TIMES THEY ARE A CHANGIN'

A few years ago, I would sit and build my models and would not leave my workbench until they are done. I would spend countless days not doing anything else except my models. If I ever stopped, I was afraid that I would lose that momentum and abandon everything altogether. I thought this would go on forever...

Now, I have my lifetime project going on. Raising my own family. The rest is just sideliners. So, when my pc crashed for the last time 2 weeks ago, I wasn't really devastated. I was too busy chillin' with my wife and kid to notice. I did, however, manage to do some progress on the predator suit. 

Monsterroom's Latex mask and hands arrived. They are fantastic! A lot of flashing but still great nonetheless. I also finished (kinda) the body suit (without the armor). Here's what I did so far...

Almost done...

Monsterroom's mask and hands, trimmed

Zippers salvaged from my old jacket. Planning to use the faux leather for the suit as well

I'm set to paint my latex mask. All I need is some latex paint. Now, where can I get those? MonsterMakers do supply a range of latex colors. The fucked up part is, the minimum order for them to send to Malaysia is US250. Ain't that a bitch? So, I googled for tutorials on how to paint latex mask. The easiest way it seems is to mix acrylic colors with liquid latex. That's easy. Malaysia is one of the biggest exporters of latex. I could get them anywhere here, right? Wrong. R-O-N-G, wrong! I've been scurrying art shops, hardwares, suppliers and even LGM (that stands for Lembaga Getah Malaysia or Malaysian Rubber Board) and all I got was fuck all. I had to source out another method to paint the mask. Another way to do it it seems was mixing oil paint+rubber cement+naphtha. Naphtha? what the fuck is that? Thank God for google, Naphtha is Zippo fluid! HAH! And for those who doesn't know what rubber cement is, it's art gum! So here it is...the Latex paint ingredients...

The ratio is 15% oil paint+35% rubber cement + 50% naphtha/zippo fluid. Mix them evenly and they will turn up all gooie and stuff. If you decide to use airbrush, then you need to thin the mixture with more naphtha until it's like really "watery" or in Kedah tongue "Cheroi".

And here's the result...

I'm not finished painting yet but I'm satisfied with the outcome so far, for a newbie...Woohoooo!!