Sentinel (12")
What up everyone? Hope you are all keeping safe during these weird times. For someone like me, the isolation really only means more time for customizing, and this next reveal is a true testament to that. I completed this figure in less than 5 weeks. Woo! Here is a labor of love from my Covid 19 isolation vacation, a 12” Sentinel.
Ok so, before anyone asks, I choose 12” because that’s the biggest I could go with him if I wanted him to fit into my X-Villains shelf. My toy shelves are only 13” high, so once I got my 12” Iron Man I used for the base of this custom, I made sure he would fit and lucky for me, it fit perfectly. So for this big effin robot, I used a 12” Iron Man Marvel Legend, a 3D printed head from the very talented @riboblito (on IG) and a Deadpool upper torso?!?
So there was a common theme of things going wrong as I worked through this custom, many of which I didn’t really highlight throughout the process due to wanting to stay positive. :) But ya, this guy threw some curveballs at me. First off, after finishing my prep work, I was putting the figure back together using the same method I have used for my entire customizing caree(5+ years), steaming above boiling water, and my iron man torso MELTED. Full on melted. Unusable in any capacity. Fuck. Thankfully, my good friend Newcollector sent me over his leftover 12” dead pool parts he got in a lot and didn’t need/want and I was able to salvage the torso from that. Other fun mishaps I had to deal with were a superglue fused shoulder, shoulder attachment issues (due to it being a different torso) and the leg peg snapping off for no reason at all. I also melted 2 hands (again using the same method I always do. So weird).
To start, I had to build up the torso so it didn’t look so small. I also had limited/no movement space in the torso diaphragm joint, so my plan was to basically build a shell around the existing torso using apoxy sculpt so I could remove the dead pool torso from inside, allowing for more room for movement. It was done in probably 7-10 sessions. Once I got it to where I wanted it, I did some detailing on the chest and around the neck.
The arms and legs were both (basically) 100% resculpted (shoulders, knees and elbows excluded). I wanted it to look like plates shaped like muscle definition, over top of some type of metal frame, so I started with a base sculpt of just lines. This is what would show through the gaps between the muscle plates.
It was about this point that one of my IG followers, @riboblito messaged me to offer a 3D printed Sentinel head for my custom. Originally I was looking forward to sculpting this, but his design was exactly what I was looking for, and ultimately, I opted to use it. So happy I did cause it turned out magnificent. Once I got the head, I was so impressed with not just the look but the quality of the print. So impressed, that I decided to fully commit to a full resculpt for the Sentinel.
My original plan was just to resculpt the upper legs and arms and then just add some details to the lower legs and arms so it didnt look so skinny. But since this new head sculpt looked so great, I was inspired to go all out (and I had extra time since I no longer had to sculpt the head). So I shaved off all the existing details and started sculpting.
In the end, I ended up using approx. 1.25 lbs of Apoxie Sculpt. Yikers. He weighed about 900 (almost 2lbs). The weight of the sculpt made him pretty challenging to get too crazy with in regards to his poses. But I suppose he’s just a robot and really shouldn’t show much emotion anyways. Once the sculpt was done, I gave him one last good sanding (only took an hour and a half lol) and began the painting process.
Sentinel was painted using Createx Magenta Pearl (With some shading of non metallic pinks and whites) and 2 metallic blues from Turbo Dork (great paints!). It was a pain in the ass to paint because none of my usual alligator clips and magnets were strong enough to hold 12” figure parts, let alone ones that were fully covered in heavy sculpt. Once completed, I hit the whole figure with Testors Gloss Coat for the candy coating look and used Dullcoat on his face so it wasn’t so glossy.
All things considered, I am so happy with how this came together. I had to deal with lots of obstacles, which usually slow me down, but I really enjoyed each and every sculpt session and that kept me pushing forward. I needed a good challenge and it really ignited my imagination again. It was just what I needed to kick off this Corona Virus self isolation. Stay safe out there, cause the next reveal SHOULD be my collaboration with the extremely talented Poundz(@iam978customs) and you won’t wanna miss it!
