YODA RETURNS TO DAGOBAH!! -see post #79 5-10-09

Gino

Active Hunter
Well, after a couple of years of putting off finishing my foam filled latex Yoda puppet, I decided to take the plunge and get him painted up.

I would have painted him right away like I did with our Darth Maul (and soon Emperor), but because I knew I was always going to want to change Yoda's pose (being a puppet and all), I didn't know what I should use on his latex skin that wouldn't end up cracking over the years.

I did some research and discovered Pax paint, which is a mixture of prose-aid and liquitex acrylics. This stuff is nasty and totally sticky. The NO TACK formula that I ended up buying removed the stickyness once dry (as advertised), but while it was wet it stuck to my skin like nobody's business. Prose aid is an adhesive meant to hold on prosthetic appliances so I suppose I shouldn't have been surprised. Just not used working with a paint with those characteristics to say the least. I'm just now getting my feet wet with this kind of work, so I'm learning as I go.

I mixed up a color palette and set off on painting him up. I'm still not 100% satisfied though. I think I need to slightly darken some of the darker tones (which will increase the contrast), but that's about it.
Then i'll have to spray acrylic matte sealer to remove any shine. It's not glossy now (even though it looks like it in the pics), but it has a little bit of a sheen, like a super semi-gloss. Hopefully the matte sealer will do it's job.

It's nuts just how different the colors look in person under different lighting conditions. Not to mention how different lighting affects the way the pics end up looking. It was a bit nerve racking for me to settle on his colors, and for a long while ended up chasing my tail going back and forth altering them. I'm pretty satisfied with it now though.

After making those slight changes I mentioned above, I'm going to get hard to work on distressing his robes. I'll take some more pics after that.
Then all that will be left is to do is punch the hair, finish the nails, and get Phil to work with me on a new flute and cane.

Here's some pics. First two taken inside, last two taken outside:

yodastep1.1.JPG


yodastep1.2.JPG


yodastep1.3.JPG


yodastep1.4.JPG



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I've seen some pretty nice ESB Yodas out there and this seems off to a dandy of a start. Very nice. I agree about the contrast issue, but that comes with layers and layers, especially when dealing with skin (even alien skin).

When I was working on some stop-motion puppets with some ILM folk, we mixed our own paints to get the qualities we were looking for. Just went out and bought universal tints, and an industrial adhesive (the name of which I can't remember at the moment). We could thin it down or make it as sticky as we wanted. We thinned it down a lot so we could airbrush it on. Instead of using a sealer, which often creates a generic looking specularity, we mixed corn starch directly into the paint to dull the albedo of the dried paint. If one is iffy about using corn starch, you can use talcum powder with similar results. I find it works better than dull coats or sealers by themselves, though they do work fine, too.

Anyway, he is looking great. Looking forward to seeing progress and final pics. Keep 'em coming.
 
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Thanks.
Yes, it's actually a cyberman/gino sculpt.
We have also done a Darth Maul and Emperor together.
If you click on my banner below, then click on proparchive, then select yoda, then propstory on the thumbnails page, you can read about our rather unique approach on how we work together on them.

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Thanks guys.

I finally got around to tweaking the paint. Still have to try out the matte varnish but I figured I'd post pics with each step.

All these were taken indoors with slightly different lighting.

yodastep2.1.JPG


yodastep2.2.JPG


yodastep2.3.JPG


yodastep2.4.JPG



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Thanks for the kind words.

Here are some with the matte varnish applied. No sheen whatsoever.
I think it looks so much better.
Now, the next time I post pics it will be once I've beat up his robes.

yodastep3.1.JPG


yodastep3.2.JPG


yodastep3.3.JPG


yodastep3.4.JPG


yodastep3.5.JPG



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Looking good so far, can't wait to see what it looks like once the robes have been properly weathered. One thing though, shouldn't his claws be colored a different color or does Yoda actually not have claws or nails?
 
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Yeah, I already have nails for both his hands and feet. I haven't finished them up to a point where I can apply them yet. Probably do that after the robes.

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Yeah, I already have nails for both his hands and feet. I haven't finished them up to a point where I can apply them yet. Probably do that after the robes.

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I guess that would explain why it was hard to see his nails and they appeared to be the same color as his skin. :)

You know, once he's all done you ought to consider making a set of Mando armor for him. It would be kind of funny to see Yoda all dressed in a set of Mando armor.
 
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There are indentations on the hands and feet where the nails will go. Might be a bit hard to tell in the pics but I'll be sure to show better pics of them once the actual nails are attached.

As far as mandos go, I absolutely loathe anything non SW canon (ie the films) so probably not very likely. :)

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