Thursday 22 February 2018

Suicide Squad Katana [WIP - Samurai sword, right hand & sculpted half face mask]

With her right hand, samurai sword (katana) and half face mask painted, Suicide Squad Katana is all but completed. All that remains to be done is to assemble the painted base and place Katana onto it. So here's a quick update on a finished Katana sans base and her mask that I sculpted and painted.

Katana (aka Nocturna Models Soum, 13 Moons) work-in-progress: sword, right hand and mask
Katana's sword is painted in two-tones to depict a sharp edge not unlike the real thing
Suicide Squad Katana herself is more or less done so all that remains is to put the vignette together

A key bugbear for me is the slight bend in Katana's sword which becomes more pronounced at certain viewing angles. As the sword is made out of resin, I did try to straighten it as much as possible with the help of a hair-dryer. In fact the bent was actually far worse than it is now. I managed to straighten it somewhat but obviously not enough. But I've made my peace with it so unless I can figure out a way to straighten the sword even further it'll have to do. 

From this angle, the slight bent in the sword becomes more pronounced
Back view of the completed Katana figurine sans base

As this Japanese Samurai sword belongs to Suicide Squad Katana, I painted it in a color scheme that is as close as possible to what I saw in the movie. That meant a hilt with a black grip and a sword blade that has a gold band at its base. Luckily for me the sword this figurine is holding is similar physically to the one Katana has i.e. a samurai sword (or a katana, the main character's namesake).

Yet another angle in which the bent sword blade is noticeable
Color scheme of the sword was painted to resemble the one used by Katana in the movie ...
... for example, the gold band at the base of the sword is unique to Suicide Squad Katana

To give a sense of edge (or sharpness) to the sword, I painted it in two metallic tones with one brighter than the other. In addition to that, I also painted a thin line of extremely bright metallic grey at the very edge of the sword to amplify the sharpness of the blade.

Katana's right hand holding on to her sword, which was painted in two tones to reflect a sharp edge
Katana's iconic face mask was sculpted using Citadel Green Stuff
Katana's iconic face mask, after a fairly simple paint job

While the mask isn't exactly to scale (it's a tad bigger than it's suppose to be) it should be good enough for the vignette. Moreover as the mask will likely be placed a fair distance away from Katana's face, any discrepancies in scale won't hopefully be too obvious. All the disparate parts of the Suicide Squad Katana vignette have now been painted. Once they are put together I should be able to post the final photos as well as video of this project ... the first of 2018!

https://shireworks.blogspot.com/https://www.facebook.com/shire.works

http://shireworks.blogspot.my/p/nocturna.html

18 comments:

  1. Awesome can't wait for the whole piece to be put together!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you Simon, it should be finished by the next post! :)

      Delete
  2. Bending resin can be a pain. I find that it is easier to dip bent parts in recently boiled water, rather than use a hairdryer. It keeps the heat localised and I've bent a lot of twirly gun barrels back into shape that way.

    It is probably too late to use that technique now that she is all together, but I thought I'd mention it for next time. She is looking great though. Nice work!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thanks for the advice, much appreciated! By the time I had realized the bend in the sword it was already primed for paint O_O And thanks for your kind words too :)

      Delete
  3. Fantastic progress ! Awesome paint-job ! And very nice mask , great work ! I'm looking forward to the finished model on the base.
    Greetings

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thank you very much Mario! :) Unfortunately the mask will have to be discarded in the final display as I will explain in the next post! :(

      Delete
  4. Superb paintwork and the mask looks fantastic. :)

    ReplyDelete
  5. Sweet and delicate, yet a strong composition. I'm looking forward to seeing al lthe pieces coming along together!

    ReplyDelete
  6. That’s some master class painting, that’s for sure.

    ReplyDelete

Related Posts Plugin for WordPress, Blogger...