Hair work

I started hair punching the Kijimuna on Sunday. Because of the shear volume of hair I'm after, I've decided to use a crown needle for all the hair who's roots will be covered by more hair. I'll stop around 3 inches short of the hairline and begin punching 1 hair per hole to hide the chunkier roots and give him a realistic hairline. I'm using 16" Yak hair from Banbury Postiche so I can style it after punching (fake hair/fibres is harder to style I find). I used normal off-the-shelf hair dying kits to colour the hair different shades: Dark brown, light brown, red/ginger, blonde.

Even though the Kijimuna's hair is described as bright red, I'm attempting to give my model a sense of believability and bright red hair on it's own would look too 'fantasy' for the look I'm after. From my research during this project I liked the idea of the pigmentation of animals' skin affecting what colour hair grows out of it (often but not always!). I'll be punching a red/light brown mix into the orange patches on the skin and a dark/light brown mix into the parts in between the patches. I'll be punching blonde hairs around the hairline to act as 'baby hairs' and help integrate the hair into the rest of the head....

Hair punching is a very repetitive and mesmerizing process so I've forgotten to take many photos at key points. The photos here show close ups of the hair punched with a crown needle and the single-hole hairs.

He has a lot more hair than is visible on my Photoshopped design as I wanted to be able to change my mind during the hair work if \I saw it wasn't working....

Hand-in Photos

So technically this project finished today. Although this model is unltimately for a modelmaking recruitment show called New Blades in about 3 weeks. I wanted to make sure I got the majority of the paint job done before the deadline to give my tutors a better idea of the finished model.

These were taken just before the deadline - I popped the real eyes, teeth and tongue in and put his 'dignity' cloth on - so really it's just a few more paint layers and the hair to punch....

I need to wait a week for it to be marked at the stage it's at - and then I can carry on in preparation for New Blades 2012....

Painting 5

I've had to spend the last couple of days on my other project but today I managed to get on with finishing the main pattern and adding that second colour - I decided on a warm, darkish brown hue in the middle of each patch. I've also been thinking about how animals' fur colours are often dictated by patterns on the skin. I'm thinking of having more gingery brown hair growing out of the parts of the skin where the patches are...

Painting 4

So carrying on with this main pattern really... still working on my other model so paintings going slower than normal - and also because he's pretty big compared to what I'm used to painting!

Loin cloth test at the beginning of the day, haven't dyed it yet...

I hope to graduate the pattern out more with smaller blips of pigmentation similar to the face. I'll then add a second colour etc...

Painting 3

I added some moles and freckles by flicking colour on (so the placement was completely random). I then realised it would be better to add these after I'd applied the main skin pattern. I'd laser cut some airbrush stencils out to use and tried one out on the back of my faun man bust - then on some tests I did on my styrene work surface I outlined the shapes which I quite liked... I based the skin pattern on a mix between real animals, old colour tests on the maquette and a certain brush on Photoshop that created a random splattered pattern... (see colour test in previous post).

 I'll carry on with his tomorrow and move the pattern round the head, arms and legs... Also once another colour and freckles are added etc the pattern won't look so 'painted on'.

Painting 2

Second day of painting - yesterday was mostly setting up properly and working on my other model.

I started by warming up the skin with some blush tones. I hope to try and upload the time lapse on here once I've edited the files together but before then here's just some images...

I then started to brown up the areas where more hair will grow... I did this by applying thinned down paint on and taking the excess off with a soft brush so as not to drown out the texture in the skin... The first to photos show me mixing equal parts A (clear) and B (two colours in this case), and then thinning them down with naphtha for strippling or airbrushing...

The wet FuseFX paints look very shiny and dry to a shimmer if it is left. After the last layer of paint I will spray the entire surface with clear Platgel A and B and then use matting powder (or icing sugar) to leave a matte texture on the surface. This will hopefully make him look less wet and painted...

Painting!!

Finally I have reached a point where I need to start painting this thing! I transported the Kijimuna (nicknamed Edney - a mix of two people's names I used as sculpting reference) and set up a painting station in a cordoned-off part of the studio - I had to stay away from people's high-finish painted models if I was spraying silicone around. I also put an extractor behind where I was working and set up the time lapse camera to document the process. I cut a large circular board to rest on top of a turntable so I could spin him round.

