Hellboy Corpse Locator - Intro

Just to make things a little less dry, and because it's hard to make the prop out from the movie screenshot here's how the first one turned out.

To be honest I was never really that fussed about the Hellboy films. When ever I thought back on them I could never really remember how the story went or much about the characters. But when I had to make a gift for someone I knew liked Hellboy I gave the films a second look, although I still think the pacing is all wrong I do like the imagery and design in the films.

I chose this prop in particular, for a few reasons. 

I liked the ancient compass design, it was a bit out of my comfort zone, I prefer to work on smooth square things. 

Also, it was obscure and to my knowledge the only others in existence are the screen used versions and a very small run of replicas made by the original artist*.

What follows are the original posts I made on The RPF

Originally Posted 14-Feb-2012

From Phelyx's* description I had a good amount to go on.

But just for myself I decided the main box was made of wood, with gilded details and exterior, and the centre dial was a solid cast piece of gold.

The top detailing looked like vines and thorns, so it had an old magic/nature type influence. The heavy amounts of verdigris looking rust/mould implied to me that maybe it had been lost at sea or the bottom of a lake and then recovered.

But the vine details still shone bright like Red had given it a quick polish with his sleeve.

Anyway, with all that at the back of my head I began on the lid piece.

Pretty simple it's just knocked up out of grey cardboard.

Although I did make a quick computer drawing to figure out what went where, this was all drawn up and constructed by hand.

I'm just giving it a quick spot fill.

Next I added a bit of detailing with a scalpel and compass cutter. Most of this detail gets covered up with the vines and texture, but you can still see traces of it in the finished piece, so in it goes.

You can also see the base plate that will hold the upper dial (hence the bearing set in it). A lot of work went into constructing and centering the bit that holds the bearing, but the rest gets covered up so I didn't do anything special to it.

Next I added on the edge detail using epoxy putty. Great stuff, but I've never used it for sculpting before, it's actually really nice to work with, not as much control as I usually like, but this whole piece is supposed to have a hand crafted feel to it. You only get 4 hours working time, max, but that's more than enough for most details :s .

I also drew out the lines for the vine details, tomorrow I'll post how they came out.

Next Time: Detailing the Lid

* The original creator known as Phelyx on The RPF posted some pictures from the handful of replicas he made as well as some of the screen used item, which were my basis of reference for this piece. He also contacted me about my replica saying he thought it was good and he was glad someone had taken an interest, always a bonus.