ELVIRA Mistress of the dark SCREAMIN 1X4 SCALE FIGURE 1988 SCREAMIN company release kit, ELVIRA is very well represented in this edition, quite easy to assemble, (just her arms, torso and legs to join), cast in vinyl.
I pinned both arm stumps and epoxy in place. The seams are easy to fill (virtually none for the joins), as her arms fit into the bracelets on the wrists already part of the torso casting, the upper arms have a natural seam at the shoulders where the dress sleeves join.
The join at her waist was not so straightforward, if the vinyl had kept it's shape, the belt would have made a seamless join for her legs, unfortunately, my kit had warped there, so I had to cut slits in the sides of the waist line on the legs section and stretch the vinyl at the front so that the flange met the correct width for the legs section to align with the torso, and then fill the slits with super glue to ensure the legs section kept its shape!
Just to make sure it couldn't warp back, I filled her legs with plaster, right up to the waist joint.
It is recommended to do this for weight stability, but with hindsight, I would have just put a lead fishing weight in with expanding foam to fill the hollow legs. This sets hard and cures fast, unlike the plaster, which took ages to harden, so foam would have worked better.
I decided to ignore her belt and blend the join into her dress, adding epoxy around her belly to fill in the joint seam. I did this mainly to have an original version of her and also because after having to adjust the join, the belt just blended into the dress instead of being a raised item, and I didn't want to bother painting the dagger mounted on it.
For a sexy, skin tight look to her dress, I added the hollow of her navel there and also superglue for the outline of her nipples.
To further blend what remained of the belt, I cut grooves out of the raised areas to make creases in her dress, with extra around her hands and back.
She was quite a clean cast kit, like most vinyl kits, there were some small surface flaws, mostly excess tabs that required trimming off and some soft detail in her hair, which I enhanced with a scalpel.
The challenge with this figure is the painting!
I decided to use enamel matt paints for her skin and dress, this seemed the obvious choice, however, these gave lots of issues, with finish and texture and also drying times. The biggest drawback I found was when I came to blending her makeup using white spirit. Being matt finish, the paint wash wouldn't easily apply and would be absorbed and spread to unwanted areas and was very difficult to remove. I ended up having to go over the natural skin areas again to cover makeup paint spread, and then there were issues with the texture.
Eventually, I succeeded with the standard and finish I needed, but after this experience, I vowed never again to use matt finish paint as a base coat!
Semi-matt still provides a good skin finish, yet it's much smoother and easier to correct any overpaint and washes apply easily. Any excess paint or mistake comes off cleanly with white spirit, without staining or damage to its surface.
Various colours were used for her eyeliner; black for the outline and pattern on her eyelids with purple semi-matt and matt pink/purple for stripes under her eyes. ( I followed her makeup on the poster provided with the kit)
I used standard gloss white for her eyeballs with a light blue gloss mix for irises with black outline and gloss black for pupils, finally clear gloss acrylic to seal and provide extra shine for her eyes.
Some like to add a white dot to eyes, I have never thought this necessary, preferring natural gloss instead of artificial effects that spoil the realistic look.
Her face took quite some time, due to all the problems with the paints and the accuracy required, but I am very pleased with the finished result.
The other part I found challenging was the outline of her face.
The details of her hair and lines around the borders of her face are quite soft and indistinct. If her hair isn't painted in exactly to the borders, her face shape will look unnatural.
Looking at the box representation, her face is a completely different sculpt compared with the supplied kit!
There were clearly issues with production, as the changes are apparent when comparing the box cover figure and the supplied kit version.
Her bracelet studs and earrings are done with Humbrol 11 metallic silver, with acrylic metallic gold and gloss red for her ring.
Her shoes and nails are painted with gloss black enamel.
For her tights, I used the same lilac purple (as her eyeliner), with matt black wash for shading and tint.
Her legs are another difficulty, again due to undefined, vague lines.
