SS Anakin take apart/remodel/repaint - work in progress

[Darren Carnall]

they're coming they're coming!

sheesh

 

[Darren Carnall]

Ok i've taken a bunch of clearer pics this time, and on some of them I've deliberatley used the flash so you can see more detail. I'll just upload the pics first (because some of you are impatient! lol), and then I'll do a seperate post saying what I thought was successful and not so, and I'll answer any specific requests from the thread

 

[Darren Carnall]

oops... might have not resized them small enough. my apologies if it causes a problem, I can change it if I have to, just let me know

aaaanyway....

Things I'm NOT happy with

as you can see in that last pic, if you get really really REALLY close to it, you can see small brushmarks, and the paintjob is nowhere near as 'neat' or smooth as a sideshow original. That is one thing I'm not so happy with.

I'm still looking over the figure all the time, looking to see if I'm actually happy with the overall colour of the thing. I think I'm happy with the face colour, although I want to go back and make the slight shadowing under his eyes that you see slowly getting stronger throughout the film. Having said that i did them originally and was happy with them, as it made the character moody but in a subtle way..... and then later in the day i went over them again with the skin colour, lol. So maybe that's going to be something I never decide

The hair.... sometimes I'm absolutely happy with it, I was going for the 'highlighted reflecty light bouncing off it' look... and in certain lights, it works perfectly. In other lights though it looks a shade too light. I 'may' put a dark was over it, just to accent the darker parts a little more... weight it down but without taking away from the highlights. I'm not sure yet.

I'm also not happy that I have to figure out what kind of sealer/varnish i hav to put over it... satin or matt. At first I wanted it to be completely flat.. 100% matt with NO sheen at all, but as I was painting it, about halfway through before I started dry brushing it, the skin had a subtle sheen on it... almost like Sideshow figures (I know it IS a sideshow figure, lol.. I mean their paint jobs) and I kind of liked that semi sheen. But I'm not sure... I think maybe flat matt will be more 'real life'. Guess I should start looking to see if I can buy some dullcoat here in the UK (I've been told you can get it on eBay sometimes) (oh and I'll be getting some gloss for the eyes.... when I've seen some of you do that, it just looks amazing.. hence why I didn't paint any white dots onto it, lol)

Oh and I'm scared that by spraying 'stuff' onto it... Something will go drastically wrong and it will ruin the figure and make me paint it all over again, lmao. And the thought of doing those eyes again..... ugh *shiver*

although... the sculpt is there... the sculpt is solid (apart from some of the hair additions that I have to be careful with) so I guess I COULD go back to it anytime in the future and strip and paint it again... y'know... when I get better (I'm gonna be doing this forever arent I??)

Things I AM happy with

The overall sculpt. To my eye now (and that's who's important, lol) when the figure is stood on my shelf here in my home office, when I look up at it from here as I type this (I'm about 18" from it) ... it looks like Hayden, and much as the Jedi Luke looks like Mark Hamill. And that's what I wanted!

I'm generally happy with the paintjob, despite being not happy with the smoothness of it as mentioned above. I've seen figures painted that look... well... terrible (and I've seen some amazing ones too... some on this board helped me get on with this!). But to me the paintjob is 'fairly' accurate..... he doesnt look like he's wearing dark gloss lipstick anymore.. lol

...and for my first proper custom? (not counting two 7" plastic Star Trek figure repaints I did... which were VERY subtle in comparison to this.... I'm VERY happy

oh one more thing I wish I'd thought of before I went and painted the bloody thing and spent days doing all this..... I should have researched online how to cast and mold these things. Because I know I won't want to have to do all that again (although it would be quicker I hope the second time) I'm guesing that doing that would ruin any paintjob on it... that I would have to strip it first then do it.)

....maybe a little in the future. And also maybe if there's demand from fellow collectors who want to accurise their Anakins.. without getting the dremel and craft knives out, lol

ok I'll go through individual questions in the next post (god this is becoming more work that making the f'cking thing)

 

[King Darkness]

Well with the better pix I can make a better judgement of the figure...But you pretty much covered ALL my likes and dislikes in you own post..The texture is not smooth and the hair seems off also. But, this is your first custome and that will probably change. Josh, Mickey and Les can probably give you some really good pointers! Anyway, the bottom line is it looks really good and you like it, so thats all that matters!

 

[abstractharmony]

PM sent!

