Time for some bling! A few small holes were drilled into the figure around the ankles and wrist to allow chain, wire and accessories to connect securely and seamlessly. At this point I assembled all of my metal pieces for placement and fitting. This was all done prior to painting so that threading chains and fitting roughed out sharp metal shapes wouldn’t ruin the finish.

That bling was a little too clean and shiny for my tastes, so into a bath of black paint it went! Most of the black paint was wiped off again, but it was enough to bring out the details while dulling the metal finish.

The accessories, links, chains and other decorative elements appropriately blackened and ready for final assembly.

The figure and skull accessory received airbrushed base coats of a semi-glass black and a matte cream color. As always multiple light coats of paint is the best way to go.

Semi-transparent red highlights were applied to specific areas of the figure to evoke the dark red stone often used for traditional spiritual statues.

Gold details were painted on and eventually given a dark wash like the accessories to bring out their details and add some age. I also started working on the plastic hemispheres that would become the eyes, luckily they fit almost perfectly within the existing sockets of the original eyes.

The skull got the same antique wash treatment along with a few bone color highlights.

Part 3: Assembly and a long journey

I often get requests to do some behind the scenes ‘making-of’ posts like I did for Milo & Ditch or the Android figures. They’re fun to do, and I managed to document the process of this particular project pretty well, so here we go again for my custom of Ferg’s Misfortune Cat for the recent show at Munky King.

One of the major inspirational design elements that Ferg brought to the original Misfortune Cat figure is the three eye configuration. This connected directly to my love and respect for traditional Tibetan and Indian Buddhist artwork in which the three eye design nearly ubiquitous.

After a few hours with my book collection and a trip to the excellent Rubin museum here in New York , I decided to draw my inspiration from the group of deities known as Enlightened Protectors (which includes Mahakala shown above).

Many of these images incorporate skulls as decorative elements, usually in some sort of headgear or necklace. I wanted the skull to hold a more prominent position, so I replaced what would have been the traditional lucky cat coin (or misfortune coin in this case!) with a larger accessory skull.

I started with half a styrofoam ball roughly sculpted into a skull shape to provide a base.

I wanted to carry the “three” theme throughout the piece, so I sculpted a third ear out of two-part resin directly onto the figure behind and between the original ears.

I continued that theme with the nose area of the skull. Here the foam has been covered in clay and had the details sculpted in. It has been baked solid and is ready for a little sanding/polishing.

Using the same clay as the skull, facial features are roughed in directly on the base figure. I used a small cut paper template to help keep the details on either side of the face somewhat even.

The sword needed to be extended and expanded, so I built a wire mesh framework around the remains of the original. Working a thin layer of resin into the framework provided a solid, connected foundation to sculpt the final blade.

The giant hole I cut out of his belly was filled in and sculpted to fit the skull accessory into the indent.

The skull sits snugly against the body, but it can also be easily removed to sit on its own. I had to do a lot of back and forth sculpting/fitting/fixing to get a really good fit. In the background left here you can see the original eyes that I removed, and three different tongue sculpts that I was torn between.

And here we are all primed up and ready for paint!

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Next time: Bling and Paint.

Part 3 of my behind the scenes Birth of an Android series is up at the Dyzplastic Blog. This week, prototyping and packaging.

Part two of the behind-the-scenes look at Android mini figures is up on the Dyzplastic Production Blog! This week, design layouts!

Curious about the toy production process from start to finish? I’ll be writing up a series of posts about the Android mini figures over the next few weeks on the Dyzplastic Production Blog starting with Part 1: Groundwork!

Masking time! Here I’ve cut a small heart shape into an adhesive vinyl frisket. I protected the surrounding area and sprayed a few light coats.

Removing the mask is always a harrowing experience because some paints do not play nicely together and your paint job can be ruined. Luckily this time the paint (mostly) cooperated. It is a good idea in general to stick with the same brand/line of paints throughout a project to ensure maximum compatibility (advice I often ignore myself to red-faced results).

I wanted to break up the flat light grey a bit, so I sprayed a fade of darker grey from the feet up.

The back has a more elaborate spray mask, but the steps are the same. I used two tones of red here to mirror the fade on the body.

A few tense hours and some swearing later… You can also see the start of the neck stump I sculpted, this was basically just a plastic cap filled with resin. The entire neck assembly is set into a tray that is held up by the arm joints and some magic.

Tune in tomorrow for the final product, and see it in person if you’re in the NYC area!