I’ve sort of mentally decided that I’m only going to blog about projects when they’re finished, rather than step by step updates, which means less posts but hopefully more useful/interesting content. This one is about my experiments with hacking up an Admirable Crichton figure by Andrew Byham and adding a new noggin based on the giant rubberyness of Cthulhu. The figures are available in painted and unpainted versions on Etsy and I got three unpainted in white resin then immediately set about removing one head and jamming some wire in the neck ‘ole. Then, once the glue had dried I piled on the Milliput and put some wooden beads in the place I wanted the beady little Cthulhu eyes to be.
A few years ago I picked up some Greenstuff from Games Workshop and I’ve been meaning to try it out but never got round to it. I finally braved up and opened the pack expecting it to be dried up and unusable but fortunately it was still workable. As I’d never used it before I wasn’t sure what to expect but actually its nice stuff to use. Its firm enough to hold detail well but soft enough to mould into shape. I set about building the form up aware that it dries in a couple of hours from mixing so I had to work fast(ish). I jammed a load into place and left it overnight.
The next morning I was surprised at the way it was still slightly bendable, I was expecting something like Milliput which dries rock hard but I found the tentacles still flex a little when prodded. A quick look round the net confirmed this is what its supposed to be like which was a relief as I was thinking it hadn’t set due to its old age. One thing I’ve left off is that Cthulhu is usually depicted with big wings but I thought I’d not sculpt them with this chap. I wanted to keep as much of the core figure intact and only work on the head as a new part.
A few more nights of pushing and squidging putty into place gave me something I was quite pleased with for a first effort and was ready for painting but I’m a lazy painter. I need to improve my technique a lot as it tends to be loads of dry brushing and too many ink washes. I’m thinking about going back to some of my unpainted GW figures and practicing on some of them to try and improve. I undercoated in black and then built up the colours in layers while trying to avoid drybrushing as much as possible due to everything looking like stone when overdone. He’s come out well enough but I know I could do better with some more practice.
