Part 2 - Blue Shift

    I continued painting the figure, moving on to the torso. I masked off the hips and gave the torso a liberal slathering with Sky Blue and painted the neck armour Chaos Black. When the coat was even enough for my liking, I sealed it with varnish.

   

    Then, while that was drying, I turned my attention back to the pants. I sewed the belt on, complete with an imitation leather holster (liberated from an N2 Toys 'Trinity' figure, from their The Matrix line) and the flashlight holder that I made.

    I also sewed on hook-and-loop tape at the back and adjusted the waist size so it would fit better on the smaller Tunnel Rat frame.

        Next, I took a flashlight from the Adventure Team Snake Eyes set that I'd recently bought and painted the lens with Boltgun Metal. I left it unvarnished so that it would reflect light better.

        With the pants and accessories done, and with the torso painted, all that was left to make was Barney's flak jacket. I made a pattern out of paper and then cut the shape out of some black nylon/windbreaker material. The stuffing in the middle was cut from a static-cling cleaning sheet.

        I sandwiched the layers together and sewed them, ending up with one panel of the vest.

        I made a second panel, then joined the two together with some elastic.

        Then, I added some hook-and-loop tape to the sides so it could fasten shut.

        Next, it was time to add the Black Mesa logo to the front of the vest. I painted the ring first using Testors 1169 Flat Yellow and applied it with the detachable clip of a mechanical pencil, dipped in the paint.

        Then, I used a small brush to fill in the rest of the logo.

        For the helmet, I was at a loss. I ran into the same problem I had with my Adrian Shephard, where sculpting it was too difficult. So, I decided to compromise. I replaced the Hi-Tech head with a Tunnel Rat head, and cut off the excess hair at the back using an X-Acto knife. My reasoning was that since the top of Tunnel Rat's head is aready dome-shaped, half my work was already done for me.

    I took Craft Porcelain and built the back of the helmet over where the hair used to be. This meant the helmet wouldn't be removable, but at least it would look better than if I'd tried to sculpt it all from scratch.

    When it was dry, I used Chaos Black to paint the sculpted section, and Boltgun Metal on the top, then sealed it with varnish.

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