The Making of Future Girl
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One of the gems I found at WonderFest USA in 2007 was an original sculpt by Japanese sculptor Yoshinore Yatake of Accel HP. The sculpt is called "Original Character #3 Future Girl". Yatake-san was there in person and brought several gorgeous kits along. I was fortunate enough to score one of these originals before they sold out (yet another reason to grab an Early Bird pass!). The kit is 1/6 scale and cost $100.
The first order of business is removing the mold release that the casters use to free the resin from the molds. I always remove any contaminants and mold release before I do any cleanup. The reason for this is that even though your model appears solid, the resin is actually very porous. Mold release is a silicon-based compound, and if you sand the resin before you remove the mold release, you will grind the silicone down into the pores of the resin. This can give you all sorts of headaches down the line, particularly when you pull off your masking, only to discover to your horror that your gorgeous skin tone comes up with the tape. Yikes! I use an automotive degreaser called Castrol Super Clean. Purple Power is another option, but I prefer CSC. ALWAYS wear gloves and googles when working with this stuff. I've known guys who've dunked their hands in it and end up looking like zombies when the burned skin starts sloughing off! Seriously, this is some nasty stuff. BE CAREFUL!
I didn't take a shot of Future Girl in Lake Castrol, but here's Byron Jaeron's huge Girl of Steel going for a swim. You can find airtight plastic containers in various sizes at Target and Wally World. Let the parts soak for a while, at least a few hours, but preferably overnight. If you're worried about the resin, check back regularly, but I've never had any problems. Your mileage may vary.
Once I remove the parts from Lake Castrol, I wash 'em up with Soft Scrub and my Big Ass Purple Toothbrush. Rinse thoroughly and set the parts aside to dry.
Here's a tip to prevent losing small parts down the drain. I found this drain screen at the grocery store for a buck. It fits on top of the opening in your sink and helps prevent those small parts from being devoured by the disposal.
I then hit her with a coat of my favorite gray primer. I use gray because it is really easy to see any remaining seams and chingaderras that need cleanup. This is the primer I use - it is a self-etching primer that I get at my local paint jobber and is prob'ly overkill for the kind of models we build. I use self-etching primer because I build multimedia car kits that include lots of white metal and photoetched bits and other primers tend to lift off of metal parts. I've found that I never have any problems with paint lift from resin since I discovered this stuff about three years ago. It is very expensive and most of you will never need an industrial strength basecoat like this. I've recently started using Duplicolor Filler Primer. For more information about DFP, check out the Making of Babs thread.
After the first coat of primer I started the cleanup, using sandpaper, nail blocks (get 'em at beauty supply stores), and sanding foam. I buy faom pads in large sheets and cut 'em up into smaller pads. It takes me hours to clean up my kits. This model was an excellent cast, but it still took me about six hours to clean it up. I know guys who can clean up a kit in an hour, but I treat each separate part as if it is a complete model in and of itself. If you pay this kind of attention to each and every individual part, the finished product will be the highest quality you can make it.
Using a guide coat like this really helps you see the imperfections that you've missed.
Hair is always a pain in the a** to clean up. It is boring and tedious, but I cannot tell you how many "finished" kits i've seen with sloppy cleanup on the hair. It is often the most tedious cleanup there is, but if you want to do well on the tables, you canNOT overlook it. I promise you, the judges WILL notice.
After doing a test fit to make sure everything is still where I want it, I found a couple of tiny flaws. Here you can see that the hair/headband area still needs some attention.
After making a few minor tweaks, I laid down a couple of light coats of Tamiya Fine White primer. I often use this intermediate step if I I really want the colors to pop. Also, for this build I wanted to use pearl powders to enhance the paint on her jumper, boots, and hair, I base coated everything with white primer. You could also use paint, but the Tamiya primer has a much finer grain.
