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Monkeypocalypse 2!
So here are the alternate forms for the kaiju monkeys from
last week's
conversion project. Translucent ones. Well, we have to work
with that property and not just the sculpt. Fortunately, I've
had a little practice painting the actual figures before I
get to the tougher job of keeping something translucent.
We'll start with the more stylized one. Since the other version of this one was an ice monster (a yeti), I think we'll go for a fire monster this time. Plus, fire works well with translucent figures. To get him going, we give him a coat of yellow ink, then some scrapings of orance. That makes kind of a flamey quality that exploits the way the fur is sculpted on this figure. Because we want the tips of the flame to be yellow, when we put on the orange, it is easier to put the pen down near the tip and draw it away from the tip (instead of applying ink toward the tip and relying on my ability to stop where I need to). I also left the feet, hands, and face all yellow.
Now we're going to give him a coat of cracked ash that the fire
will be seeping out of. kind of a magma/volcano effect. To do
this, I like to have a continuum of ash colors. I start in my
mixing pallette (bottle cap) with black on one side and light
grey on the other, then blend them together to give me a range
of greys from very black to dark grey (sorry for the out of focus
pic, but hopefully you get the idea). Then I start from the
dark end with the larger areas and move toward the lighter colors
for the highlights.
I decided the smoother areas would be solid ash coating, and
it would break up more toward the spikey, flamey parts. Again,
I find it easier to start with little dots at the pointy edges
of the flames and work my way toward larger sections with less
showing at the bases rather than the other way around.
Now on to the other ape. He looks a little more techno, so
I am going for some energy weapon effect from the translucent
material. The first thing is to decide on a range of blue
colors and how I like them. So I did some testing on the back
of the figure in an area that I knew I was going to paint over
solid as armour (the test would be hidden under paint).
Even though I forgot to take the pic of the color test until I had started painting the rest of the figure, I did it beforehand. It let me pick a couple of different colors of blue in so I could have a gradated effect from light to darker blue, giving the effect of energy (electricity is blue, right?) at different levels at different spots.
Here's what I did with it. I went with "power fists" where the
blue starts out lighter at the business end and fades into a
darker color as you go further back. I also augmented the more
active fist with some other power stream stuff from a HeroClix
figure. Kind of like "motion lines" in drawing.
Then I just painted him up (also, I cut off the medals from
the original figure, as I didn't think they fit in with the
motif of the other monkeys), to go with some other metal
fisted primates I have ... some DUST tactics Axis figures, a
Reaper Ape-X supervillian, a couple of Sueperfigs ape characters,
a HeroClix Solovar (Ape City leader from the Flash comics) with
a slivered Hellboy fist on him, and a DreamScape chimp who is
just a chimp without augmentation.