Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Cemetery/Graveyard Playset--(no figures yet)

When I first started collecting Buffy action figures I wanted to have a graveyard as part of my set since that was a huge scene for the first few seasons. I started off with the huge plastic clumps of grass that came with Moore Buffy figures. I used felt for the grass. I knew I didn't like this since it looked so fake and unauthentic. Over the next two years I collected parts and pieces that I could possibly use in a graveyard. I had trees, walls, steps, benches, plants and the grave stones that came with the figures.

Here are some pictures of the early cemetery. These are old pictures!!




I then ditched the whole scene when I found some fake grass they use with train sets. Normally it's expensive and I would have not gotten it, but I found it at the place where I find most of my junk and scrap parts for my sets. Then I started finding more and more things and soon the cemetery started coming to life. I knew I wanted a fountain of some kind in my cemetery. I think fountains are aesthetically pleasing to look at. So this was the actual first thing I made for my new playset.

Here is what I used. For the bottom I used the bottom of a yogurt container and the top rim. I turned the rim over and glued it to the inside of the bottom of the container. (You can see what I mean in the picture). I then had a plastic (maybe Barbie??) bucket. I over turned that and screwed it to a turned over what looks like a rock pile and a huge wooden spool. Clay normally won't stick to wood and when it gets wet it expands. It somehow worked enough and the cracks add to the "aged effect." To that I had a scrap piece from a Stargate figure. I then sculpted over another screw to make a little stand. To that I attached another scrap part from I think a Stargate figure. I boiled this in pieces (but not the very bottom part or it would ruin the plastic). Then I glued them together. I had some old junk clay which I broke and I boiled the pieces and then glued them onto the bottom of the container to make it look like rocks. It looked very cool. Here are some before pictures:


Finished (with flash and without)
This was sort of my inspiration picture.

This (and all the other parts) sat staring at me for the longest time. I knew it was going to be tedious painting all these parts. What's another "FEW" months when it's been on my list to do for years? Now that I'm on break, I had no excuse to leave it sit.


Here are some before pictures of the cemetery:

In this picture(s) I used 4 plastic wall pieces. I don't know where they came from (what action figure--there is no label on it.) There is a fake pine tree, a wooden bench and some small wooden trees (that were in that green circle), there is a Barbie shrub in a planter. You can see two Harry Potter pieces--I ended up gluing them together and then gluing that on top of a Buffy grave piece. The steps in the back I'm not sure where they came from. I also found these neat plants in a pot. The sidewalk is cardboard but I ended up using a sheet of cork to give it that concrete look. There is also a water pump.
In this picture(s) I found these two Church statues. One is Jesus and the other is a monk, I think. I thought they would be perfect in a cemetery. The larger monk I mounted on a couple of graves and Jesus I mounted on the green disk with one of the crosses you get with Spike. There is another bench, a cool, creepy tree that I don't know where it came from and some grave pieces. I collected MANY fence pieces and painfully glued them together. I found a tree top and glued that to a chess piece. I used some other chess pieces as graves (not pictured).
I really didn't sculpt a whole lot with the graves. I had to cut off the flower parts and the vines that were on the side. I like the rough look it left when I cut off that stuff so there was no need to sculpt over it and make it smooth. I did sculpt on the bumps at the bottom of the huge monk grave. I did that because of this grave I saw:
I started painting one of the graves and I tried to blend in some other paint while it was wet and it just didn't have any "depth" to it. On a whim, not sure what told me to try it, but I painted my first grave dark gray. Once it dried I used a lighter gray and with a little on the brush I swept it over the grave shown below. It worked out brilliantly!! It hit the high parts and left the low parts dark. I was truly blown away at how it looked like real stone!! Check it out! (In real life it looks so much better, it's hard to capture the coolness on camera.)
Once I finished that piece I got a bit obsessive and I did the entire graveyard in this way. Everything has a stone look to it. Here are some more close ups and the completed playset:

Left side

Through the eyes of a hidden vampire...
Middle

Right side
This wall had bricks in it so I had to go back and paint in the bricks. I did it the first time in my old set, but I make it look more real this time with different colored bricks.
The whole playset. I want to make a Buffy figure with a vampire to put in the cemetery, so it's not so empty. That will be coming sometime....

Sunday, March 7, 2010

"Buffy Power" Sarah Michelle Gellar on a RollingStone magazine


This was the other RollingStone cover that I saw that had Buffy (Sarah Michelle Gellar) on it. I liked how incredibly difficult it looked and I was eager to get a start on it. Here was the problem. I needed a car in scale to the figure. I bought a model car from a craft store that was a 1:24 scale. I knew it would be a bit small but the box looked larger and the car was PERFECT and it was on sale so I took a risk. When I got it out of the box I was very disappointed. The figure would have been sitting on pretty much the entire front end of the car--in other words, the car was way too small. I knew I needed a 1:12 scale car and I was not going to pay $100 for a model car. As luck would have it (and many months later), I came across an old Ghost Busters car that was in perfect size for a 6 inch figure. Here was my plan. I wanted to just use the front end of the car for the display, for space reasons. So I have this really cool heat gun and I heated the car where I wanted to cut it apart, and I did just that. Here is what I ended up with.


