To be honest, I've never been that good at crafts but I wanted to do something a little special for this article and attempt something new...So I decided to try and recreate an Alan Wake character as a Munny.
A Munny is a toy produced by Kidrobot. They are made out of soft vinyl which can be customised. The idea of making a figure like this was something which has appealed to me before, but I never really got around to starting it.
PLANNING
I began planning about a fortnight back with a couple of pencil drawings to determine how the final project should look like and what materials I needed. I made three designs. Two of the designs were of Alan but in the different outfits, the other was Mr Scratch. After the release of the Mr Scratch's Super Effect Sales Trailer, it felt appropriate.
I used reference photos to make sure that the drawings were as accurate...
List of Items:
- "4 Mini White Munny (x1) - £7.90
- Das Modelling Clay (x1) - £2.99
- Red Acrylic Paint (x1) - £0.99
- Black Acrylic Paint (x1) - £0.99
- White Acrylic Paint (x1) - £0.99
- Almond Acrylic Paint (x1) - £0.99
- Paint Brush Set (x1)
- Paint Palette (x1) - £0.49
- Black Felt tip pen (x1)
Living in London does have the benefit of having several shops in close vicinity with exactly what you're trying to find. The newly opened Kidrobot shop in Covent Garden and various stationery and art shops provided me with everything I needed. There's also plenty of shops online such as Amazon, where you can purchase the items.
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| Fancy camera angle is fancy...Also informative! |
This is the standard 4" white mini munny....
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| For those of you wondering about the poster, it was created by the wonderful people at GamerPrint |
Now Mr Scratch doesn't look like a Munny...For instance, he doesn't have a tail. Also for it to have some resemblance to the original character, you've got to have certain additions, like a waistcoat, the knife, the shirt and hair. All of this can be added using the wonderful Das Modelling Clay. It's a light weight clay that is extremely easy to use due to it's softness. It's also handy for giving the piece some heaviness to it so it's not as easy to knock over. It takes a couple of hours for the clay to dry; you can tell when it's set by its colour; turning from grey to white.
Before I started adding any clay to the figure, I removed the arms like a Wookie so that working on it became easier especially later when you're working on the sleeves or painting.
The first section I focused on was the hair just so I could get used to molding the clay. I only used a thin sheet of it since the character's hair is gelled back. The model is quite even so sometimes it was difficult to make the clay stick when you try smoothing it down, but in the end it did. The hair section was pretty straight forward so I didn't have too many issues. The main challenge I faced was trying to get the right shape which was basically trial and error.
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| I want "Like a Wookie" to now be a meme! |
While the clay was drying, I worked on the sleeves. This section was perhaps the easiest for me. I just rolled the clay out , and then used a ruler to flatten it and cut a rectangular shape out. Getting the sleeves to stick to the model proved to be quite a challenge but it finally worked after you threaten it and hide in the corner to wallow in self loathing.
There was still a bit more time left before the clay completely dried, so I decided to focus on the knife. I used the same technique as I did with the sleeves and used a ruler to flatten the clay and to shape the item. It worked quite well, although I'm not completely happy with it since it is quite fragile. (EDIT: If you want to keep your statue safe, never give it over to your older sister to "have a look at it", it doesn't matter if she says she has superglue. Thankfully it was only the weapon that broke.) The knife does fit into the Munny's hand, which is more than what I can say for the mystery item. When you buy one of the figures, it comes with various additions including a pen, name tags, stickers, and a mystery item which could be a battle axe, a spear, sunglasses, a lantern etc...I got a sign post.
After the clay dried, I created the waistcoat for the model. It was actually quite tricky to create the clothing and then to try to smooth the waistcoat on one side without completely destroying the other side...I failed...Many times, but I did manage to get it in the end! Woo! The collar was split into three separate parts; two parts at the front, one part at the back. The arms are poseable and by splitting the collar it allowed space for the arms to move and the balance to be restored to the universe. When I was forming the waistcoat, I didn't put any clay on the sides of the statue due to the inability to put the arms back on. Finally I put clay over the tail and smoothed it so it disappeared...I never thought I would ever say that....
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| I had this on my desk as I woke up the following morning, I completely forgot that I had put it there last night. It was absolutely terrifying! |
The following morning, I painted the entire model. Good news; It doesn't take as long to paint because it dries quite quickly. Bad news; I paint like a three year old who has just discovered that paint is messy but I don't have to clear up. More bad news; I had to clean up this time.
I decided to paint the hair and the suit first. My reasoning was that if I accidentally got some paint on the face, I could quickly get it off using tissue and any smudges left afterwards could be painted over using the Almond acrylic paint. It worked well until I discovered how messy black paint tends to be. All the other colours I'm fine with, but if I'm dealing with black paint I always walk away from the situation looking like I was involved in the Locking Up the Sun music video!
After I painted the suit, I focused on the face and hands which were surprisingly easy, which probably had something to do with the fact that I was painting directly onto the Munny rather than the Das clay. The almond coloured paint only took about ten minutes to dry, after which I could finally get the shirt painted in a pearl white. Apparently the shop I went to couldn't have just "white", you could get "pearl" or "metallic" or "glitter" but not just "white"...I have the feeling that if Mr Scratch had that option he probably would have gone for the metallic look in the hope that his collar could be used to puncture a lung or something! I then added a few extra details to the suit including three white buttons and the waistcoat chain. I used the black felt tip pen to just go over a couple of sections on the hair and suit that I originally missed, and used it to draw the face...
Look, he's so cheerful!
So after 11 hours, I'm finally finished!
I hope you like the final project, and make sure to check out the photos below!
Total Hours Spent: 11 Hours
Money Spent: £15.34
