 
BILLIKEN'S GARAGE KIT
ELEKING FROM ULTRASEVEN (1991)
Although I like
all the Eleking episodes I've seen (original Ultraseven episode, the 90's
made-for-video Ultraseven show (left) and the current Ultraman Max series),
I never fell in love with the design of the Eleking monster. It's
too weirdly improbable for my tastes, with rotating antenna on his head
and fingerless hands and feet (with gas-shooting orifices). Now that I've
got a model that I've worked on, he's kinda grown on me so that I don't
dislike the design-- The long tail is awfully neat, but I still can't say
that I really like the design. There's a difference, y'know?
The original paint scheme of my model was actually very well done by
the Unknown Artist, and featured a very professional-looking wash. Unfortunately,
it was totally wrong for my purposes-- It looked like faux antiqued verdigris
brass, not the cow-colored creature that I wasn't particularly fond of.
I can accept the idea of painting a monster to appear as it did in a B&W
television episode, but I couldn't visualize this guy posed next to a
piss-antiqued authentic Angkor Wat artifact. Since fixing this would involve
considerable pain, it would be a good opportunity to fix other things
that I might not otherwise have messed with. It's easier to get motivated
when you have multiple rationalizations for doing things that involve
lots of work.
I'd read up on the fine art of paint stripping and figured that since
everyone was advising against using the really potent stuff, that must
be the way to go. I'm blessed with a reasonably high tolerance for caustic
and really stinky chemicals, so I used just about every nasty skull and
crossbones-marked elixir I owned, including the stuff that generates a
burning sensation if you accidently splash it on the back of your hand.
It took most of the paint off really quickly, and made quite a mess since
dissolved paint's gotta go somewhere-- it doesn't magically disappear
leaving behind sparkly cleanliness. A second and third pass through with
potent carcinogenic volatiles cleaned up a lot of the mess, but even then,
the detail and crevices needed a going over with localized application
of toxins, a fine pick, Q-tips, and paper towels. Note that I'm not mentioning
which chemicals I used so that I can't be accused of steering anyone
down this wreckless path. The cautions are not without merit, for while
mindlessly stripping paint and inhaling fumes I reasoned that if we were
really created by God, it's so we could be harvested when we're deemed
ready. I've heard that we taste kinda like chicken. (Don't worry about
those brain cells-- you can't take 'em with you.)
The second part of the reworking was to make him taller and make his
head so that it was posed in a more generic way. Originally, the head
was facing slightly downward and swayed to the side, which suggested a
specific, static situation. I prefer these things to be more generic,
since that allows a broader interpretation when posed in context with
other models. (It's the same reason why I don't sculpt heads as dynamic
snapshots, with open-mouthed, bared teeth "action" poses.) The neck/head
was fixed with a slight rotation to better center it and reared up in
the front so that the monster's head appeared to be looking at whatever
he was facing (even though he doesn't have eyes). I didn't straighten
out the slight curve to the neck since it was easier not to, and it gave
the pose a little bit of life (unlike the stiff way that many 6"
Bandai vinyl figures are posed). The legs seemed like the best place to
make the model taller, again using the likely knee positions of a man-in-a-monster
suit as a guide. If Billiken sculpted accurate representations, either
the monster suits had really droopy knees or the actors had really short
shins. The tail's downward angle was increased slightly to compensate
for the longer legs, but I later figured out that I could take care of
this by simply rotating the tail a small amount. I decided to keep the
tail segments as segments so that it could be removed, disassembled, and
re-posed. This was a practical consideration since a fixed position tail
would limit where you could display the sucker, and make boxing him up
really difficult-- This thing's display footprint is potentially huge,
depending on how the tail is posed. Besides, I wasn't going to putty his
arm seams, so what's another five seams?
 The changes
aren't dramatic, but were a little challenging because of the need to
match texture. Naturally, when you make something taller, you have to
add the extra flesh and blend it with what's already there. Blending the
gross details-- the cut and fissure patterns on his skin --wasn't difficult.
The difficulty was in blending the smooth areas of the skin so that the
textures matched. Although the skin is smooth, it's not perfectly shiny
smooth, and has a matte texture with some tiny pits, wrinkles, and fissures.
I made about a dozen tiny texture stamps taken from all over his body
and used them to stamp texture patterns into the blended putty areas.
This makes the blended areas more matte and better matches the detailed
texture of the skin. It's difficult to judge how well it blends as you
work on it because the color difference is so stark. Spraying the area
with primer (pic 3 above, right) lets you know if the added material
blends or looks funky.
Heck, even if the patch work is a little funky, a paint job like this
will make it less noticible. It's a pretty basic paint job: A gray primer
coat, a flat white spray coat and a light airbrush coat of off-white before
painting the black detail. I think the costume is actually a pretty pure
white, but many pictures show a yellowish cast, probably due to the lighting.
I decided to go for something in between.
Painting the black detail was awfully tedious and the paint needed to
be fairly thick so that it didn't wick into the white paint's matte texture.
Some touchup was necessary, and a recurring question was where the dividing
line between the two shades should be-- the black areas are recessed,
but there's a "gray zone" between the two. At any rate, it was necessary
to make sure that the dividing line wasn't ragged. The pointalist dorsal
stripe was likewise tedious work. It would have been much easier with
a Pigma Micron pen instead of a brush, but I don't like the ink's sheen.
Besides, a brush lets you make different sizes of dots, whether you want
to or not. The stripe should actually extend all the way down the tail,
but that wouldn't look very good since the tail was intended to be re-poseable.
The last thing I thought about was the mouth, when it was too late to
do anything fancy. The costume's mouth appears to be a backlit clear panel,
and it's pretty impossible to paint something like that. Basically, the
only thing brighter than off-white is white, and the contrast isn't nearly
enough to give the illusion of lighting. I tried all sorts of things--
interference paint, clear yellow paint, varnish... before finally settling
on a mix of pure white & varnish dots. There's a slight wash of clear
yellow, but it's not really visible in the pics.
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