After seeing the "deceived" trailer for the TOR video game I was intrigued by the new female bounty hunter we saw. So within two weeks of reviewing the video and looking through fodder I selected some parts that were a close resemblance to the character. The first time I saw her I knew the Mat Tracker helmet would be another ingredient that was close but not accurate. Over the next week I looked at the figure on my WIP shelf and just kept thinking it was not good enough. If I wanted to make this chick I would have to pull a Sithfire30 and grind down a torso and sculpt everything. There are no existing perfect parts to make her accurately so I threw her in my bin of unfinished customs. Last week it rained 2 days here so that prevented me from working and I had some free time. I had been watching all the TOR trailers the week before and Shae was clouding the back of my mind. So I walk in the lab that rainy morning and get the parts out, clean off a very small spot on my desk and stand up the figure and set the Matt Tracker helmet on there. I contemplate what head I could use for her and start going through some non SW fodder bins. After only 5 minutes I come up with the new POTC chick who has brown hair. Then I said OK lets try to make this work and snapped a photo.
My initial problem is that the helmet if freaking huge! so I grabbed a fine point sharpie and measured 1 mm all the way around the bottom, connected the dots then cut that portion away. Next I sanded that edge flat from the bottom to make it smooth, that also shortened it up a but more. Then I started using it on all the helmet details that needed to be removed. Hmm, we are getting somewhere at this point as the size has been reduced a good bit. Now time for a medium grit sand paper to clean up after the dremel, a good 30 minutes sanding. Once I get it where I am happy with it I get out the fine grit paper and smooth everything out. I decided to snap pics again.
Not bad but now I grab the super fine grit paper and go over everything for another 15 minutes. Now the helmet is nice and smooth like a factory part. I went to the sink abd washed it off so I would eliminate any dust showing up in my paint. After it dried I gave it a flat black base coat then dry brushed with silver. Next I painted the visor area with gloss black then once dry I used a smaller brush to add gold in the center leaving a black outline all the way around the visor.
I looked at the reference photos I had and wanted to add an orange tint to her visor to be more accurate. I decided to simply water down a bit of orange and dab it on in select areas leaving some gold showing through in places. It worked really well so I went with it. Next up I wanted to tackle the blade like thing on the side of her helmet. Again no existing part is to the right scale so I grabbed a scrap bit of styrene, set the helmet beside it and scetched out the size and shape of it. I drilled the hole where the 2 angles meet first as it would be impossable once cut out, then I cut out the small piece with an exacto. I grabbed a small piece of plastic stringand glued it to the back so I can drill a hole in the helmet and insert it. I let that set for an hour then gave it another drop of glue for good measure and let sit the rest of the day. While this was going on I also painted the entire figure flat black and dry brushed with silver. Then I needed to clean up beside the armor with black and detailed the knees and left shoulder with gold. Time for another pic...
Sadly that was the last WIP pic I took. Everything was so involved and so many little parts to make I just didn't stop untill I was done. The helmet took me 2 1/2 from start to finish, just the helmet! The back pack is from concept Luke with bits cut off various guns to mad it into what you see on the figure. I also used the breathing tube fron that pack and connected it to her chest and the correct spot on the backpack. Then I decided to make her gun and used a Golden Compass figure pistol handle and cylinder, random oart for center piece and styrene for the barell. I drilled a hole in the end to make it look more real, a detail I really love on weapons. After painting all these parts I moved on to her double belt and made the lower parts from my wax covered flat string that I have given several members here to work with. This is the first time I painted the strap first as it was so detailed, then glued it in place. It did not go so well as the glue removed the paint so I had to touch up a few areas. Next time I will spray it with a sealer before I glue it if I have prepainted the strap. Next up was her arm bands made from the same material and the gold cylinders are actualy the plastic string painted gold, sealed then cut into tiny bits and glued onto her arm band. whshew, that was some tedious work and had to re do one side to get it right. Well I had put off repainting her face long enough and it is the final element so I jumped on it. I wanted to do some shading on her face as the mini bust is such a beautiful work of art. I'll have to say I am most proud of how it turned out and I learned a good bit doing it, going back and forth with different skin tones until the base was one color, the lips just a tone darker then those beautiful rosey cheeks. Here she is for your review...
A big THANK YOU to Sithfire30 for sharing some screen captures from the game with me. I was about to pull my hair out getting accurate picture of Shae from the game. The majority of the references out there are of the mini bust and statue from GG but that is not the same gear you see in the game. Thanks Dayton!
