Melissa Seraphy WIP Part 1

Finally I got some motivation to write this Work in Progress (WIP). So the kit I'm currently doing is Melissa Seraphy from Wagamama Capriccio. Here is a picture of her PVC version.

But what I'll be doing is a Garage kit version which is basically the same sculpt from the PVC version, aside from some parts namely a missing stray hair which you can see in the PVC version, and the wings are reversed (the inner wing is the outer in comparison with the PVC version). And to give the kit a bit more uniqueness I planned to make the eyes and mouth of the pumpkin transparent and attach a LED mod inside.



Here are the parts of the kit after some initial prep-work and cleaning, This kit came with several chunks of gates still attached to the parts (especially the pumpkin) a finger also broke luckily it was still in the bag. And this kit also has lots of air pockets/bubbles (pumpkin). The hands also does not fit properly to the body.

And sorry if I'm kinda ranting with my post...

 

And here is a pic of her trial fitting

After my trial assembly of the kit I decided to provide support for the 2 large pieces of pumpkin so that the main body will not carry the weight of the pumpkin.

I also cut out a 4in*6in acrylic to serve as its base, and decided to draw a jack o lantern. Which will be the final shape of the base (and will require a lot of effort for cutting and sanding...) I'm also thinking it it is possible to make the eyes and mouth of the base light up...

 After several hours of hacking and sawing the base:

After more hours of filing the base now looks like this

Although it still needs some smoothing on the edges, haven't had the time to use finer grit sandpaper on it.

So next I've made an extension/support base to support the kit when standing this is attached to her left foot while her right foot lies flat on the base

This was made using styrene sheets as the base and epoxy clay is built/shaped on top of it. And I am making a 2nd extension/support base to carry the weight of the rear half of the pumpkin so here is the step by step pics

First cut up pieces of styrene 1 for the base, and the 2 is build a "+" shape on the center to provide support and guide when epoxy clay is being built.

Then the styrene is assembled and glued using plastic cement let it cure before piling the epoxy clay.

After piling up some epoxy clay to the base and pressing it against the part it needs to support it turned out like this.

 Some pics with the figure assembled and supported

After HOURS of filing/sanding and puttying the support it now looks like this (with very sharp edges )

So to continue with the LED mod, Mr. pumpkin had one of his eyeballs taken out!

I discovered a method that suited me which I would demonstrate later. So here is a list of the tools I used to take out Mr. pumpkin's eye

- Drill/ pin vise (around 2mm/3mm diameter)
- Chisel
- Hammer
- Pencil
- File
- Dremel

1. I first marked around the eye to determine where the center of the hole will be and drilled

2. After I would take my chisel and hammer and pound/remove/chip away the in betweens of the holes

3. After taking out all the in betweens the part in the center can now be removed




4. Then lastly cleaning up with either the dremel or files whichever you are comfortable with

And since Halloween was over Mr. pumpkin had too many sweets and had a toothache! He is currently at the dentist and refused to be photographed, he is too shy to show how he looks right now. Unfortunately I was not able to document the next steps with pictures since Mr. pumpkin refused. But basically it is a mix of the earlier steps with an additional step of sawing.

So that's it for part 1 of the WIP, next would cover painting