Castle of Doom WIP

[King Tycho]

Okay, so I'm fairly new at customizing, but I had this idea rolling around in my head and I just had to try to make it. In my collection are a few vintage bootlegs, the Galaxy Warrior and Galaxy Fighter lines being my favorite knock offs. Anyway, on the back of the Galaxy Fighters box is a picture of their playset. I was always drawn to it, as it was simultaneously a Grayskull and Snakemountain knock. I've searched eveywhere, but I've never actually managed to find any existing examples of the playset, so I wonder if it was ever made. This is what it looks like (it's at the bottom).

galaxyfightersback2c.jpg

Since I can't find one, I thought I'd make one. First I did a few studies to figure out what I was going to do. I decided it would be more fun to "interpret" the picture a little bit artistically, rather then 100 percent literal take. Here are my studies, of what I call the north entrance and the south entrance.

South entrance 1.jpg South entrance 2.jpg South Entrance 3.jpg
North entrance 1.jpg

[King Tycho]

North Entrance 2.jpg Door Crests.jpg

Once I had the basic design figured out, I started working on the piece itself. The basic is a small plastic waste can cut in half. I'm building on to it using a material called paper mache clay, and air dry clay you can make at home. I'm finding it an interesting material to use, kind of a paper-concrete. The first part I sculpted was the beak on the north entrance.

Beak.jpg

And here is how far I've come on the actual piece.

Castle of Doom.jpg
South Entrance Sculpt.jpg

[King Tycho]

North Entrance Sculpt.jpgNorth Entrance Sculpt Beak.jpg

[smanomega]

Cool I've worked with paper mache 3 times now and it's great for this type of build looks promising you can get away with alot of build up by using aluminum foil under the clay because a 1/4 inch of it is super strong.

[King Tycho]

Thanks for the tip! I'll have to give it a try, I've already been pondering how I was going to make the skull on the "South Entrance".

[King Tycho]

Here's the work I did this morning
South Entrance Sculpture.jpgSouth Entrance Sculpture 2.jpg

[iron_pride]

King, this will be sweet. I look forward to your updates.

[snakeeyes0217]

Great idea! Thanks for sharing.

[Tyke]

looking quite fun!

[smanomega]

your welcome nice start on the skull you can add on to the foil to get just below the stone surface by using small pieces of tin foil and hot glue you can add on untill you get the shape your looking for then just goop on the mache a brush with water, that will help smooth out the tricky small areas of the grooves of the skulls face then light sanding . keep it up I Love the full out customs from scratch. They are the hardest but most rewarding My customs took close to 150- 300 hours to complete.

[rhea]

Awesome, I can't wait to see how this turns out. I remember looking for this castle back in the 80s and never finding it. Good luck!