Biog Living Spaceship - rear section done.

With a nice base sourced and a stand for the Biog Living Spaceship found (actually a cut-down pen as the ship is proving to be FAR too heavy for the usual gauge clear rod) i can attach both and work on the strange tendrils flowing out of the back.
Next thing to address are those bunches of strange globe things near the front that i've prepared recesses to put them in and for those i'll be using the beads from a cut open water filter cartridge - an excellent source for such things.

Judge Fear - shoulder pad padding

Been having a think on how i can make Judge Fear's shoulder pads sit a lot higher than they naturally do and i think i've cracked it.
I've experimented with rolling up lengths of Bubblewrap to the right thickness and, when happy they're the right size to hold the shoulder pads in the right place, i've covered them with Duct Tape.
I'll be Velcoing them to the bodysuit, the cape placed over them, and the shoulder pads Vecroed to the cape.

Judge Fear - Dimension Jump

So, Judge Fear traditionally has, to the left of his belt buckle, a mini bear trap and the big padlock. And on his right, just a mini bear trap.
To balance that side up, i decided to give him the Dimension Device the Dark Judges use to skip into and out of our reality.
Found quite quickly in the spare parts box this ball money box, which was the right size and had the added bonus of being able to be cracked open - handy for painting and then bolting to the belt before putting back togther.
So i drilled a hole for the nut and blot on the side that had the money slot, primed in grey, then had to choose a colour for it. Didn't to be just the one colour over the tales except for shiny, so i went with a colour that i had almost a whole can of - "Rover Zircon Blue", a can i'd had for years and years, after buying it to spray a SPV from Captain Scarlet and not used since. Does pay to not throw anything away.
Really like how its come out as its going to be a bit different to the rusty metal shades that will be elsewhere, and here's the right side of the belt done.

Big 'n Mean - part 3

That's better - Mean's spine all done

Big 'n Mean - part 2

With the whacking great seam filled, i can crack on with the fella.
Head armour has a new basecoat, eyes and teeth blanked out ready for the new paintjobs and i'm addressing the total lack of raw flesh details - if i'd had that amount of metal grafted onto me, i know i'd have some raw flesh.

Big 'n Mean

Ouch.
I've been asked to sort this life-size bust of Mean Machine from the Stallone Dredd out.
Initially, the guy wanted just the eyes sorted out but i've told him i'll redo the metal areas too.
Can't do too much with the skin as for that i'd need an airbrush, which i don't have.
First thing to do though is sort out this massive step between the two halves - the bloke who owned it before him didn't bother sorting that out before painting it seems.
So that's where i am right now, sanding down a whole ton of P38 car body filler.

Judge Fear - getting handy

Nearly up to speed now on the Judge Fear outfit, and these are the hands i've gotten for the fella.
Lots of nice detail on them and should look real nice when painted. An added bonus is the extra long fingers, which will help on the eerie side of things.
Bit of a let-down is the palm area - they don't have one, i'm guessing to aid in slipping them on and off.
I was resigned to just painting my own palms the same colour i'll be doing these each time i wear them, but then a friend said why not put a strip of fabric over them?
Great idea, one i'll be doing just as soon as i find my feet (so to speak) as i need to paint both pairs at the same time so that they match.

Biog Living Spaceship

With the upper "mushroom" added, she's getting pretty darn heavy - think i'll source a base and stand before i do anything else with her.

Judge Fear - belt buckle

Pic (1) So i'd gotten me a plastic shrunken head with needed fringe hairdo and straight away i cut the neck off. Excellent - that left a nice big opening for my fingers to get into to do up the nut and bolt i'd be using later to attach the head to the buckle.
Pic (2) After tying up his hair and putting it into a plastic bag to cover it up, i then sprayed the head with Grey Primer and then gave it a basecoat of a Games Workshop flesh. Now, the primer dried nice and matt like it should've done, but the flesh tone stayed glossy, i'm guessing as a reaction to the plastic of the head. Don't know whether i should've scrubbed the plastic first, or given it a sealing coat of latex, but something was causing a reacxtion.
Pic (3) Hoping the washes i'd be putting would dull the gloss down, i carried on. Nope, its still got quite a sheen to it. So i tried putting on some Matt Varnish. Nope, no change there either.
Pic (4) Resigned to its shininess, i've attached it to the belt, figuring i can easily swop it for another at any point.

