- Joined
- Jan 31, 2022
- Messages
- 47
Assuming you saw my other thread warning against UV treating Mimic, you already know part of this story.
This Mimic had suffered a de-horning in her time. I suppose her original owner preferred her to be an earthpony (honestly I had considered just filling the hole in flat and making her an earthie just for funsies). I got her online at a reduced price, though still fairly high considering her condition. I had never resculpted any missing body parts on a pony before, but I was confident in my ability to do so. My plan was to restore her to a displayable state, and re-sell her.
When she arrived it was kind of surreal. I looked at her like, "wow, people pay hundreds for this pony." (as if I hadn't done that exact thing with other ponies lol, I've just never personally been interested in Mimic)
She cleaned up really well, there were just a couple spots that I figured would be taken care of with UV fading; an orange stain on her lifted foreleg and a mark next to her left eye. She also had some pindot on her lip and edges of her hooves, so after these photos were taken, I subjected her to a hot oxy bath. Unfortunately this caused the red of her symbols to fade. I hadn't initially planned on repainting them. It also kind of dyed the white (formerly pink) streak in her hair slightly bluish.
Just over a day in to her UV treatment, I thought I noticed her orange-stained leg becoming lighter than the rest of her. It wasn't super apparent at first, so I chalked it up to me being paranoid. Couple days later, the orange staining was still visible but her leg was definitely lighter than her body. I took her out and decided to stop the UV treatment, and popped her head off in preparation for the horn resculpting. That's when I saw just how significantly her body had faded. Previously the inside and outside of her matched in colour, but now her neck plug and inside her body had retained her original colour and showed clearly just how badly she had faded. At that point I thought about abandoning her and selling her off to someone else to restore at a loss. I had messed up this expensive pony.
She sat on my desk for a while, decapitated and hornless. I was ashamed. I felt like continuing to restore her was pointless. But then I grew somewhat attached. She was my Messed-Up Mimic™, a learning experience. She would never have been perfect anyway.
So, I started sculpting her horn. I made a mold out of a Basic Fun Sparkler's horn, because the only other Mimic pose pony I have is SS Bangles. I noticed the Mimic pose has a pretty short horn, compared to the other unicorns. The mold was made using a mold making sculpey that stays flexible after baking.
First I tried casting it with air-dry clay, But the lack of structural integrity of the clay when wet made it night impossible to shape. After drying, the shrinkage was a bit too significant. Plus I didn't want the horn to be too brittle. Eventually I had the idea to just use the mold-making sculpey to make the horn itself. It stayed flexible after baking but wasn't flimsy, kind of like a vinyl. A wire was inserted into the horn to keep it from flexing too much though.
The horn was fixed on the inside with apoxie sculpt, and any gaps on the outside were filled with the original air dry clay I had used. Colourmatching her horn to her body was AGONY. Her body colour is so weird, even a faded version of it, and I did a million micro adjustments to the paint trying to get the exact right shade. I didn't, of course. But it's about as close as I can get for now, and on display it looks just fine. I also repainted her symbols, and thankfully I had a tube of paint that pretty much exactly matched the red.
ANYWAY, without further ado, here's Messed-Up Mimic™
She's completed, she's on the shelf, and she's mine. For now.
This Mimic had suffered a de-horning in her time. I suppose her original owner preferred her to be an earthpony (honestly I had considered just filling the hole in flat and making her an earthie just for funsies). I got her online at a reduced price, though still fairly high considering her condition. I had never resculpted any missing body parts on a pony before, but I was confident in my ability to do so. My plan was to restore her to a displayable state, and re-sell her.
When she arrived it was kind of surreal. I looked at her like, "wow, people pay hundreds for this pony." (as if I hadn't done that exact thing with other ponies lol, I've just never personally been interested in Mimic)
She cleaned up really well, there were just a couple spots that I figured would be taken care of with UV fading; an orange stain on her lifted foreleg and a mark next to her left eye. She also had some pindot on her lip and edges of her hooves, so after these photos were taken, I subjected her to a hot oxy bath. Unfortunately this caused the red of her symbols to fade. I hadn't initially planned on repainting them. It also kind of dyed the white (formerly pink) streak in her hair slightly bluish.
Just over a day in to her UV treatment, I thought I noticed her orange-stained leg becoming lighter than the rest of her. It wasn't super apparent at first, so I chalked it up to me being paranoid. Couple days later, the orange staining was still visible but her leg was definitely lighter than her body. I took her out and decided to stop the UV treatment, and popped her head off in preparation for the horn resculpting. That's when I saw just how significantly her body had faded. Previously the inside and outside of her matched in colour, but now her neck plug and inside her body had retained her original colour and showed clearly just how badly she had faded. At that point I thought about abandoning her and selling her off to someone else to restore at a loss. I had messed up this expensive pony.
She sat on my desk for a while, decapitated and hornless. I was ashamed. I felt like continuing to restore her was pointless. But then I grew somewhat attached. She was my Messed-Up Mimic™, a learning experience. She would never have been perfect anyway.
So, I started sculpting her horn. I made a mold out of a Basic Fun Sparkler's horn, because the only other Mimic pose pony I have is SS Bangles. I noticed the Mimic pose has a pretty short horn, compared to the other unicorns. The mold was made using a mold making sculpey that stays flexible after baking.
First I tried casting it with air-dry clay, But the lack of structural integrity of the clay when wet made it night impossible to shape. After drying, the shrinkage was a bit too significant. Plus I didn't want the horn to be too brittle. Eventually I had the idea to just use the mold-making sculpey to make the horn itself. It stayed flexible after baking but wasn't flimsy, kind of like a vinyl. A wire was inserted into the horn to keep it from flexing too much though.
The horn was fixed on the inside with apoxie sculpt, and any gaps on the outside were filled with the original air dry clay I had used. Colourmatching her horn to her body was AGONY. Her body colour is so weird, even a faded version of it, and I did a million micro adjustments to the paint trying to get the exact right shade. I didn't, of course. But it's about as close as I can get for now, and on display it looks just fine. I also repainted her symbols, and thankfully I had a tube of paint that pretty much exactly matched the red.
ANYWAY, without further ado, here's Messed-Up Mimic™
She's completed, she's on the shelf, and she's mine. For now.
