Shop Log 10/24/22 – 31 Days of Progress Week 3

Going to be a shorter update than what I usually post, but I unfortunately didn’t get as much done on my projects as I hoped I would over the past week. Still, keeping with the theme of this month, some progress was made and some progress is better than no progress.

I more or less finished the latest sculpt of the Mecha Burger torso after some refinements to the buns, though I still need to sand it a little more. Maybe give it a coat of Mr. Surfacer to hopefully smooth it out more. I also peeled off the gray polymer clay “base” that I built the torso on top of as I couldn’t sand it down to be thin enough where it could blend in seamlessly between the bottom of the torso (which I’ve also been sanding as flat as possible) and the top of the waist. I also still need to trim down the dowel that I used to mark the area of where the head and neck will go and I’m holding off until I sculpt some of the remaining parts (arms, waist, legs, head, fry cannon) before I fully commit to gluing down any of the articulation joints that will be present on the torso. That way, I can dry fit the arms and head to the body so that I can be 100% certain that everything is level. I also want to decide what size ball joints I want to use for the arms and head, and I won’t really get a sense of that until I actually start sculpting these parts.

I’m sticking with my original plan for sculpting this figure, going part by part and shape by shape. I decided that the next one I’ll be focusing on is the waist piece, which is meant to resemble a tomato slice per the reference image. Wanting to save time and material wherever I can, I remembered that I have a whole bag full of various polymer clay shapes that came from a premade jewelry/candy mold and I found some rounded, half-oval shapes that appeared to be the right size that I needed to at least give me a decent starting point.

Here you see me doing to preliminary test fitting and size comparisons to the reference image. I’m going to need to sand these down quite a bit, particularly the bottom piece (and maybe even hollow out the top so that it fits more flush with the larger oval) but the good thing is, the cheap polymer clay I used to make these shapes is relatively easy to sand compared to the Super Sculpey Premo that I used to sculpt the torso. Once I get the final shape of the waist hammered out, I’ll probably go ahead and glue on the ball joint that attaches the waist to the torso and provides the rotational articulation at the waist. But because I got rid of the flat piece at the base of the torso, I’ll need to modify the socket that I’ve already made in the torso to better fit the new waist piece. I’ve since abandoned the idea of using the one I duplicated from the Titan Warriors Optimus Prime figure and I’m also considering using a different sized ball joint than what I’d initially had in mind.

I also started sculpting Mecha Burger’s face, which I’m considering making as a piece separate from the head itself so that I’ll have it as a solid foundation to build the rest of the head around. I’m sculpting it in Monster Clay because I prefer it to Super Sculpey when it comes to modelling smaller objects with much finer details. I think I’m really on a roll with my Mecha Burger project and I think I will focus on it for the remainder of the month (and possibly until its completion). I feel bad leaving my Oni figure just kind of hanging out there and I do intend on circling back to it soon, but I want to ride the wave of momentum I’ve built up on the Mecha Burger project and see where that takes me.

While the Oni figure and some of the other non-Mecha Burger projects are on hold for the time being, I do have one little quickie/side project that I’ve mostly wrapped up. I recently saw a youtube video on the Slap Chop method of painting and wanted to try my hand at it using these six random resin castings that I already had on hand. If you didn’t know, this method involves priming the model in black, then dry brushing over it with a light gray, then dry brushing over that with white, and then finally painting it with contrast paints. I’m intend to give this side project its own article, possibly as a reboot of my Random Resin Recasts series from earlier this year. And yes, I know I’ve promised this sort of thing before on other things I’ve mentioned in these Shop Logs and still intend to deliver when I can actually muster the time and energy to see these projects to their completion.

But expect the Random Resin Recasts/Slap Chop article within the next week or two as I don’t have much further to go before I finish these. I just need to do some touch ups on a couple pieces, paint some fine details on some others, and then give everything a protective clear coat.

That’s it for now. I’m still disappointed with my overall lack of progress in my 31 Days of Progress but hopefully, I can at least finish the month strong.