 

[Darren Carnall]

Well with the better pix I can make a better judgement of the figure...But you pretty much covered ALL my likes and dislikes in you own post..The texture is not smooth and the hair seems off also. But, this is your first custome and that will probably change. Josh, Mickey and Les can probably give you some really good pointers! Anyway, the bottom line is it looks really good and you like it, so thats all that matters!

you're absolutely right, and those photos really show up all the things I'm not happy with. But as you said.... with the help from better people in here I should get better and better (I already learnt a fair bit just getting this flippin' figure done, lol)

luckily when the figure's up on the shelf... or even in my hand really... you dont see any of the brushmarks... it's only on the close up pics... or if you hold it about 2 inches from your eyes, lolol

thanks for the comments though

 

[Darren Carnall]

Nice work Hunky Artist! COuld you share with us the brand of paints and the type of brushed you used (esp. for the eyes you love to paint).

the paints were just standard cheap artists acrylics, with the exception of the base flesh tone i used, which I got in a hardware store in the craft section (I added tiny amounts of red, yellow and brown to mix the right 'anakin' colour)
the brushes were just a £1.50 cheapo set of tiny tiny brushes. With one larger flat headed one for when i was doing the hair highlights.

 

[Darren Carnall]

oh.... one thing i missed... I'm also very happy with the extra hair I sculpted on the sides and back, to me it really adds to the look as anakin as we see in the film. It took me forever to get it looking how i wanted, but generally? I like it... better than the 'swept back' look

 

[JGouse0498]

I think the face and eyes look more than fine!! It's just that hair. It looks far too chalky and messy.

 

[Darren Carnall]

I think they eyes will look better once I've given them a bit of a gloss over (seems to work for Les) and I might look at the hair today... it really does look better in person.... but those photos are making me paranoid now.... I'll look at it and see if I want to do anything to it, lol

 

[JGouse0498]

I think they eyes will look better once I've given them a bit of a gloss over (seems to work for Les) and I might look at the hair today... it really does look better in person.... but those photos are making me paranoid now.... I'll look at it and see if I want to do anything to it, lol

Yeah, I agree with you. The eyes look realistic enough, but gloss will help by giving that wet look to them.

The parts of the hair that stood out are visible in these images (chalky in the first pic and splotchy in the second):

 

[onix36div]

ive just starting taking up customizing myself and would like to ask a few questions

- What kind of putty or clay is it that you use to mould the face
- Is there a specific type?(above question)

 

[JustinLuck]

What tool do you use to paint the eyes?

 

[figuremaster_les]

Whoah! ...late to the game!
I just found this! Been off my Star Wars cycle I guess...haven't been checking out the pages...

OK...Hunky Artist!
WOW! What a terrific attempt here!
You have done much young one! (Sorry, I have no idea of your age...just sounded good...)

My comments so far, from one customizer to another...(forgive me, but I can be frank and honest, do NOT let it bother you! I mean this with all due respect for your fine work here! Plus, you don't have to listen to me anyway! )

On your resculpt and redos...Terrific! Very little I can say there. Your attempts to take him closer to Hayden are validated in the work itself. You can see him there moreso after your efforts. No comments there. And I just went page for page for the first time here dude! So, sculpting wise, you have done some pretty work!

Painting...you need to match the colossal efforts you have made with your sculpts. OK. Subtlety of skin tones, could be smoother. Hard to do on any figure, much less your's after all this alteration. Could be the lighting across the surface too. Hard to control the look of that, especially at this scale. Skin base color is perfect though! Mouth. Not bad. Try to take it down to skin color a tad more. Use a little more of the actual skintone shade with the ruddy color to make it blend more and be less pinkish. Not bad though. At least he isn't in lipstick mode!
Hair, too light. Add some darker washes to it and wipe them off with your fingers. Use fingers when possible. I blend with them. Be not afraid to use them! I do basecoats, drybrush runs, then washes and so on to get it just right. Your hair seems flat until you add some darks back into the mix. Just my opinion. But, his hair does seem darker than this to me.
Eyes. OK, this is tricky. You got the direction of them perfect. But they actually seem too small to me. As in, you could enlarge the whites on the outer edges, and also the darker parts of the irises too. Enlarge what you have by a very small margin. Then add a good layer of glosscoat to that. Then...the coup-de-gras, add, in layers, small drops to just the iris areas, letting it build up to a lens effect. Looks GREAT when done and adds a realism your's needs.

