Stealth Iron Man to Red & Gold Repaint
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bruno
Just a little freaky
Wow, thanks for all of the supportive posts! I have no idea how Ickwinzs has been able to paint so many...this one has taken me so long!
As much as I like how the figure is turning out, I am most happy with the base. I am almost finished with it and will post photos of the base when it is completed. There is a lot of detail in the base and it is a shame that the factory paint job does not do a better job in bringing out that detail. But after spending so many hours on this freaking base I can see why they may have chosen a more simple paint scheme; it has easily taken me twice as long to paint the base than the figure itself!
Not that the figure was an easy repaint. I took Ickwinzs advice and washed the figure in dish soap and water in order to remove the oily residue. After that was done, I wet sanded the entire figure with 1000 grit sandpaper followed by 2000 grit. Next I primed the figure, and then wet sanded that again. I repeated these steps, wet sanding/priming until I got a smooth glass like finish. Probably a bit of an overkill, but the only other time I had painted a kit (the Doppel Prod Blade Runner Gun Kit with, interestingly enough, working LED's) with metallic paints, this was the prep work that I did and I got pretty good results with it.
I got many suggestions from the Statue Forum on how to best paint the figure, but my buddy Toi suggested using a paint with real metallic flakes. I ended up using an urethane based automotive paint. I mixed many different color combinations until I got a mix that I liked, and you can see my Iron Man paint guinea pigs in the background of some of the photos. These are authentic Bowen Silver Age Iron Man busts; one I had needed to be repaired, and the other I got cheap off eBay. I did not have the balls to re-paint this figure without a bit of practice first! I even used Devilman's Pentagram base as practice for what I wanted to do with Iron Man's base.
But the most difficult and time consuming part for me was the light situation. I knew that it would be goofy looking if I repainted the figure but kept the lights red, and I struggled for a couple of days on how to tackle the problem. A couple of the lens on my Stealth Iron Man's gauntlets were loose to begin with, and I quickly realized that they popped of without much trouble. The other two were more securely attached, and while I was able to remove one of them with a bit of effort, the other one shattered when I tried to pry it off. So if anyone wants to attempt this BE CAREFUL!! At this point I decided that the only real solution left to me was to cast the clear red lenses in a clear amber resin. This did not prove to be the easy task I thought it would be.
The first problem I had was although I could get the gauntlet lenses off without too much of a hassle, his boot, open palm and chest plate seemed like a more difficult proposition. But when I noticed that some light was shining through Iron Man's painted chest triangle (courtesy of a lackluster factory paint job) I realized that the entire triangle chest piece was cast as a clear piece, and I was able to pry this off pretty easily.
But this still left the problem of the open palm and boot. If you look at your Stealth Iron Man in complete darkness, you should be able to see light leaking through some crevices in his boot and hand (at least mine was like this). This led me to belive that both his entire hand and booth were cast in a clear resin. But having already gone this far, I couldn't back out now, so I resolved to saw off both his boot and open palm light, hoping that I could fix any seams with putty later. To my pleasant surprise, however, the clear pieces on the boot and open palm were both cast as separte pieces from the main body, and as I began to cut the boot light off, it simply popped off! The palm light was the same way. Don't know why they would bother casting both the hand and boot in a translucent material if they were going to end up casting the clear pices as separate parts anyway, other than to give me a hard time!
Although I have had experience in past with both mold making and resin casting, I had never worked with clear resin before. I learned that in order to cast a clear resin piece successfully, you need to use a platinum based silicone as opposed to the more commonly used tin based silicone. Apparently the tin based silicone will result in cloudy clear castings, don't really know why though. My friend Toi gave me very helpful advice on how to create a two part, bubble free mold for the chest piece. I then made one piece molds for each of the 6 small clear pieces.
But I would end up making no less than 10! different molds for the small clear pieces before I finally got a satisfactory mold. The first couple had too many air bubbles, a few had the pour spout too small, and a few more did not fully cure. The only upside to making so many crappy molds and producing many rejected castings was the ability to fine tune the clear amber color that I was looking for. The clear resin that I bought did not have an amber color additive, so I had to buy both the red and yellow additive (yay! for me) and it took many different combinations before I finally got an amber that I liked.
