Halcyon 1/8 scale Judge Dredd

[Mckenna35]

I've had this kit for quite a while now, to build for a friend who's a big Judge Dredd fan.  Due to circumstances I can't go into, he asked me if I could this one, along with Judge Anderson and possibly Judge Death put together and painted for him.  Second vinyl figure I've worked on, and I thought some of you might find it interesting.  First picture shows the components cut out and cleaned up.  The second is the major subassemblies.

One of the tricks with this kind of kit is to fill the lower portions with plaster to add rigidity, weight and strength to the piece.  Without it, you run the risk of the vinyl buckling if it gets too hot after you've got the figure assembled.  Yeah, DON'T leave these kits out in direct sunlight!  

 

 

and here he is with all the primary assembly complete and ready for paint:

Edited April 20, 2019 by Mckenna35

[Ratmaster2000]

Only the lower half gets plaster of paris? What keeps the rigidity and the vinyl from doing the same on the upper torso?

 

[Glitterwolf]

Interesting!

[Mckenna35]

8 hours ago, Ratmaster2000 said:

Only the lower half gets plaster of paris? What keeps the rigidity and the vinyl from doing the same on the upper torso?

 

 

Generally, in the torso and arms, the position and thickness of the material is enough to avoid any problems, also the plaster in the bottom half holds the torso rigid, which prevents the upper body from deforming.  With the legs you have the full weight of the figure pushing down on the ankles, and they can flex if it gets hot enough.  Note that at room temperature this stuff is pretty hard.  The trick to cutting it easily is to use a hair dryer for a minute or so to heat and soften it, at which point you can slice through it with almost no resistance.  Also, like Bones, you can heat it it up, reposition it, and then chill it and it will retain the new position.  I've had to do that to Judge Anderson's legs to get her to stand on both feet.

[Mckenna35]

Onward!  I primered with black Badger Stynvlrez, then did the blue with Tamiya acrylics.  The face was primered with Badger white primer, then shaded with "Red Brown Primer", and then highlighted with "Light Flesh" by Badger.  Pretty happy with how it looks so far.  Now to mask off stuff for other colors. Sorry for the fuzzy pictures - the focal distance for my phone is farther away than I thought it was, so I was holding it too close.  

 

[Chaoswolf]

I AM THE LAW!!!

 

 

Very cool, I'll be following along.

[Rat13]

5 hours ago, Mckenna35 said:

 

Dredd is looking good but your googly eyed wolf is stealing the show.

[Mckenna35]

6 hours ago, Rat13 said:

Dredd is looking good but your googly eyed wolf is stealing the show.

 

Heh.  Yeah, I was editing that shot and deliberately left that in.  Figured some folks would get a chuckle out of it.  

[buglips*the*goblin]

23 hours ago, Mckenna35 said:

 

Generally, in the torso and arms, the position and thickness of the material is enough to avoid any problems, also the plaster in the bottom half holds the torso rigid, which prevents the upper body from deforming.  With the legs you have the full weight of the figure pushing down on the ankles, and they can flex if it gets hot enough.  Note that at room temperature this stuff is pretty hard.  The trick to cutting it easily is to use a hair dryer for a minute or so to heat and soften it, at which point you can slice through it with almost no resistance.  Also, like Bones, you can heat it it up, reposition it, and then chill it and it will retain the new position.  I've had to do that to Judge Anderson's legs to get her to stand on both feet.

 

This is interesting and useful information.  

[Mckenna35]

Taking forever to mask off the body so I decided to work on the head real quick.  Masked off the skin with Silly Putty, then undercoated with Tamiya Hull Red, then started going over that with straight Red.  Needs to be brighter, so I'll probably take another whack at it with more Red tomorrow night.

[Mckenna35]

There are some consequences to using Silly Putty as a masking material - it tries to spread over everything else it's resting on!  

Anyway, went over the red again with pure red, and then mixed in some flesh to lighten it a bit.  I think that's good enough for the airbrush.  Next step will be to mask off th red and spray the blue-black for the helmet.  Whee....

[Mckenna35]

Tried masking off the red and just decided to go ahead and paint the body of the helmet with a brush instead.  Got a fairly decent coat of Vallejo Liquid Silver on the visor.  Not sure if I want to try another coat or not since it seemed to liquefy when I went back over it and was pulling up, but I was going back over it within minutes of the initial coat.  Now that it's had time to cure, it might go better.

 

Started painting the green and the client came back and said he wanted the uniform to be more blue.  <sigh>  Okay Boss!  Went back over it tonight with the Tamiya Flat Blue and then a couple of successive passes, lightening it with Light Blue each time.  Pretty happy with how it looks now, we'll see what the client thinks. 

[Mckenna35]

and now I've been informed it's "too blue"!  

[Rat13]

48 minutes ago, Mckenna35 said:

and now I've been informed it's "too blue"!  

Has the client bothered to tell you which uniform he actially wants? Over the years the Dredd's uniform has changed slightly to majorly depending on which comic you look at, he is a lot like Batman in this regard. I think your best course of action is to ask the client to find a reference photo of the exact uniform they want.

[Mckenna35]

24 minutes ago, Rat13 said:

Has the client bothered to tell you which uniform he actially wants? Over the years the Dredd's uniform has changed slightly to majorly depending on which comic you look at, he is a lot like Batman in this regard. I think your best course of action is to ask the client to find a reference photo of the exact uniform they want.

 

No, I was originally told to go by the box art for the model.  NOW I have some color reference and I was able to get some clarification on some of the uniform variations in the pictures he sent me, so hopefully I have a clear path forward.  I guess we'll find out after I repaint the uniform again...