Back from the dead!
Here, have a shitty YouTube video of my project:
So I bought 3 of these blind box Logbox Re Birth One Piece figures. And for once I’m happy to say I got exactly the characters that I wanted. The character I wanted the most was Eustass Kid, the guy with the giant metal hand. As I took the figures out of their boxes it was very apparent that the Kid figure was lacking in details compared to the two others that I got (dino Drake and samurai Chopper). So! I decided to do something about it. And here we are.
I was too focused on filming so I didn’t take any work in progress photos so these are all before and after pictures.
The first thing I did before I started painting was give the figure a wash with soap and let it dry.
My repaint again mostly was me using watered down black acrylic and “dirtying” /darkening the figure. I used this method on the base, pants, belt, coat, metal arm and the character's hair.
I repainted the boots black. I mixed a new purple color for the ruffles on the pants. I used gold paint to highlight details on the belt and on the goggles. Painted the lenses of the goggles blue. Added a few more red and gold details to the metal arm. I dry brushed silver highlights to the metallic parts and minimally on the base.
I retouched the scars, mouth and painted in some pupils. And I also gave the bare skin areas a very light reddish brown wash.
For the pink energy effects going into the arm, I thought they looked too matte. So, I mixed glossy Mod Podge and glitter to make them more “sparkly”.
Except for the energy beams I sealed it all with matte varnish, which again turned out more semi glossy, at least if you look at the coat. I painted the boots over with Mod Podge to give them a bit of shine.
I posted this elsewhere, and received comments that the eyes don’t look good, they are too “googly eye” another comment suggested I should give the character some lipstick.
So here’s a screenshot from the anime. Many interpret that the thick black lines in the eyes and the red lips are makeup. I’m not 100% convinced that is the case, but anyway. While I was painting I thought that the character was missing something, and after reading the comments, I realized that, yeah, it’s the “makeup”. I had already declared the project finished, but for a while there I was determined to get back to it and add the “missing” parts.
So when I finally picked up the figure again and looked at its face, my only thought was
HELL NO.
I’m not doing it. I’m not adding any eyeliner or lipstick. The head is too damn small for that. I was driving myself crazy just trying to paint the eyes. The other eye took close to 20 tries before I got it to look straight. I’m not going through the pain of trying to add the makeup. I don’t know if the one who commented realized how small this thing is. The face is less than 4 millimeters in size. I actually tried to use a magnifying glass while I painted the eyes, but I found it messed up my hand-eye coordination and didn't use it in the end.
Regardless, I'm super happy with it, flaws and all. ♥