Otherwise, not a bad day's work brother man!
SUPERB! Hats off to you sir!

 

[Customikey]

Much respect for the resculpting facelift/ hair work. Superb effort that has paid off.

 

[Darren Carnall]

The parts of the hair that stood out are visible in these images (chalky in the first pic and splotchy in the second)

yeah, sadly that's not a paint issue. It's because of the alterations I made to the heairpiece. Because it is made more of a softish rubber material than the hard head (resin?) I had more difficulty in getting it totally smooth in certain parts. Plus annoyingly it only showed up.. AFTER.. I had painted it, lol

ive just starting taking up customizing myself and would like to ask a few questions

- What kind of putty or clay is it that you use to mould the face
- Is there a specific type?(above question)

I used something called Milliput. I'm not sure if this is just a UK name or a global brand. It's 2 soft claylike substances that you mix together and work with, and after a few hours ( i left it overnight) it goes hard and you can sand/prime/paint it

What tool do you use to paint the eyes?

you see the photo I posted above with the 2 small brushes on? the smallest one was used for the eyes. I mixed my bluey/green colour, and placed a mark in the centre of each eye where I thought it should be.... then I slowly added to each of those marks, building it up to a circle. Ended up doing this a few times to get the shape just right. sometimes adding white back to the eye to fix when it went wrong. Then i added a little white to the mix and made a lighter inner circle, then added the tiniest of black dots.

hard.. very hard to do. (but only because of the tiny tiny size youre workign with. The SMALLEST tremor of your hand and its messed up) when you look at other people's customs it's very easy to forget just how small these eyes are to paint.

wow.. Les, thanks for such a full and detailed post! It was your repaint that made me go "oohh.. see it CAN be made to look more like Hayden?" just like I saw in my head, lmao

(oh... i'm 34 next weekend by the way... but 'young one' works just as well)

*reads through your post* ............ ok, the lips. I'm actually happy with those, it was difficult which look to go for. I have dozens and dozens of research photos from publicity shots, screen grabs from the film itself etc... and sometimes you see him and his lips are almost the skin colour itself.. and then other times they are bright pink, almost purple looking. So i went for a medium, and in person I achieved what I went for. But in comparison to Luke or your repaint, yeah.... they're a fair bit more 'red'

(ok... i've just had another look at it, and whilst up on the display shelf next to me it looks perfect... when you pick it up and look at it close... it DOES look a little too pink. .....just a little...... so maybe you're right there, just lol

Funny you mentioning the hair... this morning (about about 15 hours ago) I actually went over it with a darker brown wash again... looks much closer to his colour now.

The eyes...... When I've found some gloss, tat's exactly what I'm going to do, what you mentioned in another thread. Can't wait to try it out.

As for the size of the eye... I think you may be right in that they're a bit small, but I found that when I tried to enlarge the whites of the eye, that I was painting against the side of the eyelid... and I'm thinking that between the coats of primer and flesh tone... that I may have filled in the detail of the eyes somewhat, making the flat surface area of the eye itself slightl smaller. So when I came to paint it, I followed that.. which has maybe left the eyes a bit small

(luckily when it's in hand and you look at it and not on photos, itlooks just like Hayden did in most scenes anyway... so this time I think I'll get away with it) *phew*

and it wasn't a day's work.......... it was about 4 days work

thanks for your insight though and your nice comments. I've already learned so much just from doing this first custom. And i just KNOW there are going to be more now (by the way.. until I get an airbrush.... how do you paint your skin tones on and keep it a) smooth enough and b) thin enough so it doesnt cover up tiny sculpt details on the face?

Much respect for the resculpting facelift/ hair work. Superb effort that has paid off.

thank you kind sir.... it's people like you and Les that give idiots like me with ideas in our brains the urge to go and do something

 

[Darren Carnall]

ok for those who have been asking me questions about the sculpt, here are circled the areas where something was shaved / filled / cut away / sculpted or dremelled to hell ....... lol

(oh and I've done a dark wash over the hair since these pics.... looks much better now, I'll take a few pics in a few days, monday maybe)

 

[Collector Freak]

This really is the spitting image of Hayden Christiansen. It shows how good the sculpt really is. Who sculpted this one? Andy? Simply breathtaking when someone who knows what they are doing paints it. The paint job even surpasses the prototype.

Look at the first post... It's a complete retool of the sculpt, not just a repaint.