Fixing up Blue

[bettashark]

My family was kind enough to support my new(/old) hobby by giving me some cheap toys to practice on! One of them is a small model of the famous Blue. With GIANT feet. Huge! I guess they were trying to get her to stand, but she most decidedly did not. So I pulled out the non-xacto knife and went at it! Amazingly, with smaller feet, she had an easier time balancing, though she was still tail-heavy. Next was the hot water treatment. I reshaped the legs so they're more directly underneath and the feet are flat on the ground. Better, but still very unstable. Finally, I stretched her head forward just a little, and ta-da! She stands on her own two feet with no base or stand of any kind!
I'm hoping to repaint her as well, possibly even grab the E-6000 and the craft feathers and see what I can do. I'm not really into Jurassic Park, so I'm not too emotionally attached to keeping her as this specific character, and if she gets ruined, well, that's the price of learning.
Also, she's gray and the table is tan. I have no idea why my phone camera decided they were both yellow.

[bettashark]

Yeah, the hands are wrong, but honestly, the entire arms are just tiny! They look very strange. The head is too short as well, but I may be able to fix that with more hot water. The neck is too short, the chest is too small, the back isn't rounded enough, and the hips are way too broad, but there's only so much I can fix, especially since this is the teeny tiny model. But a good coat of fluff can hide many sins...

[Dusty Wren]

I'm really impressed with what you managed to do with some hot water and patience. She looks alert and kind of curious in this pose, which is very charming.

What colors were you thinking for the repaint/feathering?

[bettashark]

Here's my progress so far. I've added a lot of epoxy! I actually cut the legs off, slimmed the hips, and superglued them back in place. Somehow this actually stood better than the wide stance! Then I got to work correcting the shape of the body, creating a raised curve to the back. Then I noticed that the ischium and pubis should actually exist, so I added that area. I also broadened the ribcage and shoulders and thickened the neck. Currently working on new arms and putting off the part that really scares me: building a new head on top of the existing one! It should be about twice as wide at the rear of the skull and also somewhat longer. All of the sculpting is being done in two-part epoxy, a little at a time.

[bettashark]

I haven't selected a color scheme yet, although gray actually isn't implausible, given the few species whose colors we do know. It'll also be limited by what kinds of feathers I can get. Probably grays, browns, whites, and maybe a few iridescent feathers.

[Loon]

I'm pretty interested to see where this goes, especially since this is such a tiny figure.

[bettashark]

Latest progress! I've straightened the tail a bit (it kept springing back so I've settled for this), thinned the feet to something reasonable, added more thigh muscle, added a bit more arch to the spine, added more muscle to the shoulders, begun work on the arms (I need to go get real tools to finish them), coated almost the entire model in a thin layer of epoxy, and the alterations to the head are in progress. It just about balances, but not quite. That's ok. Lots of work to be done anyway. I'm thinking I'll wind up sculpting feathers, though I may use some polymer clay and bake it separately and superglue it on, since thin epoxy is fairly brittle.
Also bonus Banana the betta.

[indohyus]

Wow! Good going, looks fantastic. The final piece is gonna be amazing.

[Wallnut]

Good work 

[Gothmog the Baryonyx]

Wow, it looks really promising, would like to see how it turns out

[Halichoeres]

Way to make lemonade out of lemons!

[Newt]

You're doing an excellent job!


At this point, you've done so much alteration that you're basically just using the old figure as an armature. Do you think you will start sculpting figures from scratch?