Kai's Garage Kits

(i’m not ready but i promise i’ll pretend to be)

Welp, I’ll officially have a table at the inaugural Wonder Festival US (or WonFes for short) at MomoCon in Atlanta in May. I applied a couple weeks ago and the approval email showed up on Monday. I’m sure the time will fly by in an instant. Things are already moving fast!

I have a little (very little) more info about WonFes in my 11/12 post under the “acquisition” section. I’m sure I’ll cover it more once it gets closer.

I’ve never had a table at a con before, so this will be a first. Not sure what to expect, but I’ll make it work. Somewhere out there there’s a community of people who do this. My biggest regret is that I won’t be able to shop at anyone else’s booths. What’s the opposite of a silver lining? A tungsten fringe? Whatever it is, I’m wearing it right now…

On to a quick update on Yume-chan. I’ve added pants, finally. I also added a few more details to the shirt. Can you tell they’re supposed to be pajamas yet? I’m not so sure myself.

I’m glad nobody has seen all the bizarre posing I’ve been doing in the mirror to figure out the wrinkle pattern… I still don’t think it turned out quite right, though. I suspect the wrinkles would look better if they were smaller but more numerous. It shouldn’t be a difficult tweak now that I’ve at least figured out the general flow of the fabric. The great thing about Monster Clay (or, I presume, any oil clay) is that I can always come back and change things later. Nothing’s set in stone until it’s set in resin.

I REALLY REALLY REALLY regret not making the armature stronger. The further I progress, the more I think it was my single biggest mistake when starting the sculpt. I made the armature too thin, and without the stiffness to keep everything in place it likes to bounce around and flex when I’m working (well, I blame the armature, but it probably doesn’t help that I kept posing and re-posing everything 😓). It’s not shown in the pictures, but the right leg kept cracking as I was working on it and I kept having to jam it back together and hope it stayed. I finally took a lighter to it to melt the clay back together. It’s staying put now, but I’m still cautious around that area. It just has to hold out until I cast it…

I plan to detail up the head, hands, and feet after cutting them off of the main sculpt. I think they’ll be easier to do separately, and I’ll have to cut it into pieces anyway in order to cast it. I’m also planning to separate the top and bottom halves and possibly separate the legs from each other. Besides the advantages in casting (simpler shapes will be easier to mold and cast than more complex ones), it’s way easier to paint a GK when you can work on all sides of a piece without other parts of the sculpt getting in the way.

I mentioned in a previous post that I’m mostly following the process laid out in the book “Pop Sculpture.” That book recommends casting your rough clay statue into wax, then using that as the medium for the final sculpt. This is a much harder material and allows for a higher level of detail than you could achieve with clay. I don’t think I’m at a level yet where I would benefit from that, but I’m tempted to try it anyway just for the extra experience. Or I might just finish Yume-chan out with clay. I haven’t made up my mind yet.

Someday I’ll sculpt my own Ecstasy of Saint Teresa. Or probably not. But let me dream a little.

Finally, here’s a sneak peek at the next kit I’m planning to build. I’ll probably turn this into a tutorial on how to sand, pin, and prep a GK for painting. Not the most exciting topic, but absolutely critical if you really want to get into garage kits.

Anyways, sorry for the rambling post. Mostly I’m just excited to be appearing at WonFes. Can I call this a debut?