it never dries out. It does get firmer if left out, but when you knead it, the clay becomes mailable again rather quickly. I chose the medium hardness, because, well, I know nothing about this and figured I'd rather not go too soft or too hard. As it turns out, the medium hardness was perfect. I could mold very well, it kept shape pretty easily, and mistakes were easy to fix.

The first part of Eti I wanted to mold was the head, since it is the most complex body part. If I couldn't get the head right, there would be no point in pursuing the project further (NOTE: I purchased three 1lb blocks, but only used about half a pound for Eti...this is good because now I have enough clay to do a master of Clae and Marik if I choose to down the line; I just wanted to mention this, because a little of this stuff goes a long way).

About two hours in, this was my result for Eti's head:

Note that the computer his head is on is a netbook, so his head is fairly small (maybe an inch square). The nose was way too big, but I was happy enough that I didn't mess with that at this point. He had no hair here, either, nor any other details (ears and his facial wounds are missing).

This is Eti as I designed him a few years ago. His nose no longer looks like that, and the tattoos will be different on the final model, but this at least gives you an idea of what I wanted for the final product. Of course, this won't be his final pose. I'm aiming for something a little more fluid...this is far too rigid. He needs to be fairly tall (Eti is about seven feet tall), and his ribs needed to be in proportion to the rest of his figure.

Which brings me to the second body part I tried to do...his torso! If the face was hard due to size, then the torso was hard because of sheer lack of practice. It took me three tries to get right, and then I trashed it and started over because it was too small. Talk about a pain in the patooty!

Here's a picture of the first round of the ribs:

Not only are the ribs too small, but they're uneven, and the torso just looks, well, bad. I tried to keep this one, because it took me about three hours to build, but in the end, I trashed it. The first time I built it, I made the ribs open, but when I talked with my friend, who has done resin modeling before, he mentioned the mold would tear if I tried that (since the mold would flow between the ribs and the resin wouldn't come out of the form).

In this picture, you can see that I gave the ribs a solid background. This will be painted black to give the ribs a free-floating sense. I also didn't like how the arms fit on this set of ribs. The arms were in proportion to the head, but they seemed oafish on this rib set.

Here's a picture of the arms on the old ribs. This is before the hands were sculpted... I left the hands and feet until the end, because those proved to be the most difficult for me.

And from the side:

The head looked okay, but it still seemed...big, and the arms? HA! Yeah, I was VERY glad I decided to trash that rib set. Anyway, after the ribs, I moved on to finishing the ears and getting more done on the head. In the above pictures, you can see that I had already finished the ears and added the wounds on his face. That's because I took the pictures afterward! HA!

The head was looking pretty great by this point. I'll admit, I worked on the lips and eyes for the majority of the time. Luckily, I have a very supportive and understanding boyfriend, and while I did the ears, we watched "Dragonheart." Who can say, "Longest time-taking ears ever?" Yes, those ears (and some minor work on the face) took me the ENTIRE movie. I missed a lot of the Sean Connery goodness and yummy, yummy Dennis Quiad on screen, but I got to listen to an epic movie nonetheless!

(Psst, my favorite part is when Draco and Bowen first meet, and they're all sarcastic toward one another. You can actually see some similarities between Eti and Clae early in Soulbound. But I digress.)

With the head and (older) torso done, I moved on to the arms and legs. Unfortunately, I forgot to take pictures of these as I worked on them, but I have one of a leg at the end. Actually, it's probably a good thing, considering the first set of legs were too short, too thin, and fell over like limp noodles. The arms had to be shaved down a lot, and took more time than I'd like to admit (close to five hours) to finish.

After the arms and legs were finally done, I put the whole thing together (using toothpicks to hold the parts in place), but the clay was so soft that it kept falling apart. I, personally, didn't actually see it, because I was busy holding it together so my boyfriend could tell me what he thought. Thanks to him, I redid the torso and legs, because he insisted it looked "off".

So, crotchety ol' me started the torso over again (but didn't scrap the original, for fear the second one would be worse), and after a good four hours, this was what came out:

Holy shit, right? I try not to curse on this blog, but after seeing the final ribs (with chains and wounds included), I was just way too impressed and pleased with the result NOT to giggle like a little child and curse for joy. The back looked even BETTER (and be glad I don't have photos of the old back...I think the old spine suffered from scoliosis).

After the new ribs were done, I adjusted the legs and the arms a bit, and finished off the feet. The only thing that was missing by this point was Eti's hair, which I moaned and groaned over for HOURS, because I wasn't sure how to do it properly, and how to keep from destroying the wonderful head I'd finished. I even shaved his nose down in an attempt to keep from having to work on his hair. In the end, though, I relented.

The hair was done by rolling out about five or six semi-thin strands of clay and weaving them together. I wanted to keep it chunky, and added the lines of hair later with a pointed clay working tool. The underside of the hair has a solid piece of clay against it to keep the mold from seeping through and potentially destroying the resin models/clay model.

I added a thin band around a pinched part of the hair, and smoothed it onto his head. To keep him from having an alien-shaped skull, I had to shave off a good part of the back of his head. This part scared me a lot, because I was really worried I'd ruin his face. Thanks to the fact that Sculptex gets semi-hard, everything was fine and held its form very well.

The very last thing I did was roll out a dozen or so blood-mite arms. These will be jumping out of his arms and from his ribs and back, and will give the illusion that he's practicing the ekra martial art vretbah. Those were easy, and I might add some details down the line, but for now, they're done. Here's a picture of all of the parts I made for my Eti resin model:

Last night I ordered 2 gallons of white resin and high tensile-strength molding plastic. They should be here in a week or so, and hopefully next weekend, the molding process will begin. I cannot wait to share that experience with you all! It should be crazy, fun, and there might just be a few daiquiris involved to make the process a little easier. Before then, though, expect some posts on the animated trailer and the comics I plan to have at Denver Comic Con! Much love to you all, and write on!
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