3" Dragon Age 2 FENRIS Vinylmation

I did this custom VM for my girlfriend Val, who absolutely loves the video game Dragon Age 2 for Xbox 360. Even more so, she absolutely LOVES this character named Fenris. He is an elf that joins your party in the game and has all sorts of fun powers, and is apparently pretty suave to boot! Anyway I will let you know all that I did to make him below.

First I painted a base coat on the VM. Then bit by bit I added details from his appearance and the game that she thought were cool. I sculpted on some pointy armor on his left arm. On his right arm I sculpted a red arm band. You get the red arm band once you complete romance missions in the game. I also sculpted his elf ears and his pouches on the front and back of his pants. Everything else is just painted on. Oh yeah see, if you can spot the hidden Mickey I painted on him! 

If you were wondering what the white lines on his skin are, they are like tattoos in the game. The lines were originally a magic dust that was adhered to his skin. On his ear I painted "DA" for Dragon Age, and on the back "II" since it is a sequel. I also painted a symbol for one of his powers on the front of the other ear, looks like a skull. That's pretty much it, I used Citadel acrylic paints, and borrowed a backdrop from another action figure that gives it a nice fantasy feel. Check out the pics, enjoy!

Reference and Work in Progress:

Fenris finished:

3" Anatomical Vinylmation (SOLD)

This custom Vinylmation started out as just fooling around with a 3" white blank figure. I wanted to see how easy it would be to chop one in half, so I took a hair dryer to soften the vinyl, and a very big knife and boom! Easy as that. Next was coming up with something interesting to actually do with the vinyl. I stewed around with some ideas fr a few days and finally settled on making an anatomical Mickey. He's not exactly scientifically accurate, but it gives a decent representation of a body under the skin. I modeled the organs and their locations after human organs. Everything anatomical on this vinyl was sculpted with Aves Apoxie. For the base I repainted a Mcfarlane Halo helmet display, and used some magnets to help hold the head up and to attach the interchangable hearts.

I thought it would be cool to show the insides of a Mickey without eing too gross and graphic. I think I pulled it off with some cute details and only a few dabs of blood on the brain. The lungs, intestines, brain, ear brain, cartoony heart, and realistic heart were sculpted with Aves Apoxie. Rare earth magnets about 1/16 of an inch can be used to interchange the cartoony and realistic heart like an accessory. I painted the outside muscles in patterns so they would look like they could move independantly. My girlfriend thought it would be cool to do part of the head as a skull and the other part as muscle tissue. I took Val's advice and love how it turned out thanks babe!!! For the skull half, I painted the pie eye with some brain seen through it. The only marker I used was for the teeth and the crack on the top of the skull. I made the crack in the skull so that the ear would look like it was brain sort of coming out of the skull just for a cool effect. Finally for a base I tried to give it a rusty metal feel, so I gave a McFarlane Halo helmet display a full repaint. Added more magnets to the top of the base, and Mickey's head stays on easily (even weighing as much as it does with all that Apoxie brain!)

Breakdown:
Base figure - 3" blank white Vinylmation
Base stand - repainted McFarlane Halo helmet display
Apoxie Sculpt - lungs, intestines, brain, ear brain, cartoony heart, and realistic heart
Rare earth magnets

Work in Progress and finished pictures:

9" Vinylmation Bioshock's Sander Cohen (SOLD)

Another Sander Cohen custom, this time I made from a blank white 9" Vinylmation.  I used only a pencil and acrylic paints, no stencils or shortcuts.  He is by far my favorite villian from Bioshock, so I wanted to point out some of his features I gave him that are also seen in the game. 

Starting with his ears, his right ear is the symbol for the "Incinerate" plasmid.  Basically gives him fire at his fingertips to defeat foes.  His left ear represents the "Houdini" plasmid, which helps him to teleport short distances.  As for his head, I wanted to give Sander his face paint he wears in the game.  I painted his face in a skin tone, then went over it many times with mostly subtle shades of white and grey.  I wanted to give him really creepy eyes that stood out, so they were my focus for his face.  Long eye lashes, runny makeup, and bloodshot eyes give this artist / showman that slightly disturbed look.  Added a few blood stains on his face and on his gloves (from his dirty work).

Moving onto the suit, I based its coloring on a painting I have of Sander, by Robb Waters.  I wanted to emphasize the flower on his jacket lapel, so I made it bigger than it should be.  I also gave him a crooked bow tie, vest, shirt, and another bit of blood spatter.  His shoes are the iconic two-tone style of the early 1900's.  I figured he might like wearing a little pink. 

For the back of his head, I painted a wooden bunny mask.  Many references to bunny masks in the game, including his symbolic poem about not being able to take his off.  Other Houdini splicers in the game wore wooden masks, so I thought it would look cool.  Confetti surrounds his mask to represent the confetti falling when you first lay eyes on Sander Cohen in Bioshock.  Also wanted it to be possible to turn his head around and make it look as though he's wearing the mask.

His back focuses on a mannequin (really a person forcefully covered in plaster) holding an empty picture frame on a stage.  I made steps to the stage and also some nasty worn red curtains.  The mannequin was part of Sander's work of art which he called his "Quadtych".  It featured multiple mannequins holding picture frames that you had to fill as part of a mission in the game.  And at the bottom of the steps to the stage, I gave him some bold red initials.

References and finished product: