Altered Vessels Studio

Bit of an update on ii’s build as he’s come a long way! I’ve been equal parts dreading and looking forward to this part of his face. I think I’m a bit intimidated as I haven’t done anything like this so I’m just making it all up as I’m going along so I hope it’s going to turn out OK. I roll out a thin layer of clay with the pasta machine and lay it over the face pressing it firmly into all the grooves and cut away some eye holes. It’s after I spent a bunch of time smoothing the clay that I thought I should have given the pop a little bit of a rough sand first but oh well.

I decided to add another layer of clay to the top half so that I could better transition the fins on his head to the front of his face. I roughly marked the sigil just so I could get my proportions right as it’s so tricky to translate his mask to a rectangle! At one point I’d added some extra bulbous lumps on the tips of the eyebrows to make his brow knot but it just looked odd on the Pop’s head shape (almost like a bum haha!) so I thought I’d hint at his quizzical brow with the angles of the fins and the direction they swoop.

There’s a LOT of smoothing and refining on this. I tend to get in a zone and just go over and over it til it’s buttery smooth and then he went in for a 15 min bake at 130 degrees. And then it’s on to priming and painting. I used a sponge to apply to primer as I wanted to get some leathery texture to the finish. All of the masks have this lovely soft looking finish which was probably done by an airbrush which unfortunately is not in my toolkit yet. I’ve put it on my wishlist for Santa 🙂

I tend to get carried away with dry brushing highlights so I’ve made it a habit to also brush low lights afterwards to counter balance where I’ve gone a bit overboard. His head was easy to pop back on so I superglued the dreads into the little nub and I think he’s looking pretty great!

I’m not going to do a grand reveal with glamour shots juuust yet as I’m still waiting on the rest of his drum kit to print (hopefully this week!) so technically he’s not finished yet! And knowing me every time I see him I’m probably going to be “tweaking” things.

Worship 🖤