Minor/Repaint: Soundwave Prime Minor Repaint (First post:)

Discussion in 'Radicons Customs' started by Reichstein, Dec 19, 2014.

  1. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Hey there all!

    Just thought I'd share this with the community.

    I recently got back into collecting transformers and picked up the TF-Prime Version of Soundwave, cuz he looks awesome and is just sooo badass in the show.

    But comparing him to the show model the toy is missing most of the great glow lines that Soundwave has. So I decided to tinker with him and see if i could improve his look. Check out the pics attached to see the end result.

    I did the whole thing with a couple of felt tip markers and clear nail polish.

    Then I made an interesting discovery, mixing the felt tip marker with the nail polish makes the mixture UV REACTIVE :) 

    So all the pink/purple lines glow brightly under a UV lamp, TOTALLY AWESOME!!

    Sadly I cannot get the glow effect to show up in photos, seems the camera sees UV differently to the human eye :( 
    If anyone has any tips for capturing the UV glow in a photo I'd love to hear from you.
     

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  2. Sponge

    Sponge Herald of Unicron

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    Nice

    Was it a highlighter you used? Because they are usually uv reactive to begin with
     
  3. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Not sure what brand the marker is (the label is worn) but its not a highlighter, just a felt tip marker.

    I would have expected the marker to be UV reactive but its not.
    I had some areas that I had not use any nail polish on and they did not glow under UV. However after hitting them with some nail polish they now glow brightly under UV.

    I even noticed that the tips of laserbeak's wings have a slight green glow under UV. Those were colored with a black sharpie and sealed with nail polish.

    The nail polish is a "Coral Colours Base Coat", its clear and does not seem to glow under UV on its own.

    Its really just a happy accident, something to keep in mind for cheap and easy UV paintjobs. Now i just need to buy a decent UV lamp to show off the effect.
     
  4. hellbred

    hellbred Well-Known Member

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  5. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Thanks. Glad you like it. I really wish it would photograph better in UV light.
    The pink lines really glow under UV and it just makes him look so unexpectedly awesome.
    It's kinda funny, when I was adding color I remember thinking it would be really cool if I could somehow make the lines glow, and now they do. :) 

    I had thought about doing some tentacles, the wire suggestion is something I'll have to look into.

    I did see on shapeways someone has made some addon tentacles that look rather nice, not sure about price though, the page seems to be down at the moment.
     
  6. crippy59

    crippy59 Well-Known Member

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    Awesome work. I've always wanted to do a paint like this. Do you apply nail polish first, then quickly go over w/ the marker?
     
  7. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    I used the marker first then the nail polish.

    Since i wanted to highlight the grooves in the sculpt I ran the marker over the grooves, then wiped the excess away with my finger.

    After that I applied the nail polish to act as a clear coat.

    If you intend to do the same I suggest testing somewhere inconspicuous with the marker to ensure the excess wipes away (plastics differ).
    The other thing to note is that the nail polish caused the marker to run and altered it color. It made the marker brighter, in some spots it looks almost metallic, such as laserbeak's tail and the engine glow.

    I found while the nail polish was still wet the excess wipe away fairly easily.

    Overall I'm really happy with it, I have ordered a better blacklight so I may be able to post some photos of the UV glow when that arrives.
     
  8. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    So I made some tentacles. :) 

    [​IMG]

    After looking at Hellbred's post about using wire ties I decided to experiment (I had a few really long wire ties sitting around).

    I found that I couldn't get the tentacles to look even enough by just twirling the wires. So I tried keeping one wire straight and wrapping the other tightly around it. It worked great! Only problem is you need a really long wire tie for the wrapping, but I had a couple so I made a pair of tentacles :) 

    After that I used a scrap of plastic to make a plug to fit the socket on the back and affixed the tentacles to the plug.

    For color I used the same purple marker as before then nail polish (for that healthy UV shine) and finally a top coat with a black sharpie.

    The claws are made from some warhammer 40k space marine heads.
    I chopped of the horns and then re-attached them as claws.
    I need to get some paint for the claws since honestly the current marker paint job kinda sux. But the whole thing took a little under an hour to complete so I reckon the tentacles look great overall :) 

    What do you guys think?
     

    Attached Files:

  9. hellbred

    hellbred Well-Known Member

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    thees tentacles look great
    awesome work
     
  10. CometArmagon

    CometArmagon Planet Trasher Extrodiner

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    Absolutely love what I am seeing here.

    Clever use of basic supplies and re-purposing, utterly amazing :D 

    Faved this because its such a good idea!
     