Note that the other shoulder was not as prominent, but still needed a little touch-up. I often use the macro setting on my Nikon D2H's 28-105 lens as a back-check to discover any imperfections. I always model with an Optivisor, but even then I can't see every single flaw. I noticed that when I did closeup photography of my finished kits I was always discovering gotchas, so I now use it to find 'em before I paint 'em!
I used Freestyle Lifetones paints for the skintones for this build. Here are the colors i used for the skintone base. The first thing I did was pre-shade the areas around where her clothing would meet her exposed flesh with Transparent Flesh - around the tops of her shoulders, around her breasts, and around her jumper and boots. I then basecoated the kit with a mixture of KB Flesh and Pale Flesh from a distance of about eight inches, just misting the exposed body parts. After letting the first pass dry, I went back over everything with another light coat.
I shade my kits using several different methods - the pre-shading technique mentioned above, oil washes and glazes, airbrushing after the skintone is applied, and my favorite technique, shading with pastels. Note that you must use CHALK pastels and NOT oil pastels. Chalk will stick - oil will not.
I've used a number of different pastels over the years, but the best I've found are Faber Castell. They're moderatly hard to chase down, but you can find 'em at most good-sized art supply stores or at Dick Blick on the interweb. Take a small sheet of sandpaper and rub some of the pastels into a pile. One of the beauties of using pastels is that you can mix them. Here I've taken a sienna color and mixed it with an orangy-peach.
Take a fairly stiff brush - I use Micromark's fabulous dry brushes (also available on the interweb) - and mix your color, the gently tap the pastel in the area you want to shade. Just dab the pastels (don't rub!!) into the areas that would normally be in shadow or have less light hitting them.
After tapping color into the area, gently blow the excess away. Swallow your spit and lick your lips dry first or you'll blow tiny globs of spit onto your lovely work and screw it up (experience talking here!)
Take a slightly softer brush (I dab with a #2 and blend with a #4), blend the pastel AWAY from the areas where the shading is the greatest and blend it into the skin tone. Don't worry if it doesn't look just perfect right away - take your time and build it up over several applications. You don't have to do it all on the first pass. Patience!!
As a guy who loves to paint sexy girlies, the most important tool in my arsenal is . . . . good reference material! That's right, a good ol' Victoria's Secret catalog!
Seriously, this is an excellent source of reference if you like to paint babes. And here's a tip for the fellas - go online and buy mama some sexy little unmentionables. You not only get to see your beloved prance about in skimpy panties, you'll get on the Vickie's mailing list and get your OWN full color reference material every other month! How can she object to that??
Um, lets see now, where was I? Oh yeah - refer to your **ahem** reference material and use the techniques outlined above to shade the face. Shade under her jaw, inside her ears, under the brow, along side her nose and under her lower lip. Define the hollow areas of the cheeks and add a bit of blush while you're at it. With Future Girl, we are going to add another band of color across her eyes later on, but for now define the facial features.
Models are three dimensional representations, but sometimes a little extra attention can add even more depth and dimension. Here I use pastels to define the musculature on her arms. I really dig a babe with defined shoulders, so these areas get a little extra love and attention. Note also that I carefully brushed and blended around the tops of her shoulders where they will meet the armholes of her jumper. Be careful not to mess up the highlighting you did with your airbrush back in the last step!
Once you're happy with everything, blow any remaining excess powder off the model (I use canned air) and seal your progress with Dullcote.
And here she is, ready for masking!
I like to mask complex areas with AIZU tape. It comes in varying thicknesses, but I've found that the 1 mm width works best for masking around compound curves.
That's not to say that you can't make your own micro-thin tape strips, though. Just break out the Tamiya tape, a straightedge, and put a fresh #2 blade in your trusty Xacto!
I cut off a workable length and apply it to the areas I want to mask, keeping some tension on the tape so that I can work it around the curved areas. This is particularly useful when cutting in around her, um, private parts.
Once the edges are masked, I come back in with wider strip of Tamiya tape and finish masking the areas to be covered. Be really careful and make sure that you don't leave any micro-gaps where paint might sneak through. (Again, this is experience talking here!)