The resin that I used is very clear, but unfortunately in order to archive crystal clear clarity, the pieces needed to be pressure cast. Luckily my buddy Toi had a pressure pot which he graciously lent me so that I could properly cast the pieces. The resulting parts was super clear and bubble free! But then I ran into the problem that parts were too clear; i.e. when they were replaced on the figure one could see the LED beneath! This was rectified by lightly frosting the back of each leans.
Sorry for the long post, hopefully some of you can find what I wrote useful. Thanks to everyone that sent me a PM. I'll be getting back to each of you shortly. But for now it's back to work! I hope to post more photos this afternoon.
Bruno
As much as I like how the figure is turning out, I am most happy with the base. I am almost finished with it and will post photos of the base when it is completed. There is a lot of detail in the base and it is a shame that the factory paint job does not do a better job in bringing out that detail. But after spending so many hours on this freaking base I can see why they may have chosen a more simple paint scheme; it has easily taken me twice as long to paint the base than the figure itself!
Not that the figure was an easy repaint. I took Ickwinzs advice and washed the figure in dish soap and water in order to remove the oily residue. After that was done, I wet sanded the entire figure with 1000 grit sandpaper followed by 2000 grit. Next I primed the figure, and then wet sanded that again. I repeated these steps, wet sanding/priming until I got a smooth glass like finish. Probably a bit of an overkill, but the only other time I had painted a kit (the Doppel Prod Blade Runner Gun Kit with, interestingly enough, working LED's) with metallic paints, this was the prep work that I did and I got pretty good results with it.
I got many suggestions from the Statue Forum on how to best paint the figure, but my buddy Toi suggested using a paint with real metallic flakes. I ended up using an urethane based automotive paint. I mixed many different color combinations until I got a mix that I liked, and you can see my Iron Man paint guinea pigs in the background of some of the photos. These are authentic Bowen Silver Age Iron Man busts; one I had needed to be repaired, and the other I got cheap off eBay. I did not have the balls to re-paint this figure without a bit of practice first! I even used Devilman's Pentagram base as practice for what I wanted to do with Iron Man's base.
But the most difficult and time consuming part for me was the light situation. I knew that it would be goofy looking if I repainted the figure but kept the lights red, and I struggled for a couple of days on how to tackle the problem. A couple of the lens on my Stealth Iron Man's gauntlets were loose to begin with, and I quickly realized that they popped of without much trouble. The other two were more securely attached, and while I was able to remove one of them with a bit of effort, the other one shattered when I tried to pry it off. So if anyone wants to attempt this BE CAREFUL!! At this point I decided that the only real solution left to me was to cast the clear red lenses in a clear amber resin. This did not prove to be the easy task I thought it would be.
The first problem I had was although I could get the gauntlet lenses off without too much of a hassle, his boot, open palm and chest plate seemed like a more difficult proposition. But when I noticed that some light was shining through Iron Man's painted chest triangle (courtesy of a lackluster factory paint job) I realized that the entire triangle chest piece was cast as a clear piece, and I was able to pry this off pretty easily.
But this still left the problem of the open palm and boot. If you look at your Stealth Iron Man in complete darkness, you should be able to see light leaking through some crevices in his boot and hand (at least mine was like this). This led me to belive that both his entire hand and booth were cast in a clear resin. But having already gone this far, I couldn't back out now, so I resolved to saw off both his boot and open palm light, hoping that I could fix any seams with putty later. To my pleasant surprise, however, the clear pieces on the boot and open palm were both cast as separte pieces from the main body, and as I began to cut the boot light off, it simply popped off! The palm light was the same way. Don't know why they would bother casting both the hand and boot in a translucent material if they were going to end up casting the clear pices as separate parts anyway, other than to give me a hard time!
