Lara Croft
1/9th scale Resin kit from Elite Miniatures
Painted in 2022
A foray into fantasy miniatures from Elite Miniatures, and I don’t know why it wasn’t a lot more successful with more kits added to the catalogue.
Getting a good likeness, whether in two dimensions or three is very difficult, but the sculptor has managed a very good likeness to the actress – Angelina Jolie – and the clothing , what there is of it, has been based around the first film, with a black T-shirt.
Although the sculptor has done a great job getting the likeness, a poor paintjob could still prevent the bust from looking good. So it’s worth combing the internet fro some stills from the film, and in this case some of the artwork for the posters from the film which showed exactly what I needed.
There is very little clean-up involved with the kit, a restrained mould line down the sides of the chest, but nothing on the head or neck, and the separate ponytail of hair was the only part that required a bit of attention to bring out the plaited details.
One nice touch is the tapered base with a lot of the iconography from the film replicated on each of the four surfaces, and unusually for me, I felt that I’d actually make use of this part to mount the bust on.
Painting.
I think I’ve mentioned before that painting flesh areas on a female subject it different to painting a male figure. The major two differences being that women’s skin tends to be smoother with softer curves, and that it also tends to be a little paler and more pink.
Angelina Jolie, whilst having a slight tan to her skin, still conforms to the general assessment I’ve made above, and using oils to paint the skin areas gives a distinct advantage to the painter int hat transitions from one colour to another can be made very smoothly.
In photo #1 I’d primed the whole bust with a flesh coloured acrylic, mixing the first coat with Isopropyl Alcohol to give better adherence, and then added three more coats of the flesh colour to the areas that would be flesh coloured.
Over this I’ve added a mix of Mars Brown and Titanium White oil paints, aiming for
A relatively pale mid-tone to begin with and then adding some more of the Mars Brown with a fine brush in the form of short lines or spots of colour, and then using a soft brush to blend the darker colour into the area directly surrounding it.
The amount of darker colour being added is very small, because more can always be added if the colour change isn’t great enough, however, unless all the oil paint is washed off, it’s impossible to remove the darker additions of paint if too much was put onto the surface of the model.
Having got the shadow areas established, I could begin to add some Titanium White to build up highlights. Again, a fine brush is used to spot the colour onto the figure, and then a clean brush used to blend it into the surrounding area.
Most important is to keep wiping excess paint off both the fine brush and the blending brush after each area is worked on, because they will pick up paint from the model and you don’t want to end up redistributing this excess paint to other places where it’s not needed.
In photos #2 and #3 I’ve allowed the flesh areas to dry fully – about a week in a drying cabinet, before adding more of the Mars Brown, this time mixed with a spot or two of Mars Black, and then using a fine brush to place very small amounts of the dark brown paint into the deeper recesses of detail – the corners of the eyes and under the nose in particular, but also in the ears and a fine line under the eyebrows.
I think Angelina takes a lot of time keeping her body in trim, and this is shown in the sculpture as well defined muscles on the shoulders and also some large tendons at the front of the neck. These areas also benefit from attention with some of the dark brown, particularly in reference to the neck tendons with the shadow caused by the chin in that area.
Photo #4, and I’ve moved on to the hair and the T-shirt. The hair is a very dark brown, and whilst I began with Mars Black oils over a “Vermin Fur “ acrylic from GW, by using a flat brush and working from Mars Brown through to light Red oils, I gradually built up some colouration and highlights on the hair.
Just revisiting the Mars Black layer, once the general area is blocked in, a mix of Mars Brown and Mars Black is used with a fine brush to paint in the border between the flesh and hair, painting in the individual hairs so that the border between flesh and hair colour isn’t a solid line. It’s time consuming doing this, but looks so much more realistic.
The shirt is painted with a mid-grey acrylic, then coated in oils, mixing Buff Titanium with some Mars Black and a little spot of Monastial Blue. More Black is added to crate the deeper shadows and more Buff Titanium, followed by some small additions of Titanium White being blended in to create the highlights.
Angelina Jolie has quite striking blue eyes, although according to the media, she has been known to wear lenses to alter them to a softer blue or even green. However, in the case of the film, she retains her natural appearance, and so I used Paynes Grey to mark out the eye, adding a little Titanium White to the lower part of the iris, and then added a black pupil followed by a tiny white catchlight.
Again, looking at stills, her lips are quite pink, although no bright lipstick seems to have been added, so I used a mix of Mars Brown, Carmine and a little bit of Titanium White oils to paint them, using a deeper colour on the top lip and adding lighter areas to the centre of the bottom lip.
The ponytail had a hole drilled into it where it would join the back of the head, and a short pin glued into it to use as both a handle for when it was being painted, and with a corresponding hole drilled into the location point at the back of the head, the pin could be sued to strengthen the joint when the ponytail was fastened in place.
I used the same colours to paint the ponytail as on the main body of the hair, using a fine brush that had lost it’s point, to paint in the individual bands of the plait, and allowing the bristles of the brush to spread out a little so that when the paint was applied, it appeared to be the individual strands of hair within each band.
Like the use of the fine brush to break uo the border between face and hair, this process takes a bit of time and patience, but the effect looks better than just a solid block of colour, and it’s worth it in the end.
Once fully dry, the ponytail was fastened into place, angling it so that it appeared to be swinging around her.
The plinth was painted with various metallic gold’s, beginning with a bronze colour from the Darkstar range, and following that with Antique Gold and then Bright Gold to bring out the details.
Once the acrylics had dried, I added some pin washes of Vandyke Brown to pick out the deeper sections of detail and add to the mottled surface.
Final thoughts.
I said at the beginning that I don’t know why this range wasn’t built on, although maybe “intellectual Copyrights” might have come into it. However, it’s a shame that Elite didn’t continue with other fantasy busts, because this one is really great.
OK, I’m slightly biased, as I think Ms Jolie’s a rather good looking lass, but even without that admission, this is a very good likeness to her, and playing a character from a film that is quite fun to watch.
The painting is relatively simple, there being not too much in the way of detail to complicate matters, but that simplicity just makes the sculpting stand out even more.
A nice addition to the cabinet, although space in there is getting a bit tight.
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