1/8 Sailors Neptune and Uranus -FINISHED-

Holy cow, I didn't realize it had been

SIX...FRIGGIN'...MONTHS...

since I had posted!  Geez, horrible, no good, very bad Setsuna!  BAD I SAY!

Ahem...anyways, finally some pics of the Senshi that were commissioned way back when.  Now, granted I did finish these ladies a while back, I just haven't taken the time to update things.  But no more, I shall get better about that now! 

I am proud to say that my customer was ecstatic with the final results when she received them though.  And if my customer is happy, then so am I!  So here they are in all of their shiny glory!

Title:        Sailors Neptune and Uranus

Scale:       1/8

Medium:   Acrylics, pastels

Method:    Airbrush, hand painting

 

 

 

WIP- 1/8 Sailors Uranus and Neptune, Pt. 2

Hi-o!  I have finally returned with a bit more on my latest commission set . 

I would also like to welcome you to  Murphy's System of Laws 101.  Here today you will learn of the practical application of this unique set of rules and regulations as they govern this little section of the universe. If you have no clue what I'm talking about, just keep reading .

Well this isn't going to be much of an update for two reasons.  1) I've had some setbacks with painting due to some stupidity on my part (more on that in a minute ), and 2) Sometimes I get "in the zone" and forget to take progress pictures ( I have a lot on my plate as far as figures go lately between these ladies and my three contest kits so been forgetting to take the time to take pics).

But anyways, here's what's going on now.  First off, with the last bit of prepwork.  Sanded all those nasty seams all over the place, then decided to work a bit further on Uranus's face.  My customer requested a not so angry look for her, which if you've seen most of the Uranus figures, you know that is natural state of things for her (she isn't the most warm and fuzzy Senshi out there and is a bit of a badass).  So I worked on softening her expression a tad bit by adjusting the shape of her mouth very slightly.  You probably can't tell unless you put it beside the original head but it's enough to give her a more light-hearted look.

Yep, basically turned the anime yelling face into more of an anime open mouthed smile.  It'll look more obvious once it's painted I guess. 

Finally got around to priming them last week, only to run into another problem:  pinholes.  In case you don't know, they are little microscopic air bubbles that are near impossible to see without an opaque paint on top.  Neptune was FULL of them !  So another round of putty and primer was in order (no pics of that, would prefer not to remember that incident ).

Well after all the pain in butt prepwork, they are FINALLY ready for some paint.  Here are the specifics that my customer wanted:

     *Little to no shading:  This includes skin shading.  My customer says she prefers things pretty simple in that regard.  Now, I'll admit this is a bit weird for me, I've never done a figure with no skin shading before.  I keep looking at it like "it's not done" then remember "oh yeah, yes it is".   But whatever makes my customer happy, makes me completely and totally ECSTATIC, so I can live with it .  She is allowing me to do shading in their hair and white parts of their outfits though, so long as I keep it subtle.  I can do that, contrary to popular belief...

     *Metallic/Pearl outfits:  It was either pearl paints or candy effect for the outfits, she chose pearls.  WOOT!!  I LOVE SHINY AND SPARKLY COLORS  !!!

Color palette was sent to her a couple of weeks ago and she approved.  Now onto the painting!   

I started with the hair.  Painted the base color of Neptune's hair, did some shading, then misted back over it to blend it in.

It's so subtle the camera barely picks it up, which is what I'm going for really.  Next onto Uranus's hair.  Same story: a base color, some shading, then misting the base color again to blend in.

Coming along nicely I think .  Next I did the flesh tone on Uranus, but I didn't get to take pics, you'll see why in a minute.  While it was drying I went ahead and painted some of the metallic parts.  I had to mix up both of their main outfit colors because I didn't have any that would match otherwise.  So first I painted Neptune's skirt and collar a green with a slight blue tint:

Then I painted her back bow blue.

Next I painted Uranus's skirt, collar, and back bow a navy blue.

Sooo shiiiinyyyy ...