Although I have had experience in past with both mold making and resin casting, I had never worked with clear resin before. I learned that in order to cast a clear resin piece successfully, you need to use a platinum based silicone as opposed to the more commonly used tin based silicone. Apparently the tin based silicone will result in cloudy clear castings, don't really know why though. My friend Toi gave me very helpful advice on how to create a two part, bubble free mold for the chest piece. I then made one piece molds for each of the 6 small clear pieces.
But I would end up making no less than 10! different molds for the small clear pieces before I finally got a satisfactory mold. The first couple had too many air bubbles, a few had the pour spout too small, and a few more did not fully cure. The only upside to making so many crappy molds and producing many rejected castings was the ability to fine tune the clear amber color that I was looking for. The clear resin that I bought did not have an amber color additive, so I had to buy both the red and yellow additive (yay! for me) and it took many different combinations before I finally got an amber that I liked.
The resin that I used is very clear, but unfortunately in order to archive crystal clear clarity, the pieces needed to be pressure cast. Luckily my buddy Toi had a pressure pot which he graciously lent me so that I could properly cast the pieces. The resulting parts was super clear and bubble free! But then I ran into the problem that parts were too clear; i.e. when they were replaced on the figure one could see the LED beneath! This was rectified by lightly frosting the back of each leans.
Sorry for the long post, hopefully some of you can find what I wrote useful. Thanks to everyone that sent me a PM. I'll be getting back to each of you shortly. But for now it's back to work! I hope to post more photos this afternoon.
Bruno
!!!
Lord Aykroyd
Super Freak
ok - this was the most fun read i've had in months
AWESOME!
AWESOME!
The ill Jedi
ILLest of 'em all!!
Beautiful repaint Bruno!! 
Mookeylama
Super Freak
wow! u recast the lights in amber resin?! u are da man!! awesome job!
Very informative post bruno, and very interesting to read. Thanks for taking the time to explain all that.
I can't wait to see some more pics of your masterpiece.
I can't wait to see some more pics of your masterpiece.
nemesisenforcer
Super Freak
- Joined
- Feb 23, 2008
- Messages
- 546
- Reaction score
- 1
nicely done bruno
p!tu
Shiz-lakin-a-craka-lakin™
Very awesome work!!! looks like it took a lot of time and patiance! thanks for explaining how you made it!
Deadly Dagger
Minister Of Fire
OMG ... WILD STORY...WHAT AN ADVENTURE.
ghettoenhanced
Super Freak
This one takes the cake...
Shanester
Super Freak
I feel for you on the mold making. It is tough and can be a real frustration for a first-timer. Excellent work. You have something to be very proud of there!
Mookeylama
Super Freak
If you already have the cast you could sell some Yellow light covers right here to help fund your paint supplies.
great idea!
Mithrandier
Super Freak
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2005
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- 1,323
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Great repaint.
bruno
Just a little freaky
Got a bit busy last week so I haven't been able to work on my SIM as much as I wanted. But I'm almost finished; here is the completed base, and a shot of the original base for comparison:
I also had the time to retouch some of the gold on the figure; you may have noticed in the photos that I had posted before that there was some red overspray on his legs. I guess my masking job wasn't as good as it should have been! But it's all fixed now so all that remains is the black wash on the figure and the clear gloss coat. After looking at the photos that were posted of the original Red and Gold Iron Man Comiquette, I decided that I really liked the glossy wet look. I hope to post photos of the finished figure tomorrow. Thanks for looking and your comments/criticisms on the base are welcome!
Bruno
I also had the time to retouch some of the gold on the figure; you may have noticed in the photos that I had posted before that there was some red overspray on his legs. I guess my masking job wasn't as good as it should have been! But it's all fixed now so all that remains is the black wash on the figure and the clear gloss coat. After looking at the photos that were posted of the original Red and Gold Iron Man Comiquette, I decided that I really liked the glossy wet look. I hope to post photos of the finished figure tomorrow. Thanks for looking and your comments/criticisms on the base are welcome!
Bruno
- Joined
- Jul 1, 2007
- Messages
- 2,387
- Reaction score
- 10
awesome job man.....looks sick!!!!:chew:chew:chew
Elder_Predator2
Super Freak
base looks cool.
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