Judge Fear - badge

A quick word about the Fear badge. Bought yonks back off the 'bay, the thought of what to do with it really kickstarted this outfit.
I had to decide what colour to do it as i've seen it done as bone, metals, the letters picked out in red, the letters not picked out in red.
In the end, i chose to go with bone to match what Judge Death has, keeping it in one colour to try and suggest its been carved from some unfortunate victims skeleton.
So, this part is done but i've still to decide the best way of attaching it to the undersuit - velcro is nice and easy but can't risk it falling off, gluing a pin on the back is safer but i'll be making quite a few holes in the undersuit over time.

Judge Fear - knee pads

Pic (1) - While i was busy with the belt for Judge Fear, i was also beavering away with the biggest part i'd be building - the knee pads.
Again, it meant studying this picture and trying to work out what the dimensions would actually be on myself - making for lots of bending over with a tape measure, trying to measure myself while checking the mirror. Glad no-one walked in on me.
What was pretty tricky is that Brian Bolland - and Cliff Robinson follows here - drew the knee pads as big, bulky shapes, bending around the leg, which i thought would be pretty difficult to replicate.
Pic (2) Anyway, after working out just how the two shapes under the bulbous pads work, i had a go at making dummy versions out of card and, after a few tries, was happy enough with them to use them as a template to draw onto the foam matting.
Pic (3) Then it was a matter of cutting them out, bending the under shapes to fit my knee, then gluing together with Hot Glue.
Pics (4, 5 & 6) And then it was paint time - a couple of coats of Plastidip to seal the foam, then priming, basecoating in a suitable green, and then some basic weathering.
Again, i'm holding off on doing too much weathering until i've got all the parts together and can gauge what needs more.

Judge Fear - belt, part 3

With parts for Fear's belt coming together, it was time i thought about the belt itself.
I figured the best way to attach the various things he has hanging off the belt was to use Velcro.
As the items are quite big, it would mean i'd be needing a smooth, wide belt to attach the Velcro to.
And, one with a blank buckle so as to attach the shrunken head to.
Now, where had i seen such a belt? I know, in my cupboard - my Garindan outfit uses an Imperial Officers belt, which is 2 inches wide, with a blank buckle with a greeblie on top that appears all over the place in Star Wars



So i bought me a buckle, minus the greeblie, drilled a hole in the centre for the bolt that the head will be attached with, then sprayed it black.



While i was doing that, i also looked around for a shrunken head to use for the belt buckle. There sure are a lot to choose from on the Net and in the end i went for this one, thinking it had the correct fringe styling of hair. This is how he arrived, things went a tad wrong shortly after this as i started painting...

Judge Fear - belt, part 2

The next thing i tackled on Fear's belt was the whacking great padlock - as taple of design no matter the artist.
That found me yet again in front of the mirror, with a picture of the fella taped to it.
Then it was a case of taking a tape measure to my waist arae and eyeballing roughly how wide the padlock would be.
Once happy with the width, i could then use that to gauge the height, and once i had the height i could gauge the thickness.
With those measurements, i roughly drew out the shape life-size and then cut a front and back out of foam (with an area removed from the front where the keyhole would go) and a length of foam for the side.



I Hot Glued them together, then added proper front and backs i made out of Plasticard.



I then put a Plasticard strip around the sides, added an extra level to the front, and some sticky gems for rivet detail. That's as far as i am right now with it as i've hit the brick wall of what to use for the top part of it? Its got to be rounded and easily bent into a curved shape, but not metal - that'd be far too heavy on the rest of it. At the moment i'm stumped.

Judge Fear - belt, part 1

First part of Judge Fear i attempted was his belt bear traps, and i turned to them first as i knew i'd be using foam matting to build the knee pads, a material i'd read plenty about but never used before, and figured if i started on something small and buggered it up, it'd be no great loss to start again.
Looking at the images of Fear, the details of his belt equipment varied from artist to artist, but the accepted deal with the bear traps is two of them, either side of the belt buckle.



So i ordered a pack of sheets and got to work. I eyeballed how wide a bear trap would be on my waist, cut a length of matting to that width, then scored almost all the way through at a distance i'd figured would be the length of one, then curved it out from that, cut almost through again to change direction a tad and give me the nice curve to it.
Then i laid it flat, drew on the "Z" teeth pattern and scored that lightly in.
I then bent it into the shape i wanted and Hot Glued it together.
I wanted some inner spring detail to them, and that was just a piece of plain plastic tubing, with wire wrapped each end for the spring and they too were Hot Glued in place.