The only modifications I made to this car was the bumper. I had to make the bumper larger so Sarah could have a spot to put her feet. I used some foam board paper and tried to seal the rough spots with some sculpy. It was tricky getting the sculpy to stick to the paper but I think it eventually did.

The next challenge was figuring out what parts to use. I know I was going to use and EOD Buffy figure. I ended up using that, plus both arms from the Vampire Buffy figure, and the bottom of the legs from another figure--maybe a girl wrestling figure. I knew I was going to have to sculpt the feet. There was no way I was going to find feet in this position. As hard as it is sculpting feet I guess I don't mind the challenge. Here is a close up of Sarah's feet, and the parts I used:



I first had to hot glue the parts together just to make sure I had them in a good position to rest on the bumper (and look like her knees are in the air). Then I had to cut away at the shirt and the front part of her hair. I sculpted the top of her chest and neck area, and head. If you can see it I did sculpt in her collar bone.
I then sculpted the shirt. I had a few ideas in mind for the glittery shirt. My first idea was to sculpt her shirt so it was bumpy. I have silver, metallic paint and I thought that might give it the sequins look. I tested a spot but it didn't look right (plus as I was handling it my fingers would press down any bumps I made). So I opted to use glitter and worry about putting it on later. I did test an area just to see if the glitter would be in correct size and it was. Her shirt does have ridges on the side where it's bunched up (which I like how that looked) and I was afraid I was going to lose that adding the glitter but I think it worked out well. Here are some of those pictures:

Then it was time to sculpt the legs. I ended up cutting down the foot area a lot more than what the picture shows. I started up at the thigh and sculpted my way downward. The first foot was pretty easy to do. I just had to keep looking at the picture to see how the foot was angled and also make sure it would rest on the car's bumper. Here are some of those pictures. I was quite impressed with this foot.
(This one is my favorite foot picture)
Here was my next worry. Since the first foot looked amazing I was really worried I was not going to get the second one to look as good. It's like when I paint, I can get one eye to look exactly like the person, but the second eye is the downfall. I don't think the second foot turned out all that bad. The toes didn't show up as distinguished as the first, but for having done this from scratch it turned out really well!
The foot (toes) look good in this picture but when I went to paint them it lost the distinguishing features.

Once I had the feet sculpted I did the pants and then I started the arms. I cut away at the elbow and then I sculpted each arm, first off the figure, then I glued the arm onto the figure and sculpted the shoulders. I even figured that the way Sarah's arms are her shoulder blades must be sticking out some so on the back of the figure you can see I sculpted it that way.
Finally I sculpted the hair. I have learned to start at the bottom of the head and work my way up. The bottom wind swept hair wasn't too hard to do. I figured her hair in the back must be off her back so I managed to get that to look real. The hardest part was the top of the hair. It almost has a triangular shape to it the way it has to blow off her head. I think the hair could have been longer but I was also going for durability since this clay can break easily. I am overall very satisfied with how her hair turned out. Here are many pictures of that:






Here is the car, painted. I added some glitter into the green paint to give it that new car glitter shine. I also mounted the car to a piece of foam board and painted it. It was not cut evenly at all so that is why some of the back looks crooked. I had used hot glue to fuse the two pieces (car to board). If you also notice I had to put a stick on the bottom of the car so it wouldn't tip down. I used some metallic spray paint for the bumper. The car's color probably should have been a bit darker. I also put a coat of scenic water on the car to make it shine. When I did this it really made the glitter in the paint sparkle. If you also notice the hood of the car has a dent...that was my fault. I heated the car and tried to press Sarah into it so she would sit better. I made a slight mistake and then tried to fix it with sculpy which wouldn't stick and then I used caulk. I guess it is fine. You can't see it when Sarah is on top.




Sarah starting to get painted:

And the finished pieces: I am a bit bummed the face didn't turn out to be what I had imagined. Her eyes look sad along with her lips. I tried to paint her lips to have an up turn but it looked clownish. The paint was starting to get thick on the face so I didn't want to keep trying to fix the eyes. What you see isn't bad but it's not exactly like the picture, either. She looks sad, but overall I'm still quite pleased. I painted some watered down tacky glue on the shirt then sprinkled glitter. I then pressed it in place. For the shirt's straps I painfully glued each piece of glitter.
Keep in mind if you click on the pictures you're going to get a magnified verson of reality so any mistakes that you normally can't see will be seen in the pictures. I also realize that the pants have blue-ish swirls to them....that was due to the flash in the camera. Sarah's pants are dark, dark blue and so are the figure's pants, the flash ruined it.





(The next three are my favorite pics.)



Inside the magazine there is another picture of Sarah on the car but this one she is touching her face and her mouth is open. I have many Buffy Bot heads and I contemplated doing this pose. I wanted to again stretch my talent and make the mouth. In the end it would have been a much better head to use (easier to paint) but I decided against using that head due to time. I probably won't make this figure again unless I was commissioned to make the figure using this head. Anyway, here are some of those pictures...


Feel free to comment if you like what you see. You can also check out my posting on the Buffy Figs Forum found here: http://btvsfigs.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=Customize&action=display&thread=16919