Her hands were also made complicated by poor sculpting/casting, I had problems trying to find the outlines of her fingers and ended up scratching in the shading between them with a pin.
I pinned both arm stumps and epoxy in place. The seams are easy to fill (virtually none for the joins), as her arms fit into the bracelets on the wrists already part of the torso casting, the upper arms have a natural seam at the shoulders where the dress sleeves join.
The join at her waist was not so straightforward, if the vinyl had kept it's shape, the belt would have made a seamless join for her legs, unfortunately, my kit had warped there, so I had to cut slits in the sides of the waist line on the legs section and stretch the vinyl at the front so that the flange met the correct width for the legs section to align with the torso, and then fill the slits with super glue to ensure the legs section kept its shape!
Just to make sure it couldn't warp back, I filled her legs with plaster, right up to the waist joint.
It is recommended to do this for weight stability, but with hindsight, I would have just put a lead fishing weight in with expanding foam to fill the hollow legs. This sets hard and cures fast, unlike the plaster, which took ages to harden, so foam would have worked better.
I decided to ignore her belt and blend the join into her dress, adding epoxy around her belly to fill in the joint seam. I did this mainly to have an original version of her and also because after having to adjust the join, the belt just blended into the dress instead of being a raised item, and I didn't want to bother painting the dagger mounted on it.
For a sexy, skin tight look to her dress, I added the hollow of her navel there and also superglue for the outline of her nipples.
To further blend what remained of the belt, I cut grooves out of the raised areas to make creases in her dress, with extra around her hands and back.
She was quite a clean cast kit, like most vinyl kits, there were some small surface flaws, mostly excess tabs that required trimming off and some soft detail in her hair, which I enhanced with a scalpel.
The challenge with this figure is the painting!
I decided to use enamel matt paints for her skin and dress, this seemed the obvious choice, however, these gave lots of issues, with finish and texture and also drying times. The biggest drawback I found was when I came to blending her makeup using white spirit. Being matt finish, the paint wash wouldn't easily apply and would be absorbed and spread to unwanted areas and was very difficult to remove. I ended up having to go over the natural skin areas again to cover makeup paint spread, and then there were issues with the texture.
Eventually, I succeeded with the standard and finish I needed, but after this experience, I vowed never again to use matt finish paint as a base coat!
Semi-matt still provides a good skin finish, yet it's much smoother and easier to correct any overpaint and washes apply easily. Any excess paint or mistake comes off cleanly with white spirit, without staining or damage to its surface.
Various colours were used for her eyeliner; black for the outline and pattern on her eyelids with purple semi-matt and matt pink/purple for stripes under her eyes. ( I followed her makeup on the poster provided with the kit)
I used standard gloss white for her eyeballs with a light blue gloss mix for irises with black outline and gloss black for pupils, finally clear gloss acrylic to seal and provide extra shine for her eyes.
Some like to add a white dot to eyes, I have never thought this necessary, preferring natural gloss instead of artificial effects that spoil the realistic look.
Her face took quite some time, due to all the problems with the paints and the accuracy required, but I am very pleased with the finished result.
The other part I found challenging was the outline of her face.
The details of her hair and lines around the borders of her face are quite soft and indistinct. If her hair isn't painted in exactly to the borders, her face shape will look unnatural.
Looking at the box representation, her face is a completely different sculpt compared with the supplied kit!
There were clearly issues with production, as the changes are apparent when comparing the box cover figure and the supplied kit version.
Her bracelet studs and earrings are done with Humbrol 11 metallic silver, with acrylic metallic gold and gloss red for her ring.
Her shoes and nails are painted with gloss black enamel.
For her tights, I used the same lilac purple (as her eyeliner), with matt black wash for shading and tint.
Her legs are another difficulty, again due to undefined, vague lines.
Her hands were also made complicated by poor sculpting/casting, I had problems trying to find the outlines of her fingers and ended up scratching in the shading between them with a pin.