Now we run into the stupidity I mentioned earlier.  I somehow got distracted and lost my train of thought with what I was doing (think I had to answer the phone or something).  I came back to work, saw one of Uranus's legs laying in front of me and thought, "oh this must be what I was doing."  Started to spray another coat of fleshtone, only to discover it wasn't flesh tone in my airbrush...it was navy pearl paint .

And that boys and girls, is why smart people test to see what's in their airbrush before spraying .

So one leg had to be stripped and  repainted.  Went to seal the rest of the fleshtone, only to discover I was out of matte sealer.  I can't win I swear .

Congratulations, you have now graduated from Murphy's System of Laws 101.  Please review the following for your final exam on the practicalities and applications as it applies to you.

That's about as far as I have pictures for though at the moment.  Next update will be the last, and will have details about their eyes and bases.

WIP- 1/8 Sailors Uranus and Neptune

I have so much on my plate right now that my Elf and Unicorn have been put to the side due to some figures with actual deadlines !

I have three figures that I'm entering in E2046's GK contest, but I can't show you any WIP pictures of those per contest rules until it's over (not that there's much to show anyways, other than me being upset with them ...).  But I do have a commission that I have been tasked with, so whenever I get ready to my contest figures, I pull out these girls and work on them...

For those of you not well versed in the world of anime, meet Sailor Uranus and Sailor Neptune!  My commission is a 1/8 set of these lovely ladies, so let's see what we have here, starting with Neptune...

She isn't too bad, just a few hiccups.  I sanded the seam on her legs and some little air bubbles appeared that will require some putty.

Her shoes need some work too.  The seam ran all the way down to the end, and I need to build her heel back up a bit to make it level with the ground.

Her hands also need some work; they also had some pretty bad seams and air bubbles in between fingers.

I also went ahead and puttied a gap in between the two hair pieces.  It will require a bit more work, but I can't do that really until final assembly.  The shape of her head means I can't just put them together then pop it in afterwards .   Before I start the major amount of putty work, I pinned her to check for gaps.

No major gaps to be seen here!  That makes me happy, all I have to do is putty a bit and so some finish sanding and she'll be ready for primer !
Uranus on the other hand...is an entirely different story ...

First I found this kind of strange.  In a few places, the resin is kinda of...swirly looking . It doesn't seem to affect the quality that I can tell, just seems to be a cosmetic thing.  It'll be covered with primer and paint, just thought it was weird.

Seams, seams EVERYWHERE too !

Oh boy, that's a lot of sanding to do.  Well, I went ahead and checked the fit too.  There is a small gap between her skirt and torso that needs to be puttied.

Luckily I have now reached a point I don't mind puttying and sanding so much.  Which is good because I have a couple of kit mods coming eventually too.

I checked her arms next, and saw that they aren't wanting to fit correctly either .

That's an easy fix though, just will require some hot water to bend them the way they need to go.

At least the head fits ok...

Kind of looks like she's yelling at me.  "LOOK!  Quit with the stupid pictures and fix me already!!"

Working on it, I promise ...

Finally we have the bases.

As you can see they didn't look too great.  One is taller than the other and they don't line up quite right.  Luckily my customer doesn't want a stone like base though, but guess what kind she wants?!
GUESS!!!
Ok fine, she wants a GALAXY BASE !!!  I LOVE PAINTING GALAXY BASES !!!

So I've working on making them even and getting rid of that stone texture on top and in between in the crack.

Much better!  There's still some touch up putty work to be done but it's on the right track.  I decided to leave them in separate pieces for two reasons:  One, for display purposes, so that they can be pulled apart.  And two, for shipping.  The figures stand very close to each other when they are on the bases, and shipping them separately will just end up being safer overall.  I sanded off the tiny little line on the lip because it wasn't very even all the way around, but I plan on replacing it with something else .

I've already sent a color palette for the customer's approval today, hopefully it won't be much longer before I can start painting.  The Sailor Moon dork in me always gets excited about painting Senshi stuff !!!

More later!