"Vampires. I hate those M%#$erf*&%ers." -- Nomak: Fear the Reaper

[Doctor T]

"Vampires. I hate those m@therf*&kers." -- Nomak: Fear the Reaper

Hey guys,

This would be my Deadfest '07 entry. I actually finished a few weeks ago before I found out that creatures other than zombies would be allowed. But since I finished early I entered him into a sci-fi contest. Sadly, I didn't win anything anyway, but it was fun! LOL

Inspired by FX sculptor Steve Wang's 1:1 interpretation of the Blade II reaper (Note the separated mandible bones) - this is my 1/6 version. In my contest backstory I said mine is a futuristic, genetically enhanced clone of Jared Nomak.

My first time doing a monster type figure (no babe this time just to throw you guys off - LOL) and probably one of the cheapest customs I ever made.

Hope you guys dig it!


Early sculpt WIP:

I sculpted the head out of super sculpey, painted with acrylics. Obviously, I still got lots to learn with the whole sculpting thing - but it was fun as hell - I just sculpted a regular head and then ripped the mouth open - ha ha.

Hey baby, how about a kiss?

He ain't your average suckhead.

cheers,
doc t

 

[DarkArtist81]

HOLY CRAP!!!!

Dude, that is AMAZING.... I love every aspect of it. The hands and the coat are very nice and complement the sculpt very well. You did some amazing work here, you should be Super proud!

 

[King Darkness]

Dude, that is F'n sick!!!!!!!

I love it. You did and awesome job, the attention to detail is top notch!!!

The separation of the jaw is sick!!

 

[Bannister]

 

[the vampire with soul]

that's bad ass!!!

 

[automaton]

incredible.

 

[abake]

Damn, that's ugly!
In a good way.

 

[occulum]

that is AWESOME.

have always loved this creature design since I set eyes on him.
you

 

[BadMoon]

WOW! That is really bad A$$. You have a great talent there sir.

 

[galactiboy]

Looks awesome! You really got the nastyness of the design down... excellent work

 

[The ill Jedi]

WOW!! That is awesome and creepy as hell too!!

 

[creecher]

If you lost, whatever won would be too mindboggling for me. That's great.

 

[alphatyrant]

Just what I was thinking, if this excellent piece wasn't good enough to win, then what in the hell were the winning sculpts like?

 

[Shropt]

Wow, the movie sucked but that figure kicks ASS!!!

 

[Shropt]

What?? Do I have some food on my face?
.

 

[creature4000]

Great work!!! The detail on the hands is my favorite part.

 

[Shai]

Wow...that thing is beautiful dude..please share more customs with us...

 

[Rogue Trooper]

Blimey, that is bloody amazing. If i owned that i would have nightmares about it coming to life. Creepy

 

[figuremasterles]

Utterly mindboggling!

I have wanted to make a figure of him for ages, although, just with the mouth closed and that little line on his chin...

But this! WOW! You sent this one straight out of the park man! Just nuts! You deserved to have won with this! Any chance you cast this? Any? (one can dream...)

Great stuff!

 

[Doctor T]

"Vampires. I hate those m@therf*&kers." -- Nomak: Fear the Reaper

Thanks guys! Ok, more about the head sculpt...

Here's a shot of Steve Wang and his 1:1 version which I believe is a private commission that I'm sure I can't afford:

*Spoiler Alert*: I'll never be that good... deeeyamn...

...still, two things I learned when I saw his work that I tried to incorporate into my 1:6 version, whether I succeeded or not is another matter:

1. Give the head "character".

Make him scary and give him expression (in this case: angry as hell). Sometimes that can be hard with only half a face to work with - LOL. There are no guns or armour to embellish this figure - he already is an invincible weapon (save for a wee thing called sunlight), so I wanted to make up for it with his winning smile and personality.

2. Make him look real and convincing.

Sure he's a fictional monster, so I tried to hook onto various anatomy keys where I could. Basically, I just really studied Wang's work as best I could with the limited reference pics that I could find, and how his curves and details looked so natural and real.

Heh, in my own earlier WIP efforts, I was beating myself up because I thought: "he's not real enough, he's no mad enough" - LOL.

After that, I just had fun: went a little over the top with the veins, zombie-like skin effect, distressed eyes, rotted teeth and drool. Hell, I don't do monsters, so here's my chance to play with some of those fun techniques.

I didn't have a lot of reference pics so I really had to extrapolate what I was seeing from the 3/4 angle images (no profile reference ). My initial attempts really lacked the "dramatic" effect of the gaping mouth - it was too flat. I found that I had to keep pushing and sweeping back the upper mouth "wings" to get that effect. Because of that, I had to keep redoing over the details like the teeth, etc… A lesson I still have a hard time applying: leave details to the end, get the basic forms down first.

You can really the see "draft" effect I ended up with here in this 80% done WIP profile shot above. And below, the painted version from the other side.

DarkArtist, King Darkness, Bannister, the vampire with soul, automaton, abake, occulum, BadMoon, galactiboy, The ill Jedi, ian1138
Thanks guys for the kind words, I read them all and I really appreciate them. I remember when I saw a reaper on the big screen in Blade II and I thought, “man, that’s one ugly mother*****ker!”. Glad I had a chance to do one and that you guys like him and it was nice to do something different for a change.

Creecher, alphatyrant: some of the judges confessed afterwards that they assumed that my headsculpt was a produced one with a custom repaint and didn’t realize that I sculpted it from scratch. Also, it was believed to be not “sci-fi” enough but more “horror” genre related. I never thought of Blade II as a horror film. Oh well, whatever. 

Shropt:

creature4000: thanks yeah, I usually paint the hands when I want to try to match a skin tone. Which is kind of a pain, since it reveals oll the mold lines and imperfections in the hands.

Shai Hulud: thanks bro, I don’t do a lot of customs (maybe 3 or so a year - wish I had more time), but I’ll try to post my new stuff here. You can check some of my earlier work on my site listed on my sig below.

Les: Thanks bud, I'll get back to you possible recasts. Right now it's just a one-off, but a few people were asking making me reconsider the possibility. I’m not a great recaster and there’s quite a few undercuts here. I will be meeting with some good mold makers in Santa Clara in September for the ACFS show to get some ideas. Will you be going?

cheers,
Rob (doc t)