“Henchmen ‘R’ Us”

Well the best laid plans as they say, I had hoped to have all the sculpting finished by this weekend especially as Beast-man was pretty much there last weekend. however Jitsu has proven to be more work than I originally anticipated, not really difficult (though a couple of bits were a pain to get right!), but just more stages to his construction than I’d first thought, as fear of “mucking up” the bit I’d just done prevented me from moving on to the next stage till the putty was good and dry (the next day). Still this is where I’m up to now and what I completed each day.

Sunday, Time to add the base for Jitsu’s breastplate and back-plate, this basically meant I needed to smear putty all over his back and chest and then smooth it out as best I could ready for me to add the detail to it tomorrow (hopefully). I made it a bit thicker around the back, as I wanted to add a bit more girth to the figure, the front I made as thin as I dared, as I didn’t want to bury his arm to much where it crosses his body. I may have to build it up a bit later (we’ll see). Turning to Beast –man, and he seems to be progressing nicely (famous last words, watch him turn to “you know what” now!), I decided to add the metal plates to his upper arms today, so I began by rolling out a thin “thread” of putty and ran this around his arms at bicep level, then this was smoothed out a bit before I added two small balls of putty, that were then smoothed and teased into curved oval shapes on the outsides of his upper arms. Finally tiny conical sausages were stuck into ”dimples” I had pushed into the plates with a ballpoint refill tip, and then smoothed and blended to shape as the two spikes each plate sports.

Monday, when I started these two figures I thought Beast-man was going to the awkward one and Jitsu more of a “park-walk”. It now appears that opposite might be true, as though there have been a fair amount of fiddley bits on Beast-man I looked at the detailing in Jitsu’s breast-plate today and nearly sat and wept! I don’t think I’m going to able to add all of the swirls and crosses that the original sports (especially with his flipping arm in the way! Why did I pick this dolly!!!). Anyway I thought sitting here isn’t going to help, so out came the putty and a small amount was mixed up, I began by adding a sausage around his neck like a scarf, and this was then flattened out form the neck of the breast plate and line running down the front, I then pushed small dimples into this ready for me to add the red “jewels?” around this, the original has eight at the front and five round the back, but I settled for six round the front and three at the back, these were just tiny (and I mean tiny) balls of putty pushed into the dimples with a flat ended cocktail stick. I decided rather than risk damaging this I’d leave it there till tomorrow, so instead turned my attention to “Beasty”. Two small sausages of putty were again rolled out and these were then pushed onto the backs of his forearms, then they were smoothed out to the sides forming a small ridge in the centre and rising towards his elbow. Fur was then tapped into these with my small knife and his hairy arms were complete. This just leaves his “electro-whip” to add and he’ll be finished, but I think I might base him up before I add this.

Tuesday, and as I mentioned might happen last week I’ve now decided that the bases on my two He-man figures are just too thick, so I began today by cracking both of them off of the “tuppences” they are mounted on and cutting away a lot of the cardboard “spacers” I’d glued between the figures bases and the coins, they were then glued back in place onto the coins. Then I cut a length of my florists wire, and fed it into Beast-man’s left hand to form the “cord” of his Electro-whip”(interestingly when you look up pictures of Beast-man on the net the vast majority of then have him as left handed, though the original toy was right handed), it was then measured across to his right raised hand and a small amount of extra was added (to make the “droop”) before the bend was put in around his hand and down to the floor. Again I added extra, but didn’t glue it in place yet. So next job was to finish the base on the figure, so taking some “Tetrion” filler I covered the base hiding the now decimated base, and added a couple of bits of “clean” cat litter as rocks. Once dry I was able to curl the end of the wire “cord” so as it appeared to be lying on the floor. Then the wire was glued into both of his hands and again where it touched the floor. Sadly I did nothing more to Jitsu.

Wednesday, I was able to finish Beast-man today (Hooray!), I just had to add the handle of his Electro-whip, and this was just a tiny blob of putty popped into his hand and smoothed into a handle shape (technical huh!), then I added another smaller blob on the outside of his hand and smoothed this into the joint between handled a whip-cord, finally I added a thin sausage around his fingers as a guard (the toy has this to hold it to his hand), and he’s ready for painting. He will however have to wait until Jitsu is ready to join him, and I made a bit more progress on him too today. I began by adding some more detail to his breast plate, then decided that I would have to add to his left arm as it was in danger of disappearing into his breastplate, so balls of putty were added to his shoulder and upper arm and these were shaped into muscles, I might add some form of wrist gauntlet to his lower arm, and increase the size of his upper arm on the right side too. Lastly today I ran two thin sausages around his shoulders to form the cuffs on his breastplate, and these were blended into the main body of this. At least I seem to be getting somewhere with him now. (Sorry forgot to take a photo of this but you can see the results in the one below).

Friday, and work continued on Jitsu, this time I turned to the back of his armour, and added a couple of curved lines running down from the armoured neck down and around the sides, then taking two tiny sausages of putty added two small crescent shaped pieces in each top corner. These then had tiny balls of putty added to then to form some more “jewels”. Though not as intricate as the toy figures armour, I hope this gives a flavor of the original. Next turning him over I added a long wrist gauntlet over his left lower arm, though this is not present on the original figure I like the look of it and adds a little heft to his arm, I have decided that I will have to add a bit more muscle to his right bicep, as this figure seems a little “skinny” compared to some of the others.

So I’m not quite over the finishing line yet, still a couple of days of sculpting left before I get on to the painting, but I am still pretty much on course for getting these finished by the end of the month.

I’m also happy to report, that we have another new participant! So it’s my pleasure to welcome “Wampley”, check out his blog here…

http://wampleyscastle.blogspot.com.es/

Till next week Excelsior! Roger.