C’Tan Shard of the Deceiver in the style of Sonichu (CWC)
I lied. This is my favorite figure. Commentary under cut.
#1: Rule Number One Is That You Gotta Have Fun
The other two figures I painted had ups and downs--days genuinely ruined and many frustrated moments where I just hated everything about this hobby and everything I was making. I'm sure this is no strange feeling to any artist, but since I kinda gave up on art over a decade ago only to pick this up after that decade, it really felt like that heartbreaking moment of making something that you know was bad and not improving fast enough.
I never had that for one second while painting Sonichu. I honestly giggled to myself a lot when I worked on him. When something fucked up (note how I didn't make as good of a glowing effect on the eyes) I just took that as "Well, that's just me being accurate to the original art." When something went well, I learned something that I would be able to apply in the future. If you look closely at the quills and the chest, you'll see that this was the first time I tried edge highlighting to get more of a good lighting effect. On top of that, I just used Baharroth Blue without a base paint, but rather as a base paint that I later darkened with a Tyran Blue shade wash for the creases in the sash. I did the same for the skin near on his abs and arms. (I should have made them blue. Damn.)
I also didn't get so bogged down in being accurate to the inspiration, or became better at knowing what to pick and choose. For example: Sonichu doesn't have a sash, of course. Instead, I decided to go with the color of the banner in Issue #0.
There was a point I briefly considered learning how to actually make a decal, then taking the title to be plastered on the front of the model, but I decided against it. I even considered some yellow streaks to give him a bit of a glow, but if you look at the base you'll see some of the experimental wetblending I tried (and would hypothetically cover later) and it just didn't look good.
Also the feet. Sonichu does have a distinct color for his shoes, but I just shrugged and figured it was more correct to just keep it in line with his hands on the model. I made the hands in the hideous style of the Bad Trailer Sonic, and figured the feet would probably follow the same principle. Besides, the sash had enough blue as it is.
#2: Rule Number Two - Just Don't Get Attached, Too
I said I had fun at all stages painting Sonic'hu, and I meant that. The painting part, that is. Gluing was a disaster.
If you're new to the hobby, understand this: Older models, things from the 90's or earlier, are produced using a plastic resin. It's very light gray (left) while the newer stuff has a dark gray tint and is made with a different kind of plastic.
Now Citadel sells ONE (1) glue, pictured to the left. It's a very good glue for the DARK GRAY plastic. It looks like this. Some people use the one on the right, but the listing on Amazon is apparently sketchy as hell and comes empty because they can scam you out of your money since you can't return or refund liquids. So I never fw it; if I encounter it in a hardware store or hobby shop, I'll pick it up and give it a shot.
This is all to ultimately say that in spite of Citadel selling only ONE KIND OF GLUE, that ONE GLUE cannot hold light gray resin figures together AT ALL.
I don't have pictures, but God was it frustrating. Sonic'hu would CONSTANTLY fall apart while drying. I would be holding his arm in place; the head would fall off. His spines would fall off. He'd flop over on his base. Even after priming him, his arm fell off again, and you can see his face is a mess of when my fingers were just covered and glue and I was just holding him in place frustratedly. I tried like three different glues (not including Tamiya, but Krazy Glue was one) and I don't remember which one worked.
However, whether Tamiya works or not, I actually did have to go back to resin on a different figure recently. I went through my old man's drawer and found this.
It's unreal how good this is. Put this on resin, and the plastic itself comes apart easier than the glue does. It also works okay on the dark gray figures, but I've had the odd part come undone and I went back to the Citadel Glue.
Fair warning though--I'm praising this version of Loctite specifically. There are a few varieties, and I can't say much as far as their quality, but I read online that the ones with an extra long cap tend to dry out and be unopenable later. This Gel Control version doesn't give me any problems like that, though.
#3: Rule Number Three - Wear Your Heart On Your Cheek
My only regret is not going harder with this.
There were some gemstones at the bottom of this model and I literally don't remember what happened to them. I was going to paint them like Chaos Emeralds, originally. Then I saw a paint job of the model that had stones encircling the C'tan Shard like he was making them rise up Dragonball style, and the thought came to mind to get little Chaos Emerald replicas to look as though they were orbiting him. (Unfortunately, Etsy pretty much only had them in a set size, and though Sonic'hu was the largest figure I'd worked on, he was too small to have those orbiting around him.)
I also wanted to learn how to model with Green Stuff using this model; there was a point where I considered making the actual sneakers, but more importantly the Pikachu ears and the one additional spine to bring it up to six total. I didn't not want to do that when I bought it, actually, but after the glue had settled after so much effort I was utterly sick of the prep phase and just went straight to painting.
There's also a little Necron that is at the base of the C'Tan that I also haven't painted, but the reason for that is that I am considering how to do the CWC's "The Classic" shirt on his rib cage. I keep waiting for the inspiration to strike.
So that's Sonic'hu. Honestly, having a shitpost figure was something that helped me be a little less afraid of failure and take chances, make mistakes, and get messy. I would resume tryharding by the next figure, and ultimately paint, in my opinion, my best figure yet.
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