Billy (Predator)
Hot on the heels of my success with the
Alien figure (well, I saw it as a success), I decided to tackle
another little model-and-paint job. Hold up in a dust covered box in
the attic, I’d been keeping this little kit.
It’s a 14” model kit of the
Predator, as seen in the first Arnold Schwarzenegger film. It was a
gift when I was about 13 years old, and at the time (and still to
this day, if a little less so) a big fan. The kit itself is pretty
basic under close scrutiny; the casting isn’t particular good (the
bones in particular worn across the chest are terrible) and it
doesn’t fit together snugly when assembled. Many years ago the
thing came to pieces, and some, like the wrist blades, were lost
entirely. Other aspects, such as the wires and pipes which connect
the shoulder weapon to the arm and the mask, never even existed.
 |
| The kit (in pieces) and some colour references. |
Now, I’m presently 35, so back when I
was 14 there was little in the way of publicity stills and (even if
it existed at the time, which I doubt) our home certainly didn’t
have internet. Therefore, my father, who first painted this for me,
took a running guess at the colours. I only noticed ion later years
that he’d come up short, and being colour blind (which we both are)
probably didn’t help any. Anyway, as you can see here, he went for
greens and bronze, which, to his credit, in the jungle light it often
looks this way. This time around though I opted to find the right
colours.
A quick internet search turns up some
great images. The creature’s skin is actually a pallid flesh, with
browner patches and darker spots. The finger and toe nails are shiny
black, like the ‘hair’, with bronze adornments. The bones he
wears are polished and near-white, the clothing is earthy, and the
amour is a dirty metallic silver. I figure every Predator is a
little different, so while I probably won’t be able to match this
pallet exactly, I can at least get pretty close to it.
 |
| Amended base and new bones added. |
First I assemble the Predator, and when
I’m happy (my God this was a fucking pain, for some reason it just
would not stick), I add a few extra touches; I use plastic pipes and
electrical wire to the shoulder cannon, I seal up the gap in the hair
with extra dreadlocks made of model putty (although, in all honesty I
kinda mess this up and hope to fix it somehow), and I cut-up a small
plastic dinosaur toy for the bones on the necklace. Then I glue the
predator to the base and coat in black paint.
Next I tackle the base. My father
originally glued real twigs and plants to it, but these perished
pretty fast, so this time I’m going to use plastic plants, which I
acquire in cheap shops, with the exception of the tree stump. For
this, I actually venture out to find a suitable piece of wood, which
I then proceed to cut and hack to fit. It’s already dried-out, so I
give it a clean, and a very thorough black paint job to seal-in
anything unpleasant (yes, this may well be the final resting place of
some unfortunate centipede or woodlouse, this I will have to live
with).
 |
| Painting under way. |
I paint the base first with a mixture
of greens, grays and browns and various ink washes (again, detail not
as important as it will be on the Predator itself), along with the
feet, before I attach the plastic plants- because I know doing this
will obscure and make it difficult to paint anything below the knees.
Next I tackle the
bones, which are a pretty straight forward white, and then the skin.
I start with a fleshy hue, and onto this, with a drab brown, I add
the mid-tone markings. On this I add another layer of spots, this
time in very dark brown, and use a pale cream on the meatier parts of
the Predator’s body and limbs. After this, the fabric and the
armor. It all comes together quite fast, but a little bright, which
was my intention, as I then use a dark brown ink-wash over the whole
figure, which runs into the cracks and grooves, bringing out the
detail while also muting the colours a little. Onto this I add a few
minor highlights to the folds in the fabrics and gloves, the bones,
and to the lighter patches of the skin.
 |
| Near completion. |
By this point the Predator is almost
complete, but there's an issue I've been wrestling with; the mold of the
model does not include the 'body netting'. I consider painting and
tacking a fruit net, but this is a job beyond my skill, I'm more a
bodger than I am a model artist. So, instead, I opt to carefully
paint this directly onto the model. The danger here is that if I go
wrong, I ruin the skin and may need to start from scratch, but in the
end (a few mistakes aside) I'm generally pleased with the result.
And it's finished. Here it is, in all
it's otherworldly glory, my repaint / fixer-upper Predator figure (Although I have yet to add replacement wrist blades to the right arm)...
