Hellboy Corpse Locator Tutorial - Part 2

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

The Dome

One of the smallest pieces but probably the most important, so it's worth getting right.

Despite a lot of effort I could never cast perfectly smooth pieces with polyester resin. I've gotten pretty good though, so your dome may not need too much clean up, just in case, here's the process I used to have to go through the clean up my domes.

These have been sat on my workbench a while, so they're a lil' fuzzy

These were cast in open moulds so the first job is to sand the back flat. I usually just sit it on 40 grit paper but if you have a belt sander that might work too. Try not to take too much off the sides or the dome won't fit as snuggly into the centre dial.

The outer layer of the dome is a bit gummy, which means it's a pain to sand. I used a dremel attachment to get as much of it off as possible (otherwise it gums up your paper)

After this you probably want to take more 40 grit to it making sure all the gunk is off.
Then comes the slow tedious job of sanding and polishing.
First I use 100 grit to get rid of all the tool marks from the dremel. The back of the dome can be left at 100 as it gets painted anyway.

Then the dome gets wet sanded with 240, 600, 800, 1200, 2000, 2500, and penultimately 3000 grit paper.

This is painfully boring and my mind tends to wander so I tried to be methodical, counting how long I was sanding for, using a small circular motion and always washing the dome when I changed grits.
The final stage is to polish. I use toothpaste and a pair of tights to polish. One of the weirder things in my toolbox, but toothpaste is just a mild abrasive.
Some people use an old sock for polishing, but I found tights are smoother and give a better finish, plus they're finer, making it easy to handle small objects.

Anyway, the end result of all that should be a nice smooth, shiny dome.

The next job is to paint the back of the dome gold. You can use rub 'n buff, but I found it hard to get a completely solid layer without really caking it on, so instead I just used a gold acrylic and sponged it on. 2 - 3 coats should give you complete coverage, hold it up to the light to see where gaps are.

Once the gold has completely dried then you need to etch some lines in it. You can sketch out a design before hand if you want, but remember whatever you do the final result will be reversed.
Using a pin I etch lines into the paint, continually checking the other side to see how it comes out. If you are adding LEDs place your dome over them to gauge the effect.

Priming

Once all the pieces are cleaned up it's time for primer. As with most things on this build though, it's not that easy. Filling the hundreds of undercuts with spray paint is near impossible, unless you get in close, over-spray and take out all the detail.
My solution to this was to water down (almost to a wash) some primer and hand paint the main body and lid pieces. It's nice and easy to paint, and capillary action causes it all to collect in the undercuts. Once this dries I then give them a spray to get an even finish.

The other pieces can be sprayed as normal.

All pieces then need undercoating in black. Unfortunately the same problem occurs with spray. So I do an acrylic ink wash first to get paint in all the tiny gaps. You could just use a black primer, I don't know how that'll affect the gilding

Stone compass anyone?

Then they get sprayed with matt black to give a nice even finish.

Gilding

Once everything is undercoated the next step is painting the insides of the lid and body. 

These parts are hard to see, so I just went for a loose, deep red, wood kind of colour. Painted on thick and streaky to give it a bit of texture. And if you're being really detailed, you can lighten your mix a little with yellow and add a very light dry brush to highlight it a bit.

Possibly the most satisfying step in the painting, is gilding everything.

I tried a gold airbrush paint, but for a really shiny metallic finish nothing beats 'Rub 'n Buff'. I tried using the 'Antique Gold' product, but it's really dark, bronze even, so I decided upon the 'Gold Leaf' variety.

I use a large stiff brush to dry brush it on. I found it impossible to do this without Spandau Ballet rocking through my head.
Start slow, but don't be afraid to go heavy with it and get it into the gaps, remember that all this gets knocked back a fair bit with weathering, If you're unsure, add more gold! You can always tone it down later.

Once everything is gilded then you'll want to give it all a good clear coat. I used matt because, although it is gold, we're not going for that highly polished metal look.

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Hellboy Corpse Locator Tutorial - Part 1

It's been pointed out to me that I never finished the tutorial I was putting together, seeing as the previous one (posted in my build thread over at theRPF) was fragmented with various bits of development, I decided to put it all up here instead and hopefully finish it this time.