I will be predominantly using Guy Louis' FuseFX platinum paint systems to paint this. If there are shades of colour I can't achieve with them I shall make my own paint with bathroom sealant, oil paints and low odour white spirit. Here's my set up:

I'll be using both my airbrushes for different type of spraying - both are capable of fine and large sprays but I prefer them for different thing. The left is a double action, pistol grip GREX Tritium TG and the right is a double action IWATA HP- C Plus. Double action is not really necessary a lot of the time but I find it useful...

This is my baby Iwata NinjaJet compressor - it's so small it doesn't have its own air tank, moisture trap or pressure gauge but it works great and fits in my bag!

FuseFX parts As are in the blue-lidded pot, Part Bs in the compressor box, mixing cups, varying brushes, sponges, IPA, kitchen towel, lighter fluid (naphtha), mixing sticks and a test cast of a previous project I can test paints on.

Seaming

Once I'd repositioned the right arm inside the core (so it fitted in properly) I took the Kijimuna back to my flat to seam it in the evenings (as I had to start a second project for uni during the day). I used the same method as with my previous project - where the excess silicone round the seam is cut down to form a trench. Then silicone of the same pigmentation is used to fill in the trench until the surface is level. Additional thin layers can be added and have texture put into them to match the texture around the seam to disguise it even more.

This is my second experience at seaming, my previous project was a lot smaller and had paper thin seams. Although the seams on the Kijimuna are also paper thin in most places - the damage caused to large surfaces of the silicone casts due to the bonding issue (covered in an earlier post) means I have a lot of repair work to do as well as covering the seam trenches. I only have the evenings to do this but have to get it right as there is no going back after I start painting!

We put our iPods in, I covered his bits with my cup of tea and got down to it...

 A photo of the back after one mix of Platgel had been applied to the pour hole part. Photo on the right shows the back after the split line has been disguised more and the horizontal seam across the shoulder blades have been covered over once...

The last photo is a close up of the back of the left leg - there is a photo on a previous post about demoulding the legs where you can see this area's surface was completely destroyed. It wasn't seaming most of the time as much as it was industrial filling!

Internal detachable structure

In order for the torso to slot on and off the legs (like the arms from the torso). I needed to construct two parts - one that will be imbedded in the legs sticking up and another that is secured into the fibreglass core of the torso. I'll put both parts together during the foaming of the legs so it'll always slot on in the position it was sculpted in.

These slotting supports need to be super strong because of the weight of the head and torso - I used steel box section and steel bar - I steel bar was slightly too large to fit inside the box section so I had to mill down two sides so it fitted snug.

Both steel sections were welded to some steel plating. I drilled holes in the plating so the bridger and fibreglass could secure the plate that went inside the core better and so the PU foam would expand round the holes and lock the other plate in place.

The last picture shows the support that will eventually sit inside the legs. Now this is done I can now start foaming the arms and legs...

Fixing arm slots into the core

So just like the torso and legs - the arms will slot on and off the torso for ease of transportation. Before I foamed the arms I milled down two sections of smaller steel bar to fit in some different sized box section - shown in the photos below - I suspended the steel bar sections in the arms when foaming and the box section will be glassed into the torso core. Hopefully the photos will explain properly!

After temporarily fixing the box section in with bridger (Isopon P40) and letting it fully cure, I carefully unslotted the arms and reinforced the bridger with standard fibreglass matting and resin.

Demoulding the legs

The top two parts of the leg mould slowly eased away from each other and popped off fairly easily. Unfortunately and strangely - the bottom part of the mould has bonded to the silicone just like the arms....!

After noticing how difficult it was getting the arms out - I decided to be as gentle but firm as possible and if that didn't work I would literally cut the mould part into loads of pieces so they were easier to pull off without damaging the surface of the silicone.

I was driven to the latter plan. I ended up dividing the mould into 15 different parts. Each part was a struggle to peel off - the third pic below shows how it felt like I was fighting against a strong glue!! If I could pinpoint the cause of the chemical bond then I could have learned something from this and if it was a mistake I had made then at least I could blame myself but no!

After removing all parts of the mould, I also realised I'd positioned the right arm slightly too close to the body which meant there was a large gap at the shoulder because the right knee was stopping it from going all the way into the hollow box section I'd glassed into the torso core. I'll now have to dremel all that out and reposition it again with bridger etc. Not ideal.