Shop Log – 8/1/22

I wanted to get one more Shop Log in before July ended, but I just missed the mark. I did, however, make some progress on the Mr. Boneface series since my last update, casting weapons for two of the figures (with one I still need to make and mold) as well as casting a set of display stands for one of three designs. Unfortunately, there’s some weight and balance issues with the stands. I cast the them in the same lightweight Flex-It 90 resin and unlike the urethane resin master part, it doesn’t fully support the figures and causes some of them to lean. I did rework the stand, adding additional mass by bulking out the underside with a flat layer of Milliput, and re-molding it.

I haven’t gotten the chance to cast any of the reworked molds in resin yet. If it still doesn’t work, I’ll probably just cast all the stands in rigid urethane resin since I know for a fact that those will support the figures without any issues. I would just rather not go down that route since I’d rather use that type of resin for “prototyping” and personal one-off projects.

I am happy with the blaster accessory that I kitbashed, molded, and cast for each of the Speclatron Dethlor-inspired Mr. Boneface figure.

As I alluded to above (and in the previous Shop Log), I also made all the nunchucks for the Toxic Slime Pit Mr. Boneface. I know I said earlier I’d wanted to make the nunchaku handles a shade of green, but I ended up making them at the same time as the blasters and so they were cast in the same gray plastic. I thought the jewelry chain looked neat (I still have a bunch of it left) and I think I have it secured on both ends enough to where you can swing them around and the chain won’t go flying off. 

I still wouldn’t recommend that you do this as this is a still collectible art toy and shouldn’t really be subject to any heavy play, but I will say that the Flex-It 90 resin I cast these in is astoundingly sturdy and displays excellent resistance to impacts, tearing, and abrasions (though I the latter quality makes it an absolute nightmare to clean up lingering mold lines and flashing since you can’t just sand them off like you could with an epoxy or a hard urethane resin).

If you’re keeping score, here’s the remaining tasks I have to work through before Mr. Boneface is ready for sale:

1.  Make and mold the final weapon for the third Mr. Boneface figure
2. Cast five copies of the third figure’s weapon
3. Cast fifteen copies of the (hopefully successful) revised display stands.
4. Design, prototype, and mold three unique wearable accessories (one for each figure)
5. Cast five copies of each of the figure’s wearable accessory (possibly in Flex-It 40, maybe Flex-It 90 where I can get away with it).
6. Prep figures for paint (wash with MEK).
7. Apply paint apps to each figure, followed by a protective clearcoat.
8. Design a header card, print 15 copies.
9. Package each figure and its accessories in poly bags with header cards.

So yeah. Even for a tiny run of just 15 figures (five copies of each of the three designs), a ton of work has to go into it. But hopefully what I’m learning here will help make the process of creating my next series of figures that much more seamless and efficient since I’ll have a much better idea of what to do, how to do it, and what mistakes to avoid. But for the Mr. Boneface series (my first ever action figure series), I find myself in situations where it all comes down to trial and error and what might be the biggest experimental stage is the one I’m going to tackle next: creating wearable accessories for each of the figures.

My first stage in the experiment was to take a bandolier from one of my MOTU knockoff figures (if you can recall from my previous Shop Log) and create a two-part mold of it just to see if this was, indeed, the kind of thing I could actually mold and cast. And it turns out, I could! Here’s what the bandolier mold looks like. The big hole in the middle is on the back of the actual piece (so you don't see the sprue mark) and is where the resin is injected. The other holes are air vents and lets me know when I've injected enough resin to fill the entire thing.

And here it is cast in the slow-curing (five hours to harden) Flex-It 40, which was every bit as soft and bendy as I’d hoped it would be. Just ignore all the excess material that I didn’t bother to cut off the bandolier before taking this picture, as this was just a test casting and I was really eager to see if the clasp-system on the back worked. And again, it does. A piece at the end tore off when I was tightening the strap, but the important thing for right now is that the strap still feeds through the little slot in the “clasp”, allowing the wearable accessory to be taken on and off.

Also, excuse the poorly casted figure that I’m using as a glorified mannequin. This is just a hand painted prototype that I made before I got a pressure pot and the Mr. Boneface figures, as I hope you can tell from the in-progress photos, isn’t fully of all these little air bubble holes. Again, I’m just using it as a mannequin as I blindly fumble my way around creating wearable action figure accessories.

I cast the bandolier a second time using Flex-It 90 (which cures at a much faster 90 minutes) and while I was worried about it being too rigid to really fit around the contours of a figure, it ended up working just as well. So when I eventually do make the molds for whatever wearable accessories I decide on for the figures, I’ll probably cast one set in Flex-It 40 and another in Flex-It 90 and see where it’s feasible to just use Flex-It 90. That would greatly reduce the amount of time it will take to cast these things than if I was forced to use Flex-It 40 for everything.

