[b]About the (conversion) project:[/b]
After a long hiatus an anime character model again! This Rei Ayanami figure was inspired by a photo-realistic illustration I found while browsing A.I.-generated artwork at playground.com, and the respective artwork was created by a prompt from someone called “YCTt”.
I liked the less anime-esque style of the character, and the red-and-white plugsuit design with many colorful contrasts, and saved the artwork as an inspiration – until I recently felt the urge to build “something different” from my usual what-if military vehicles and went through my stock of resin anime character kits to find a suitable “canvas”.
I eventually settled upon a 1:6 scale model of Rei Ayanami in her authentic white plugsuit, even though it’s a more anime-ish rendition and not so “realistic” as the A.I. illustration. The kit is just a recast and I had preferred a smaller scale, but I found that the figure’s upright standing pose and the plugsuit’s rather simple style would be a good starting basis.
The parts were cast well, without bubbles and with almost no seams, but details and edges not particularly crisp. The white resin material was not very dense either, everything felt light and a bit delicate – but not brittle. However, the kit was quite cheap, and you get what you pay for – and that was/is not bad at all, esp. as a conversion basis.
After cleaning the fit of the major parts (torso and legs were a single piece, and both arms, together with an area of the flanks, cut out along natural seams of the plugsuit) turned out to be very good, so that the arms could be worked on and especially painted separately, to be assembled later without PSR!
For display I built a neutral 4x4” base from a piece of laminated chipboard, pimped with edge band. A 2.5mm iron wire was mounted as a figure holder, and the same material was also used to strengthen the connections of the figure’s major components. Once completed the base was painted with semi-matt acrylic black paint from a rattle can.
The figure was built mostly OOB, I just made some minor tweaks. One fundamental thing I changed was the head position. The original figure looks over the left shoulder, but I wanted to present her later in a frontal view, so that the eyes should rather look forward. That was not so easy to realize, because the neck had to be modified, with a wedge-shaped plug under the chin to lift the face into a proper new position. This was sculpted with 2C putty around the head’s iron wire connector and some fine acrylic putty for a smooth finish.
From that point on head and body developed separately. The boxy things under the breast were removed, and instead I sculpted a W-shaped ledge, again with 2C putty, to come closer to the A.I-generated, somewhat “cleaner” version of the plugsuit.
The head was taken OOB, but the eyes required some attention, because they were sculpted in a rather protruding fashion, and overall it did not have much resemblance to the original character. However, I did not dare to take the risk of physically modifying the eyes and the IMHO too pronounced lips – a decision that later turned out to be better than expected (if you do not cling too much to the real Rei Ayanami character and her traits).
Head, body and arms were worked on and painted separately – the arms made it insofar easy as they were molded with the body’s armpit sections, using natural edges of the plugsuit to hide the kit’s seams.
Painting started with an overall coat of grey acrylic primer on everything, followed by a foundation with RAL 9002 (Grauweiß) on arms and body, plus some Tamiya TS-26 (Pure White) post-shading “from above” to support light effects. This was not really necessary, though, because the figure is at 1:6 scale (1’ tall!) large enough to produce realistic light and shade effects on its own.
In the meantime the face was spray-painted with a foundation in Tamiya TS-77 (Flat Flesh) and some shading with Vallejo “Pale Flesh” from a rattle can. The lip’s line was laid out with thinned Humbrol 70 (Brick Red), and at first I painted the lips themselves in a rather dark and reddish skin tone – but that looked too exaggerated and obtrusive, esp. for Rei’s introvert and reclusive character. This was later changed to a much lighter skin tone, similar to the rest of the face.
The eyes were experimentally created with the help of decals; I had ordered a set of generic anime eye decals of various sizes and colors before the build, and luckily there was a pair of suitably red female eyes in the set that I tried. To make them fit properly onto the face I separated the yes from their brows, though, and the rather tall eyes had to be trimmed to fit on/into the sculpted eyes sockets in the resin face. Weird task, but it wok4ed better than expected, also because of a rather sturdy but flexible clear carrier film, reminiscent of vintage Matchbox kit decals.
However, this was not the end concerning the eyes: I added some eyelashes and eyelids with black paint, some lighter red sections to the pupils and small white light reflexes. In the end the combined method of decals plus painting worked well, with a presentable result.
After the face had been finished it was sealed with matt acrylic varnish and the “hair helmet” had to be mounted and PSRed around it – another delicate task, followed by paint work on the pale blue hair for which I used Humbrol 47 as basis, mixed with Cobalt Blue for some deeper areas and hair strands and with some white for highlight, tips and an artificial light reflex halo around the upper head, frequently seen on the animated character.
In the meantime body and arms received contrast areas in deep red (Revell 34), Garter Blue (Humbrol 221) and Oxford Blue (Humbrol 104). This stunt required a lot of masking, and the demarcation lines between the red and the white sections on torso and legs were later added with generic 2mm black decal stripes. After a light black ink washing to emphasize edges and recesses the suit’s wrinkles were post-shaded with lighter shades of their foundations – only as a subtle effect to add a bit more materiality to the figure. The “00” on the breast was created with 45° USAF letters from an aftermarket decal sheet, while the large “0” on the backpack was laid out manually with black acrylic paint.
A lot of detail paint and corrections followed, everything was sealed with a coat of matt acrylic varnish, and the figure was finally assembled.
A tough project, and at first I was a bit disappointed by the kit’s face which does not resemble the anime Rei Ayanami at all. However, once completed, the face and the figure’s expression matches the A.I.-generated, rather realistic picture of the character more than expected, as if the figure would rather be a physical model of that picture than of the “real” anime Ayanami. Odd, but a pleasant and conciliatory outcome of a quite challenging conversion project. And the colorful plugsuit variant looks pretty good, too.
![Neon Genesis Evangelion +++ 1:6 Rei Ayanami in (fictional) Plugsuit [what-if/dojinshi/同人誌/based on A.I. generated artwork]](https://farm66.static.flickr.com/65535/53755936987_ca0065aa1f_m.jpg)