I then sealed the foam with the cheapest method out there - PVA glue mixed 50/50 with water and slopped on.
Then they were primed in grey and given a coat of Black



And then they were weathered. This is how far i've weathered them - i might do more once i've got the whole outfit together



Pretty pleased with how they've come out, considering its my first attempt at foam but, if i am sticking to the original Brian Bolland version, strictly speaking they should be of different shapes and with a foot plate in the middle. Oh well, i can always make some more at a later date.

Judge Fear outfit - background

So, this Judge Fear outfit project is a tad different to how i post other builds as, to begin with, this is a retro-active WIP.
Before i explain that, a bit of back story:
I'd had a hankering to have another outfit other than my Garindan one and i was seeing more and more Judges at Cons i was trooping and, being a massive 2000AD and Dredd fan since Prog 1, there was a connection there.
As much as i'd love to make and wear a Judge outfit, i'm too self-conscious to have any character with my face showing.
But i kept thinking and thinking how a character from the comic Dredd-verse would be a nice change to my existing Star Wars one.
And then i saw someone as Judge Death at a local Con and a lightbulb slightly came on. It grew much brighter as i started thinking about the other three Dark Judges, then grew white hot as it clicked - Judge Fear is to my mind the coolest looking of the lot and he's built like i am - tall and slim. And i'd already got a life-size badge so that's one stumbling block eliminated already.
That's it then - i WILL be Judge Fear :)
First thing to decide on was just which version to go for, as the fella has changed from appearance to appearance over the years.
To my mind, THE best version is the original by Brian Bolland, so i'd be going with that, although i'd be using this excellent B&W image by Cliff Robinson as my blueprint.
Going with that, i then had to make a mental shopping list of just what i'd be needing from head to toe.
That ran:
Helmet - THE potential stumbling block for me. After building and painting so many figure kits i know the head is the focal point that everyone looks at and, if you mess that up, it doesn't matter how the rest looks, its a fail. Having never scratchbuilt a life-size helmet, let alone such an iconic one, there was no way i was going to gamble on cocking it up. So i'd be fielding that out to someone i thought could do it justice.
Shoulder Pads - From reading all the pages and pages on armour builds, it seemed that foam would be the way to go - cheap, light and easy to work with. Trouble was, i'd never used the stuff before and, again, being so large, they'd be a focal point too, so i'd field them out too.
Under garments - nice and easy. Figured a Stormtrooper bodysuit would do.
Cloak - initially i thought i'd just use my Garindan one, but am now thinking a seperate one as i can dirty it up.
Badge - already gotten, just needed painting.
Belt - a nice, interesting mix of objects for me to do.
Knee Pads - again foam, and this was something i reckoned i could do.
Hands/feet - Slip over fancy dress one's sourced from somewhere.
So, that was my shopping list done and this was done about 5 months ago. I started on it almost immediately but i've held off on posting anything as i knew, when i reached the helmet/shoulder pad stage, that everything would grind to a halt while i waited for them to be done and the thing would lose momentum with no updates for ages.
But, happy to say, things are flowing nicely so here we go. I'll be posting an update each day until we're up to speed.

New 2000AD project

Well, i Fear there may be disturbances at future conventions...

Be AFRAID...

... details of my biggest-yet 2000AD project will start to trickle out soon

Biog Living Spaceship - covering up.

I was having a problem adding Magic Sculp detail over the original clay at the front of my Biog Living Spaceship, in that the original clay is SO crappy and cheap, it would crumble and crack with the least amount of handling.
So, to get 'round it, i've added Magic Scup all over the ship to seal it in and keep it safe.
Now i can go back to detailing.
Got a bit of a worry though - this solid airdrying clay core followed by the amount of Magic Sculp is making this beastie HEAVY.

70mm Mean Machine - done

Here's Mean looking mean, and a shot from "The Three Amigos Part 2"

70mm Mean Machine - armed

About done with Mean's robotic arm. I've deliberately gone for totally different colours to Dredd for it, to make him stand out a bit more when alongside ol' Chinface, and i've gone nice and rusty for the same reason and to imply this a Cursed Earth cobbled together sort of affair.

Seth the Blitzspear - done

Credo!