If you've somehow found this without me pointing you to it then you might want to read about me creating the original compass.
If you'd like to buy a kit then you can contact me on theRPF or just comment on here and I'll point you in the right direction.
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3

Time to get started.


This is one full kit of parts.

First off lets decide on some names for clarity.

1. Bearing Plate
2. Main Body
3. Lid
4. Dome
5. Bearing Disc*
6. Centre Dial
7. Brass Hinges & Screws
8. Bearing
* If you ordered a kit with lights you should have a composite disc with a clear top.


First up is pretty standard clean up, removing flash and filling in lil' bubbles.

Occasionally one or two of the tiny thorns won't be properly formed, so they'll need fixing. You can use bondo, but given how small they are I prefer to use milliput, which is how I sculpted the original.

Also when cleaning up the seam on the lid don't go overboard sanding it completely smooth, there is supposed to be a linear texture running round the edge, so don't go taking it all off.
The same can be said for building this up in general. Don't go OTT trying to smooth things out like you might on other builds. Any texture you leave looks great when you dry brush it with gold, and just looks a bit off and fake if you try to smooth it out too much.

There is some additional detailing you can do to the lid if you want. Check it out before cleaning up the lid too much. (scroll to last sub heading)
The side of the main body, at the top of the mould, is prone to sub surface bubbles, you can just paint over them but, for a long lasting paint job, I prefer to open them up and fill them with bondo. 

The rest of the pieces are easy.

Bearing Plate - Just remove the spouts then a very quick sanding to remove the little skirt of flash. The base is already flat so don't sand too much or your bearing won't sit level.

Centre Dial - Remove the spouts and sand the back smooth. You never see the back so just sit it on some rough paper and sand it back. it should be roughly 5mm thick when you're done.
Optional - The sides of the dial are relatively smooth, in my builds I've often added more detail. Several vertical grooves (made with a small file) to mirror the surface markings and then some scalpel cuts. You can't really see the sides of the dial once it's installed so this is up to you.

Bearing Disc - Just remove the spout, if you have a 2 part disc then you can rough up the top clear part to help diffuse light (the 2 part disc needs some more modification, but I'll cover that later).

Fitting the Hinges

There is no good reference material for the hinge area of the compass so I just put a slot in the side of the main body, that way it can accomodate lots of different hardware.

If you are going to use the supplied hinges (not 100% screen accurate but pretty close) then you will need to make a small shim out of 1mm styrene.

I cut it to length then used a piece of scrap card to wedge it against the inner wall while it glued in place.

Once it had dried I took out the card and trimmed it to the right height.
Then using the hinges as a template I marked some holes.

The holes should be as close to the top edge as possible (those above are slightly too low)

Then you need to carefully drill and countersink those holes. It's important the screws sit as flush as possible with the side otherwise they'll scrape the centre dial as it spins.

Then do a quick test fitting of the hinges. The barrel of the hinge should face inward

Be careful with the little brass screws, small screws are always a bit hit and miss in quality. I tend to use the worst looking screws for the body, because those hinges are mostly glued in anyway.


Now you can use the position of your installed hinges to mark up your lid (either transfer the measurements onto a bit of paper or try to hold the lid in place whilst marking the holes)

If you're wondering why my lid looks different, see below

Optional Lid Detailing

As I said before there isn't any good reference for the hinge area of the compass so this is up to you how you build it up. Whilst your hinges are still screwed into the body, have a play around with the lid and get an idea of where it will sit. If you bend the hinges with a pair of pliers you can get the lid to open without any modification.

From what I can tell, the screen used lid is precisely as I've cast it. But for all my builds I've done the following (entirely fabricated) detailing.


Firstly I cut off the side where the hinge will be at an angle, this allows the lid to open fully.
(Note: the hinge side is the side with the pour spout)

Using a file, I make the ends of the beading more defined, and then I cut a little groove that I'm going to fill with putty (this is probably overkill, you can just put a thin layer of putty on top if you want)

I fill the groove with epoxy putty and smooth  the edges. Then after it's a bit stiffer I detail it using a steel pin. A few drag / cut marks to match the rest of the lid edge and then lots of tiny pricks to look like wormwood.

That's the first part over with. Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3