WIP Ripley - Lucky Star

[harto]

This is the old and rare Kobyoshi kit which I bought a long time ago from Xofacto. There are a few recasts knocking around but you can tell the originals by the color of the resin and the fact that the arms come separate from the body - and also that the resin has more air bubbles than a glass of champagne!

figure blue tacked together.

Box art

Sample of those air bubbles!

Lots and lots of clean up to do before I can start painting. In the back of the base in the first picture you can see I also managed to pick up a helmet off e bay which was originally from the Hot Toys Kane figure I think which should jazz up the base.

 

[FigureLover]

WOW!!!!! You are lucky to have one of these rare kits, I wish that I had bought one years ago when I had the chance and let it slip by. I can see that there is a fair bit of bubbling on the inside of the resin, but not much on the surface, hopefully thats a blessing.
Cant wait to see how you tackle this one
Ben

 

[harto]

unfortunately the bubbles aren't confined to the interior, there is a lot just under the surface of the resin and a lot of micro bubbles on the surface, it gives the surface a weird texture which won't even hold primer properly without sanding. If you look at the hair in the first pic you can just make out how bad it is, I'm going to need to dremel out and resculpt a lot of the hair as now it looks more like she just got out of the shower with shampoo still in her hair! Still it is such a rare kit it is worth trying to fix up. I'm also going to remake her watch as the one in the kit is nothing like the screen prop which should look like this.

 

[Metal Extremo]

As Alien fan that i am, loves de figure and envy you. I didn't know about this kit. I'll follow you

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

I have one of these on the to do list - I'll be interested to see your results. I think this is one of the sexiest female figure kits without showing any naughty bits!

 

[harto]

I also managed to do some work on the watch. I got dimensions and reference pics by looking for Casio F100's on the internet.

Sorry about the picture quality, my camera isn't very good with such extreme close ups.

Made up from Apoxie sculpt, lead foil and brass rod. The watch also hides the join at the left wrist when the figure is inserted into the suit so a chunkier watch is better!
You can see that I've also thickened the base since it was slightly warped so I clamped and glued it to a thick piece of wood cut to size and sanded and blended the edges.

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

Looking good.

 

[harto]

thanks Adrian, been spending a lot of time getting the hair right. I'm guessing mine must have been quite a late pull from the molds as there are quite a lot of gaps and bubbles in the hair, so trying to get it back to looking right is proving a bit of a challenge. I've also found that brushing on Mr Surfacer 500 out of the jar and then sanding it back is very good for evening out the strange surface texture. Should hopefully be able to start the face soon.

 

[Babelfish]

I was unaware of this kit's existence until now, and I have to say it's a pretty decent likeness. It looks quite big, what scale/size is it?

- Steve

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

Harto

I think you will find many of these kits hsve the air bubbles...my one does too...this is a fault with many garage kits. I think the provisio is that the people who buy such kits are usually experienced and can overcome details like filling holes and lengthening arms.

 

[harto]

Hi Steve, scale is around 1/6th so it is a big kit.
Adrian, I agree, although I have some other kits from XoFacto and the moulding is flawless, but it is more of an exception when you get a kit that doesn't need much clean up.
I have started work on the face, paint is a combination of airbrush and brush painted acrylics. I painted some of the hair to help with getting the right skin tone. Less is more here - from production stills you can see that Sigourney Weaver is wearing some make up but it has been kept minimal and very natural looking which is what I tried to go for here.

Still some more shading to do on the face around the hairline etc but I don't want to overdo the shading or she will end up looking too masculine I think. Teeth and lips still to finish as well.

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

Looking good so far.

I have never got on with doing acrylics for flesh. The sculpting for this kit is excellent - great likeness.

 

[harto]

I have typically always painted in oils, usually over acrylics or enamel base. Not a conscious decision as when I started painting there was just Humbrol enamels and artists oils (although I vaguely remember having some Rose Miniatures watercolors which could be painted direct on to metal - whatever happened to those?). I'm trying to teach myself how to use acrylics since you do seem to be able to achieve much more vibrant colours and the process seems much quicker and more predictable than oils and enamels. I've been watching a lot of YouTube tutorials etc. I figured I'd try acrylics for the flesh on this figure as there is so much flesh to paint and I'm going to lay in the groundwork and some initial highlighting and shading with an airbrush and then enhance it with brush painting. I know in theory you can airbrush oil paint but I think for something this big where you need to keep the colours uniform, acrylics are the best way to go. I think the one thing I have picked up from all the tutorials is how important it is to keep the paint very thin when you are shading, especially for flesh (sometimes little more than tinted water) and build up slowly. You'll see that I have brush painted some flesh base onto the body first which, once further layers are airbrushed over, seems to give a more natural tonal variation to the flesh rather than starting straight with the airbrush onto primer.

 

[harto]

Ok, finished the face and flesh and also painted up the watch, here are some close up pics of the finished result. I'm working on the helmet next - I need to remove the lamp on top as screen shots show this version didn't have one, also need to paint it white to match the space suit. Doing some work on the suit itself as well. Shading and highlighting the whole suit is very tedious but I think will be worth it as the detail is lovely and really pops with a bit of contrast.

First shots of the watch.



the watch faces include custom made decals taken off a web image of a Casio F100.

Shots of the face, I overcoated her with some Micro Sol satin varnish to give some life, she's not quite as glossy in real life as in the pics.

 

[FigureLover]

Lookin' great, love the watch. The skin tones look really good too, just enough shading to show the stress she's been under but not looking manly. If I can add a comment, darken her eye brows just a tad more to match the reference pic you attached earlier
Ben

 

[Stephan]

whished I had one in my grey army, thanks for showing.

 

[harto]

Ok, so she is pretty much finished. I might still try and darken the eyebrows a little as suggested by Ben but I have to tread a fine line as in this scale it doesn't take much for them to end up looking too dark and comical. I'm very pleased with how the shading of the suit and helmet came out, not strictly screen accurate as stills show the suit as pure plain white but I didn't want to lose all the lovely detail. I also did some minor changes to the suit -extended the collar at the back and added an extra piece down her right hand side front both to make the suit look more symmetrical. Hope you like her.

 

[FigureLover]

Great to see this one finished, that helmet looks fantastic. I also am not sure about the eyebrows now, but I would be happy as it is in my cabinet
Ben

 

[Adrian Cowdry]

She looks good - excellent watch and the shading is superb - stills might show plain white but that is a still - the movie has lighting which creats all the great shadow's you have replicated and all that detail. Inspiration for my one.

 

[harto]

thanks Ben and Adrian, I was very nervous hoping I could do justice to such a great sculpt and what it is now a very rare and expensive kit - I saw one go on Ebay recently for over USD250, which does tend to make you think twice before you take a drill and putty to it! I even considered not cutting the lamp off the helmet as the Hot Toys Kane figure is pretty hard to come by these days as well (in the end I prised it out and put a plate with screws over the gap so my modifications are reversible if I decide I want the helmet for something else, although I'm so happy with how this turned out I don't think I will be revisiting it any time soon!).