Here are some pictures of the full process of making one of these figures. In this case, she is Commander Ekaril, from the Blue Drop, anime (more info here) sitting on the bridge of her ship, Blue. This log starts with a some reference pictures I began with, continues through the sculpting and construction of Ekaril and her command chair. A friend then made molds of the parts and is producing her as a kit. The second half of this log continues with building the first of these kits. If you're just interested in the final product, she's at the end of this page.

Click each thumbnail to see picture and caption. Click the picture there to see full-resolution image.

The first step was to find some images of Ekaril and her command chair to use as reference. Here are a few of the screen-caps from the series I used.

The initial work was on the command chair, starting with some sketches to-scale. I built the chair up out of sheet, strip and tube styrene using standard methods. The doll gives an idea of how Ekaril will look sitting in the chair, and will later be used as as the basis for Ekaril.

Next, I start transforming the doll-armature into Ekaril by freezing the pose by gluing the joints and filling the gaps left by the armature with epoxy putty. I also replaced the simple doll head with one recast from elsewhere.

With the pose set and many joints filled, I cut the figure into the various parts which will be used as a kit. I also sculpted the hat from styrene and epoxy putty at this point.

A coat of primer shows how much work there's left to do, especially finishing the surface.

I take a first attempt at making Ekaril's cape and gloves from more epoxy putty. The joints running down the cape at the arms arms were causing problems now, and would be annoying to fill during final assembly, so this cape was scrapped.

Realizing the cape didn't quite work, I concentrated on cleaning up the boots and gloves.

Here's the second attempt on the cape, with the joint running down the centerline instead of down the arms. This worked much better, and is still made from epoxy putty.

With the basic cape in place, now is time to build the collar for it and begin work on her hair. Yet more epoxy putty and carving.

After roughing in the hair, it was time to sculpt the details in the hair and navel and clean up anything else that needed it. It's cutting down with files, sandpaper, knives and building up with epoxy putty and plain filler putty.

Now that we've gotten this far, let's see what the parts look like for Ekaril and the chair.

To get a better idea of what the completed model will look like, I primed with the actual colors instead of just white.

Now that the master is completed, the next step is to take the master and make a RTV silicone-rubber mold from it. A friend did both the mold making and and the casting. Here are the molds:

And we have parts back from the caster. A friend made silcone rubber molds from the above master, and cast copies in polyurethane resin. Here are what the parts look like out of the molds.

Now that we have copies, putting the first kit together can begin. The first step was to clean the flash off the parts, then glue the cape together and Ekaril's limbs on, fill the joints and imperfections and prime. I should have taken more intermediate shots, but, here are the results so far.

And now we begin painting. This gets us a better idea, but there's still some cleanup left.

Further progress with the painting. We've started the chair, and Ekaril herself is starting to look better. There's still a bunch of work left, but this is progress. Painting her eyes really helps bring her to life.

And even more progress in the last stages of painting. There's still some touch-up left and also the final assembly so Ekaril's in one piece not just a bunch set together.

Now we've done the last gluing-together of Ekaril, so she's in one piece and have touched up the little bits from the glue and others that I found. So, she's ready to display.

And here is the box-art for the completed kit.

created with igal + ghr patches