  11. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Thanks for the comments :) 

    I have since used some hotglue to fill in the gaps. Such as the wire tie bundle at the back and where the claws connect to the tentacles.
    The hotglue takes permanent marker fairly well so its pretty easy to color.

    I'm a little annoyed with myself though, I rewatched an episode of prime the other day and realized the claws have 4 fingers not 3. I may correct that at some point if I can be bothered.

    Still waiting on a UV filter so I can show of his cool UV glow paintjob. I will post some more pics when that arrives.
     
  12. CometArmagon

    CometArmagon Planet Trasher Extrodiner

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    I would definitely love to see that :) 

    On a side note can you maybe snap a photo of the marker you used, someone might be able to ID it from the shape/color.
     
  13. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    I found another marker from the pack that has a less worn label.

    It is a Bazic permanent marker.

    I did some tests a while ago and found that not all colors become UV reactive with nail polish. But this pink marker and a green sharpie I tried produced a really nice glow.

    Unfortunately my nail polish is now very pink from the ink getting on the brush. It might pay in future to pour out a small amount and use a separate brush.

    Hang on! I've just had an apostrophe!
    Lightning has just struck my brain!

    What if you put the ink core from the marker into the nail polish? I think it would soak into the nail polish, turning the whole pot into UV reactive paint!

    I'll need to try this, I'll have to buy some more markers first (don't really wanna destroy my only one if it fails).

    We may just have stumbled onto cheap UV paint, nice :) 
     

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  14. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Ok, so I managed to take a few passable shots of the UV glow, keep in mind it captures poorly. The glow is much more pronounced in real life. The engine looks particularly good, the glow gives it a real energon thruster look like in the show.


    [​IMG]

    Edit: Added a couple more photos
     

    Attached Files:

  15. hellbred

    hellbred Well-Known Member

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    awesome
     
  16. CometArmagon

    CometArmagon Planet Trasher Extrodiner

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    I'm gonna have to try making this nail polish UV paint at some point, it would be a real money saver if it was cheaper then an actual paint pot.

    I'm sold I'm gonna have to do this to my Soundwave after seeing those shots, to cool not to do!
     
  17. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    The thing that got me started was that the Takara version has very little paint and many of the stickers really suck.

    The black and purple sections on his shins were done with stickers that totally don't stick properly (curved surface and all) unlike the Hasbro version which has paint.
    So I took a couple of markers and did it myself, then sealed it with nail polish since its a raised section and I figured it would wear.
    I noticed that the pink got more vibrant when mixed with the nail polish and looked real nice, so I did a few more bits that had color in the show.

    However when I noticed that it glowed under UV I went a little nuts and painted as many of the grooves as I could :) 

    I'm gonna buy some more markers today and see how pink I can make the nail polish in the pot become.
     
  18. CometArmagon

    CometArmagon Planet Trasher Extrodiner

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    I really in all honesty hate the Tak stickers, there utter garbage, my Skywarp has this problem so I know your pain all to well.

    Nail polish does make an amazing sealant and can prevent a whole slew of problems when dealing with paint. Every now and then though you'll need to touch it up as it chips ;/

    I am eager to see how strong a UV paint you can make :D 
     
  19. Reichstein

    Reichstein Well-Known Member

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    Well the paint worked out fairly well.

    I pulled the pink marker apart and chopped up the core so it would fit in the nail polish container. The color has really soaked into the nail polish, it used to be crystal clear.

    Cost wise, the nail polish was $8 for the bottle and the markers were $3 for a pack of 6 different colours.

    If I had some empty nail polish jars or something similar I could have made several small batches of different colours


    So here it is in normal light, very colored. Also still has "fluff" from inside the pen in it. I cut the sides of the ink core to help the ink soak out. Not the best idea I've ever had.

    [​IMG]



    Here you can see the blacklight glow

    [​IMG]



    This is some test painting I did on the side of a KO ravage flash drive. I painted some on the black and some on the silver. The silver shows the paint very well, but the black not so much.

    [​IMG]



    Here it is under UV for the glow

    [​IMG]



    Overall I'm pleased with these results.
    The place I got the nail polish from was out of stock, but once they get more I'll have a go at making other colors.
    If I had some empty jars I'd put a quarter of a jar in each and make a selection of colors.
    I also recommend not slicing the ink core open. I did this to try to get more ink out, which did work but now the fluff is swollen with paint and would be very messy to remove.
    In the future I would chop the core into short lengths of about 4-5cm (you want to be able to put the lid back on the nail polish with the ink core inside), and then use a pin to put a few holes in the sides of the ink core to help soak the ink out while still keeping the fluffy insides together.
     

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  20. hellbred

    hellbred Well-Known Member

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    i shall have to look in to this