Some Cool Shades....

My next sculpt in the works is that of the smuggler/pirate named Mazzic as featured in the graphic novle adaption of Timothy Zahn's Star Wars : The Last Command. This is the only character, other than Lando, that sports a sense of style sporting those cool shades and spiked hair LOL! I don't know why, but the character reminds me of Tyler Durden from Fight Club...probably for the same reason...the shades, the hair. The head sculpt is alomst complete - still working on that hair of his :) Just a teaser this time around - If you'r not familiar with the character, a pic of him is below as well as this link....

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Mazzic



I have also begun work on additional Sith from the Star Wars Legacy comic series...

Darth Yuln...



and Darth Stryfe...



I have the bodies prepped and began the head sculpts last week - nice to do an additional female Sith to go along with my "almost completed" Darth Talon.

And yet another character that has made it to my workbench, a character that made it's firat appearance in the video game Starfighter, but later found his way to the comic book pages of Dark Horse's Star Wars Tales - thanks to Haden Blackman and Jan Duursema. His name is Nym, a Feeorin pirate and badass LOL! - His head is alomst complete, I am working on the upper body now. Nym will be sculpted as he appeared in the Star Wars Tales story, Single Cell.

Read a little bit more about Nym here....

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Nym

He's got quite a history!



So there you have it! Always have work to do and keep busy with - never a dull moment. By the way, a little update on my custom Embo...I've found some material that will work very well for soft goods - I hope to begin work on painting the designs and patterns soon.

I've also began work on a resculpted Boba Fett (since it is the 30th anniversary of ESB) - Hasbro simply can't get it right in my opinion...not to say that I', any better but I'll give it a shot! I'm also reworking my Darth Vader custom - something about the helmet I'm not digging. Decided to revisit the sculpt. I want to make the helmet three seperate parts...the body is complete and I'm very happy with it :)

Alright guys - that's enough! LOL! Thanks for your comments and visits - I'm thrilled you are interested in my work! If you haven't visited my page on Facebook yet, click on the banner on the right and become a fan! And check out my Flickr page from time to time - got updated images coming - and yes, Dass Jennir and H2 are on the way - just had a bit of a delay is all.

Sculpting Armor...a short "How To"...

In this particular case, shoulder and chest armor for my Embo sculpt. For those of you that are saying "Embo who?"...here is a link to the character that is featured in The Clone Wars animated series...

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Embo

This is a little "how-to" in pictures - nothing too fancy but it will give you an idea how I sculpt, clean and refine pieces made using Aves FIXIT sculpt - which has a cure rate of about 4 hours - after that, the material becomes unworkable for most sculpting techniques.

For this how-to you're going to be working the clay in the final hour - when the tackiness has faded but the material can still be mended enough to create a shell. A shell you ask?......see the pictures below...

I whipped up a batch of FIXIT earlier and waited till the fourth hour to begin kneading and rolling the material into semi-flat sheet. At this point, the clay has lost the tack that would keep you from rolling the material in the first place- if you see the clay sticking to your roller, let the FIXIT cure a bit longer.

After you have flattened a desired portion of FIXIT, begin to drape it over the body and create the shape of the armor...keeping in mind that this will be nothing more than a shell which you will sculpt the details on later.

So once you get the FIXIT shaped the way you want - you have what you see above...a very rough, uneven shell.....but you're not finished. Let dry 24 hours....you have some sanding to do.

24 hours later - time to sand down your shell. You need some heavy grit sandpaper and an xacto knife for creating straight edges. As you can see in the above images, I've already spent some time sanding the shell down and refined the shape. Two reasons for the high grit sandpaper: the ease of sanding uneven areas down, and scoring of the smoothed surface. This will allow you to sculpt detail that will adhere to the shell surface.

So after cleaning up the shell, I begin sculpting the armor plates...here are a group of pics that show my progression.

I work in stages - a couple plates at a time, allowing them to cure overnight then add a couple more and so on till complete.

And that's it! - a simple how-to that takes some practice learning the effectiveness of the sculpting material - you'd be surprised what you can do with FIXIT. It's an amazing product!

Embo has full motion of the shoulders and arms with the new armor - just a tad higher that shoulder level. I hope you enjoy the pics and have learned a little about using the FIXIT sculpt! I appreciate all the comments and suggestions you may have - please, as always, e-mail me or post a comment.

For more photos of my EMBO's work in progress, check out my photostream on FLICKR athttp://www.flickr.com/photos/sith_fire30/

Thanks again to all those who have become a fan of my Facebook page! Please click on the banner to the right if you'd like to join in!

Have a great weekend!

sith_fire30

E3: and if Unleashed wasn't enough...

Bioware introduces a second theatrical realease to their upcoming Old Republic game - The Hope of Alderaan.

The sith lord featured in this piece is outstanding...if I never play the game, I'm already a fan thanks to these fine pieces of CGI.

Amazing - Thanks to Lucasarts and Bioware for some much needed inspiration and ideas :)

You know some of these guys will be on my workbench soon!

BTW - I am in love with the lady jedi LOL! - anyone know her name?

The new Force Unleashed trailer...

Hey guys! E3 is here and along with all the great games comes great trailers- one being the new Force Unleashed feature seen below.

No doubt that you will be seeing a new Galen custom from me soon LOL! Especially after seeing this :)

Curious - Why doesn't Lucasfilm produce future Star Wars related films and episodes using this type of CGI - It's beautiful!