Aesthetics Turning an Iplehouse Lawrence into Kerry Eurodyne [Cyberpunk 2077]

Wanted to share my work on an Iplehouse Lawrence that, per commission, will hopefully turn into Kerry Eurodyne
Fun fact - while playing through Cyberpunk, the first moment I met Kerry ingame I was like 'he and his tattoos and his Cyberwear would be a blast to make on a doll...'. But, as I don't do character dolls for myself, the idea was scrapped.
Then a few weeks later, @shinidoragon messaged me - and wanted him. How could I say no Its a lot to do and I have no idea how long it takes, but I'm always up for challenges!


The to do list (will be updated):

• remove old face-up - done!
• make new face-up - done!
• hand/feet blushing - done!
• bodyblush, torso only - sealed, 5%
• tattoos, torso only - front done, back done
• add cyberwear - details done, need to sculpt bigger parts
• add tattoos - one arm done, other arm 35%

Thankfully Maciej Paczkowski, the character artist, uploaded Kerrys complete turnaround and detail shots on his artstation account... https://www.artstation.com/artwork/L3bG40
Plus here are his tattoos: https://static.wikia.nocookie.net/c...tattoos.png/revision/latest?cb=20201223233110

First pictures will follow in the next post.

 

Okay so even before his parts arrived I was thinking of how exactly to make his cyberwear. They're in some parts embossed (on his face), and in some debossed (on his neck). While I can't do much to make them actually embossed without modding him permanently, I can do debossed cyberwear. But how to make them shiny gold?

So, several options. No 1:
Leaf gold. Hard to tame, and leaf gold glue is hella expensive, so I tried other options. Which lead me to simple PVA glue and, behold, double sided tape.


All wonky lines are dried PVA with gold leafing, and the very straight line is a thin strip of douple sided tape and gold leaf. They look very, very fancy, but, and thats my actual problem, hard to apply. They're easy on a headcap, sure, but on a neck? Meh. The tape idea might be great for single, long lines though, we'll see if I can use it. And yes, the tape is very durable, but not durable enough to harm the resin.

Option No 2:
Paint on pigment gold. Any one who ever bought premade acrylic gold paint knows that its mostly pretty diluted and not... very shiny. Like meh-shiny. So a while ago I got myself Schminckes Aqua Bronze 'rich pale gold' (heres on on amazon, but I'm sure every art supplies shop that carries Schmincke should have them https://www.amazon.com/Schmincke-Aqua-Bronze-Powder-15811032/dp/B00VVPW510). The rich pale gold is extreeeemly shiny and very easy to use - just mix it with water or something like Greenstuffs Master Medium for pigments, and you're good to go.

Whily I'm at Greenstuff, they also have their Pure Metal Pigments, in this case 'antique gold'. So once he got here, I tested both of them too:


The upper 4 lines are antique gold, the lower 4 ones are rich gold. The difference is in the details; antique Gold gives a very smooth finish, while rich gold is a tad more coarse- the particles are larger. It is the more shiny one oft the two, although just by a bit. Both are far, FAR more shiny than any readymade liquid paint I've ever tried, but their closeness to each other make a decision hard.

Regardless of my testing, I took off his old face-up and started on his new one, scetching his cyberwear to get a feeling where they sit:

In red brown, because I felt that would be a good base color for gold. But with all his blushing, beard and skin texture the markings will probably get rather dull once I get to the actual gold paint

 

I have their chrome silver. Unfortunately there are some problems with it. They're not acrylic based from what I understand (and therefore need some good layers of sealant underneath), they stink (like mad!), and, which is my personal biggest problem, this 'gently rubbing it with a soft cloth' might work on whole pieces, but not with single lines. The chrome pigments just gets all over the place :/ And while it is very shiny, the Greenstuff Metal Pigment Antique gold is just as shiny, and easier to handle.

 

Finished the hand and feet blushing, they just need another layer of sealant and some gloss on the nails.




Also did some first test on how to make his beard; I've done beards with watercolor pencils so far, but as his beard wil lget some light hairs in there too (which is very annoying to make with penicils) painting it would be better.
Looks pretty nice I think!

 

Used todays D&D round to paint his beard and eyebrows (really relaxing sending your character to certain doom while taptaptap-ing single hairs). No white hairs though, to give a younger look.

 

Faceup is nearly done, just lashes, some gloss and a I'm thinking about a quick round with some matt varnish over the beard, as the original black paint I used got very glossy with the color thinner... we'll see. BUt so far, looking good!

Also scetched his cyberwear on his chest/belly. Kinda afraid of starting them tbh :,)

 

Okay so next step - his chest. While sketching the cyberwear out I noticed some things - mainly that its not complete on the official character creation pictures. they only show the bumpmap (?) of it, but ingame are some more details you can't see there.
So after some digging in found these two pictures - number one is great for a detail shot of his chest, which shows that his whole chest area can, technically, be removed. Number 2 is a great shot of his neck/chest area - surprisingly there are two Japanese (?) symbols on his cyberwear. As if they aren't already complicated enough :,)
https://www.modscyberpunk2077.com/wp-content/uploads/2021/01/younger-kerry-eurodyne-textures-5.png
https://staticdelivery.nexusmods.com/mods/3333/images/998/998-1610785794-1003768524.png

 

Updates!
I finally bit the bullet and started to sketch his tattoos. I figured his symmetrical one might be easier...

Well, no. Not easier at all. Getting the scale right was pretty easy, but aligning it like in the game? Ungh. don't get me started on distortion due to muscles... :,)

Well after some trial and error (including me sketching the whole thing on paper to get an idea how the lines align) I slowly went on...


to finally this


... where I've run out of masking tape. The plan is to dust everything with dark blue pastels, take off the tape, paint the tattoo on with dark blue/grey acrylics, remove remaining pastel dust with a magic eraser.

 

Tattoo updates, sketched the other arm today..

 

Been a while, but another update!
finished one of the arm tattoos, just sealant missing...

 

Updates! Took me a bit, but started on the rest of his tattoos and the cybermods. Had to modify the tattoo along his shoulder a bit...

 

Updates on this big boi. Arm is nearly done, just some details are missing.

 

Feels a bit surreal, but - hes done? Worked through the last details plus the cybermods on his throat, and now the only thing thats missing is sealing, but that should be done quick.