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So a few months back now I started sculpting a Turian from artwork by the very talented animator/illustrator (and Mass Effect obsessed) Sophie Powell. It started as sculpting practice, and maybe something I could give Sophie for her birthday, but after finishing it and showing it to a few people I thought it might be fun to mould it and paint up a few different versions.

So far I’ve only painted the ones above, but I have a few more that I’ll be working on when I’m not so busy, and of course Sophie has one to paint as well, which will be appearing on her Deviantart page at some point.

Here’s a quick rundown of the process, with more pictures of the finished models at the end.

The two images I chose to sculpt from.

After choosing the images, I made a rough armature using aluminium wire and rigid Plastazote, which I covered in a thin layer of Super Sculpey and baked for a few minutes. This is to create a solid form to sculpt over when the Plastazote shrinks slightly in the oven, so any cracks can be fixed before the details are sculpted on.

When working with Sculpey I tend to sculpt in sections and then bake the model for 15 minutes before sculpting the next section.

Once the model was finished it became clear that I would need to mould it in several parts, which meant removing the head and mandibles. Both of these smaller pieces could be moulded in single part moulds but the body needed a two-part mould, so after working out where the seam lines should go I layed it out in in a bed of plasticine. and added cocktail sticks for risers.

After this first lot of silicone moulding was completed the mandible mould was ready to use. The head mould only required a scalpel cut made along the back of the head to release it from the mould.

To prepare the body for the second half of silicone to be poured I covered it in a layer of vaseline, added more cocktail stick risers and a cut-off section of syringe for the injection point.

I don’t have any pictures of the casting process, but both the head and body moulds were covered in duct tape to keep them sealed, they were then injected with fast cast resin and had duct tape reservoirs at the top to hold additional resin from the risers. (taped up moulds in the background of the image below)

After de-moulding, all of the resin parts needed sanding to remove the seam lines and filling with milliput in any areas that might have had bubbles. This process took quite a ling time, and was especially difficult for the seam line around the arms.

The next stage was to paint a layer of latex over the arms and eyes to mask them off, and spray each of the parts with primer before airbrushing with several layers of cellulose paint.

The fine details I painted on using acrylic, and in some cases sculpted additional parts onto the models with milliput or cut into them to create scars and battle damage.

Finished Models

Turian Council Member

Saren Arterius

Garrus Vakarian

Battle Damaged Garrus

Name Unknown (can’t remember, but if you know, you win a prize!*)

*the prize is a lie

I’ll be painting up a few more in the coming months, so keep an eye out.

Thanks for reading! Hope you liked them.

Update:

Photos of Sophie’s finished Turian