[Ray Dunakin]

Here are my first three attempts at making my own figures:
http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_20.jpg

These will be passengers for my open-air excursion cars, which are not yet built. 
I'm not very happy with the paint job on these figures. On the lighter colors I had to put the paint on pretty thick, and some of the paints are too glossy. i was using some artist's acrylics, some "Apple Barrel" craft acrylics, and "Patio Paint" exterior acrylics -- basically whatever I had on hand. The Apple Barrel stuff is very flat, which I like, but I don't know yet how well it holds up to UV exposure. 
I have some closeup shots of the individual figures here:
http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR-Figures.html#grid
And here's a figure that I'm still working on: 
http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_21.jpg
No head or hands yet, but (hopefully!) when it's done it will look like me.

 

[vsmith]

They look great to me!
For some reason the pics dont come thru but the link to the site work OK

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Darn it, trying to post pics is driving me crazy! I've tried it several different ways but nothing seems to work. /DesktopModules/NTForums/themes/mls/emoticons/sad.gif

 

[rkapuaala]

When you use the reply feature it you will be taken to an editor that has a row of icons at the top of a text field. One of the icons is of a couple of hills with a sun over them. Click on that and it will allow you to select the image from your webspace on MLS. Like this:

It can't get any easier than that

 

[Semper Vaporo]

Posted By Ray Dunakin on 11/06/2008 9:59 PM
Here are my first three attempts at making my own figures:
http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_20.jpg

These will be passengers for my open-air excursion cars, which are not yet built.
I'm not very happy with the paint job on these figures. On the lighter colors I had to put the paint on pretty thick, and some of the paints are too glossy. i was using some artist's acrylics, some "Apple Barrel" craft acrylics, and "Patio Paint" exterior acrylics -- basically whatever I had on hand. The Apple Barrel stuff is very flat, which I like, but I don't know yet how well it holds up to UV exposure.
I have some closeup shots of the individual figures here:
http://www.mylargescale.com/%22http://www.mylargescale.com/%22http://www.raydunakin.com/Site/IRR-Figures.html#grid%22%22
And here's a figure that I'm still working on:
http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_21.jpg
No head or hands yet, but (hopefully!) when it's done it will look like me.

and

 

[Semper Vaporo]

Since you are not a "1st class member" you have to host the images someplace else, like you have done. I don't know what the editor looks like for non-1st class members but if you want to show an image, enter the characters of

"img" enclosed in square brackets (and without the quotes), then enter the URL of the image then enter the characters:

"/img" also enclosed in square brackets (and without the quotes)

The URL you used also had all kinds of font changes embedded in it that made a mess of the link.

I posted your images using the following two lines (EXCEPT these lines have a space after the opening square bracket that I have to put here so that the text will show up and not be interpreted as a command to show the image again...)

[ img]http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_20.jpg[ /img]
[ img]http://www.raydunakin.com/IRRWebfiles/w7965_21.jpg[ /img]

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Thanks. I had put the links between bracketed "img" markers as you describe but for some reason the photos still wouldn't show up. I didn't have any problems posting the pics in other forums.

Also it would be nice if there was some way to delete that first, extraneous post.

 

[rkapuaala]

Ray,
Those are excellent first figures, they are full of character and motion. Heck for that matter they are excellent even for been doing it for a couple of years characters

 

[vsmith]

RE duplicate post, PM Dwight, he can delete it

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Thanks Richard! Also, thanks answering my figure-making questions on the various forums, that helped!

 

[Matt Vogt]

Fantastic figures. Ray! I love the faces - lots of expression.

Take care,
Matt

 

[lownote]

Those are terrific! Nice work!

 

[aceinspp]

As usual you do fantastic work. Really cool looking figures. Later RJD

 

[Jerry Barnes]

Good work Ray.

 

[Guest]

Looking great Ray!
Toad

 

[Ray Dunakin]

After seeing how my first three figures turned out, I knew I needed to work on getting the faces more lifelike -- especially since my next figure is supposed to look like a real person (me). I spent much of the day today trying to get the head of my "self-portrait" figure just right, and I believe I've made great progress. I sculpted the head without hair, then baked it.

This evening I added the beard, and instantly I knew I was on the right track. With the beard and a bald head, it looks exactly like my Dad! I think after I finish this figure I'll try making a silicone mold and cast a duplicate, then turn it into a figure of my Dad.

One problem I ran into when first sculpting this head, was that the head was becoming too big, and the neck was too long. I had to carve off quite of bit of clay and reshape the head to get it right. After baking it, I had to cut the head off, shorten the neck, and reattach the head. In the future I think I'll sculpt the heads separately from the bodies.

On this figure I had to make a few changes to the body too. The torso looked too long, so I cut him in half just above the shirt tails, sanded off about 1/16" from the cut ends, and then put him back together. I also carved some material off the forearms, which were looking too thick. Now it looks much more accurate -- this figure is going to be a big improvement over my first three.

Working from photos helps a lot. The first figures were just out of my imagination. For this one, I used three different photos of myself. One had the basic pose that I wanted, another was more recent, and then I had a good head shot for detailing the face. Of course, since it's my own face I'm pretty familiar with it already.

Now, it remains to be seen whether I'll still be happy with it after I paint it. My first figures looked better to me before they were painted.

 

[Ray Dunakin]

Finished the hair last night, added the hands this morning. It's in the oven right now. This afternoon I'll get a pic of the unpainted figure, then paint it and shoot some more pics.

BTW, on this figure I used a tool I made. It's basically a brass "toothpick" with a round end and a pointy end, about 1/16" thick. I shaped it with my Dremel and then sanded it smooth. It's much smoother than the wooden toothpick I was using before, and because it's longer, it's a little easier to handle.