TSCC: Custom Action Figures PART 5
<< As you can see, I couldn't be happier about how well Sarah's hair turned out. Seriously. I'm proud. And yeah, I know I was all about doing Cameron's hair, but when it came time to start sculpting, I choked. Since Sarah's hair is a big ol' mess, I figured it'd be best to start with hers in case things didn't go so well. But they did. It wasn't perfect by any means, but I did some obsessive Dremeling and damn, I think it's good. Hope you guys think so too. Keep in mind I had to make the bottom flare out a bit to I could get the head into the body and also allow it some movement. And of course there's really no consistent style to Sarah's hair to go by. It's different in every scene of every episode!
You may recall (I think I mentioned before) that this head had kind of a shelf on the forehead above the eyebrows to help hold the original hair piece. If I didn't get rid of that, Sarah would have looked like Frankenstein's monster. I tried sanding it down, but it was too close to the eyebrows to make any headway. I filled it with Sculpey instead and that worked quite well. So I had a nice smooth head to start with and didn't need to worry about covering any more of her forehead than what I wanted. Next, I went to town on the hair, piecing it in in sections and then boiled it to harden the Sculpey.
I know, boiling it seems weird, but it's a common method for doing this. Technically, you're supposed to bake it in an oven, but when you have it molded onto a plastic action figure, you'd melt the figure. Boiling is an alternate method. You can still melt a figure, though - I did that with Cameron tonight. Yeah, melted her torso, which is why she's not ready. There's work to be done and I'll explain that story when she is ready. In the meantime, I'm sleeping with a loaded Glock under my pillow. I think the damage has messed up her programming and she's reverted back to "KILL ROXY" mode. Maybe action figure John can fix her for me ;)
Anyway... Once Sarah's hair was fully hardened and dry, I did a lot of work Dremeling and sanding as usual (I'm never satisfied). I thought the hair was kind of big, so I took the overall size of it down and then had to add a lot of detail back in that I lost when sanding. But as I said in the beginning, I'm very pleased with the end result.
Aside from hair work, I also had a few other sculpting tidbits to deal with. Previously, I had Sarah in pushed up sleeves to be her brown leather jacket (from Queen's Gambit), but now it's going to be a black leather jacket. And that meant new arms with full sleeves. One of the arms I needed had a broken thumb, though (if you know Joes, you know that's a common problem). Anyway, I fixed it with some Sculpey. Sarah also had a knife on her boot that I hadn't yet gotten rid of yet. I wanted these boots because they have a knife holster on them like her mission boots, but since she doesn't actually carry a knife in it, the visible handle had to go. After grinding it off, I reshaped a small section of the leg.
And there you have it. Sarah can now join Ellison, John, Derek and Cromartie in the ready-to-paint pile. Charley is almost ready. I just need to sculpt a tiny EMT badge onto his shirt. Cameron's hair is ready for final shaping, but I have to replace her torso now and that means more work. The backup torso for her has a grenade on it that I'll need to grind off. Grrrrrr. Neverending process, it seems. I just want to freaking paint!!!! Soon.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10: The Unveiling