I’ll cross that bridge when I get to it. In the meantime, I still need to cut out some rudimentary paper patterns to get a sense of the size of these parts (I’m now thinking a cape, an executioner-style cowl, and a shoulder pauldron with a chest strap). And once the dimensions are determined and I make some patterns in Photoshop, the plan is to transfer them onto styrene sheets, cut them out, and transplant the clasps/end accessories straps taken from existing MOTU-esque wearable like that bandolier (of which I am currently making molds and duplicates of since I know now that I can successfully cast them) onto my original designs. If all that works out, I’ll be able to equip the Mr. Boneface figures with removable and interchangeable wearable accessories that I think will add a lot more overall value to the figures.

In non-Boneface news, I’ve been on a bit of a sculpting kick lately since I really want to improve my admittedly nascent skills in that area (plus, it’s really, really fun). I made a custom monster head inspired by Gaira and Sanda from the movie “War of the Gargantuas” and also fixed the teeth and brows on my werewolf head in what I think is a huge improvement over the original. I’m thinking that when I eventually do my series of monster/horror-themed figures, I think the Gargantua and the werewolf will use the same beasty torso, arms, and legs.

I did make molds these new headsculpts as well, though much like my revised display stands, I have yet to run any resin through them since I’m still very much in a designing/sculpting/molding phase at the moment rather than a casting one. I’ve been practicing a lot with polymer clay as well, but I’ll probably get more into that in my next Shop Log since this one might run a bit too long.

Since I’m down to my last two gallons of Cast-A-Mold 25T silicone rubber, I’ve been making more of an attempt to stretch out my remaining supply by bulking out my molds with what Robert Tolone refers to as “chunkies”. That is, chunks of silicone cut from retired or failed molds that helps conserve fresh silicone (and saves you the need of mixing up a small batch to top up a mold that didn’t quite fill up all the way). While the chunky-laden molds come out just fine, you can see in some of them where chunks of a different color were used in the finished mold like this retooled werewolf head mold.

Also, I have no idea why some of the molds/mold chunks are a lighter shade of green (some even appearing almost white) than some other molds. I suspect it’s due to the fact that I used a silicone thinner in some batches and others where I didn’t (because I recently ran out of said silicone thinner). Either way, it’s not a big deal. I just thought it looked cool.

And here is the bucket where I keep my spare chunkies. Again, you can see the ones with different colorations despite the fact that they’re from molds made with the same Cast-A-Mold 25T rubber.

As the painting stage for my Mr. Boneface figures approaches (albeit at a snail’s pace), I felt as though it’d been a while since I just painted something. I had a random toy soldier that I’d half-heartedly started customizing with excess Greenstuff from other builds to look like the guy from Xeno Crisis (last seen here with some other fail sculpts) as well as an and epoxy resin recast of an Optimus Prime figurine from the Dollar Tree that I’d intended to paint up like the infamous Toxitron and thought that these might be fun little quickie projects to help shake the cobwebs out. I began painting these but soon after decided that it just wasn’t working out and they ultimately fell victim to what I like the call “the nattering.” You know, it’s that voice in your head that pops up whenever you start doing something that your heart’s not into that constantly nudzhes you about all the other things you should be doing

It was when I started painting the pink and yellow details on my would-be Toxitron (who had horrendous mold lines that I didn’t bother trying to file off before I started painting) that I realized it would look like total crap no matter and it was best just to bail out before I sunk too much time into it. So into the trash they went. No big loss, though I still want to make a true Xeno Crisis fanart figure at some point and not have it be a total half-measure like how this one ended up, maybe using my 4 inch scale figure blanks as a starting point and actually putting some time into sculpting the body armor and belts.

To hopefully prove that I haven’t completely lost my touch when it comes to painting, I did finally get around to finishing up that custom Lone Ranger figurine that I started a while back. And not to worry, I noticed that bit of black paint missing from the back of his boot too and touched it up shortly after taking these photos. I didn’t feel like retaking them because I’d already put this thing on one of my shelves and I don’t feel like taking it back down.

And here’s a shot of the original Louis Marx cowboy figure from the 60’s that I used to make the mold (the one that’s red), a second urethane resin duplicate of said figure, and my final piece on the far right.

This project was a lot of fun to make and I think I’ll customize the next recast of this figure to look like The Vigilante from DC comics. Though with everything else on my plate at the moment, I probably won’t be starting that one anytime soon.