When masking in areas where I want a really sharp edge I always burnish each strip of tape as its laid down, then after everything is masked, I go back over what I've done and burnish the entire area with vigor and enthusiasm. This will seal all of the various layers and help prevent that dreaded overspray from seping under the ONE loose flap in your masking job! Remember, you are building a series of miniature models that you will eventually assemble into the finished model. This kind of attention to detail is a pain in the ass, but if you want to continue to improve and take your modeling to the next level, take the time to do the little things. Believe me, it WILL pay off!
For masking areas with undercuts, I'm going to use a technique that I picked up at WonderFest a couple of years ago. That's right, I'm going to use (gasp!) . . . . . Parafilm!
I cut off a small hunk, then rubbed it between my fingers to dislodge the backing paper.
I then stretched the film ACROSS the width of the grain just until the stretch marks disappeared and the film relaxed.
. . . . and gently nudged the Parafilm under the undercut of her top. If the film appears a bit loose, hold it with your thumb for a few seconds to warm it up and it'll stick right down.
Now she's ready for paint, but first, here's a tip that we use in the car modeling world when painting two-tone paint jobs. Before you lay down any new color, lay down one more coat of your basecoat OVER the edges of your masked areas. This seals the edge of the tape and prevents any of the contrasting color from seeping under your mask job, especially you lazy types who ignored my suggestion to burnish your tape thoroughly.
"But Filmy, didn't you shade the areas around the clothes with pastels? Won't laying down another coat of your fleshtones screw with all that work?"
Yeppers, it sure will! In this case, I shot a layer of Dullcote to seal the area instead of fleshtone. It serves the same purpose and will prevent any seepage. In the next step I'll show you another method to help prevent any wayward paint and help you get that razor sharp demarcation line in your paint jobs.
I originally thought I'd stick to the pearl white color for her jumper and boots, but NOOOOOO, I had to go and have a dream! 'Ya know how sometimes when you're in that state between asleep and awake and stuff just sorta comes to you? Yeppers, that happened to me this morning and I thought "Hey! Let's paint her clothing in the same color as Ryomou's socks!"
Since I generally listen to the voices in my head, that's what I'll do! I think it'll look pretty cool with the pearly yellow-orangy hair, and I'll paint the trim gold instead of silver.
Here are the components for Filmy's Magic Ryomou Socks mix. When mixing Liquitex acrylics, I've made plenty of blunders, believe-you-me! I cannot TELL you how many times I've mixed it too thick and had it sputter and clog, and how many times the paint has spidered or run because it was too thin. And just what IS the consistency of skim milk anyway? I never drink the stuff!
Here's the sure-fire recipe I finally stumbled upon: I take two large pipettes full of Polly Scale Airbrush Thinner and put 'em in a film cannister. The next step is to cut off three worms of acrylic (about 1/4" long each) with a toothpick as I (gently) squeeze the tube over the film can. I then put two drops of Jet Dry dishwashing rinse agent (prevents spotting!). You can use something similar, but avoid anything that says "increases shine". The rinse agent acts as a surfactant and breaks the surface tension of the droplets in the mix, allowing the paint to flow on very smoothly and spread evenly.
Unless, of course, your airbrush needle is dirty and you blow a couple of spots on that way. (See next picture.) Guess I'll need to fix that before I move on to the next step!
Anyway, I'm used Liquitex Cerulean Blue acrylic, which - if done properly and with the right amount of thinner - goes on fairly transparent. Since I will be building up the color as I go, the first thing I need to do is lay down a preshade in the creases of her clothing, under her breasts, between her legs (oooooh!) and around her muscles. I also add a little extra around the edges of her clothing for a nice contrast to the skintone shading. I'm going for a fairly dramatic look with this build - hyper realism is not even in the same ballpark with this paintup.
Next I'll need to get out the Q-Tips and a little Windex and clean up those spatters. Then I'll start misting on the basecoat.
