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Stage of History (CMON Amazon Contest Entry)
Modified figures usually have a vignette to go along with them, but I feel kind of cheated… I took one look at the CMON contest Amazon sculpt and thought: “Hey, Seung Mina’s got a cloak and a shield. Those have got to go.” Seung Mina is one of the fighters from the video game Soul Calibur, fights with a halberd, and is perhaps my favorite female character design because she comes across as being a free spirit. Mina’s modification took three times longer to complete than any other part of the entire piece. The character design in Soul Calibur is very anime-esque for the women, which generally means long and thin limbs, larger-than-average eyes, and a lot of chunky flyaway hair. I ground off the cape, the shield, then removed her arms, and finally took off the hair and a huge chunk off both sides and the rear of her head. Then I repaired the dents in her legs and gave her a rear end out of greenstuff. Her skirts are also thin layers of greenstuff, trimmed up with metal epoxy. Hair and braid? More greenstuff. Then I attached two new arms and painted her with Games Workshop colors. After painting, I finished the figure with a new weapon. I’m thinking all told it was a full thirty hours of labor on her, but she is my first sculpting attempt and a lot of that was learning curve. The rest of the piece fell together quickly after Mina was finished. I knew I wanted Mina to be fighting another character on a stage, and I had also wanted to do a mini for Penny Arcade’s Cardboard Tube Samurai for months now. The CTS isn’t in the video game, but a lot of fans have suggested that this would be a great “hidden” character and I tend to agree. Also, it would be a lot easier to do a CTS than my second choice for a combatant, the astoundingly buxom Ivy. So CTS it was. The CTS needed some tinkering design-wise to make it into a miniature. In artwork, CTS is astonishingly long-limbed and rail-thin with a pencil neck and this enormous head topping it off. He is also similar to anime-style character design with large eyes and big hair. Basically, not a good design to translate directly into a mini. I bulked him up a bit through using a Clan Wars’ “Akodo Death Seaker”. The original figure had MASSIVE arms and I must have pared off and resculpted at least half its metal. They might still be a bit too chunky for the CTS character but at least they are smaller and more proportionate. The head was replaced with a GW female wood elf beast trainer, and I applied a little extra greenstuff to one cheek to give it the raised-lip smirk. The hair was the worst part of the translation from drawing to mini, and after about three new hairdos I gave up and went with the “Dragon Ball Z” approach. For the base, I wanted to make a stage similar to one which might come from the video game. The stage is made of two wall plaques bonded together for a leveled effect, wood veneer, and a whole lot of sculpting putty. The veneer is about as high-quality as it comes: One (light-colored) is a 20-year-old golden maple burl, the other (dark-colored) is a quilted makore. The reverse side is covered in a single sheet of makore. The veneer is oiled to bring out its natural color and figure. Before applying the veneer, I took a chisel and cut out two openings for the figure platforms, then matched the edges of the veneer on the base to that on the platforms. The sculpted water was done using basic pinchwork: After it dried, I was all set to sand out my fingerprints but then realized that I liked the extra texture it gave to the waves. All in all, I’m pretty happy with the way it turned out. My favorite parts are Seung Mina’s resculpted design as I think it was very successful, especially for my first attempt at converting (although she’s got this enormous ass!), and the paint job on the CTS’s face and pants. My least favorite elements are the paint job on Mina’s face and her skin… For some reason, the paint didn’t blend on these parts and looks chunky, and her nose appears broken. I have posted an article on how to make the base both here at CoolMini and on my website. I will post the link once it has been accepted.
Posted: 24 Aug 2003
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