SilentSurfer's Laboratory: Come up to the Lab & See What's on the Slab.

mark7612 said:

I think this really hammers home how good you can become with patience and practice. I would love to see you do a head painting tutorial. Of course I also understand if you don't want to give away valuable trade secrets. As everyone has said, excellent excellent work!

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Thanks. Lots of patience and lots of practice. I really have lots of you to thank for making that possible. If I were still just doing this as a hobby, I don't think I'd have progressed much. But I like to know I'm giving you guys my absolute best every time, even when that means I have to do a little more, and work a little harder each time.

I'd love to give a tutorial at some point, but maybe not until my livelihood no longer depends on my ability to do it. I have been giving some thought to making an all encompassing instructional book and/or video for painting and customizing figures. Nodody has ever done that for us in this hobby before. I sure would have loved to have one when I was starting out, but it has been fun figuring it out the hard way.

small_studios said:

You've learned well young Jedi. :emperor

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Trevor Grove's Lawrence of Arabia will be up today.

And here you go. Trevor Grove's Lawrence of Arabia as portrayed by Peter O'Toole. This one was unique because he looks so pale in that movie and his eyes are so light. I had to be careful to hold back on the color saturation.

Always thought that was one of Trevor's finest sculpts.

I hadn't seen it before this, but it was nice to paint.

You need to see if you can get a hold of his Jaws trio to paint. Then send them to me when you're finished.

SilentSurfer said:

What are you waiting for?

Maybe I'll paint so well in another year that figures will actually come to life in the middle of the night and tie their owners to the floor with yarn.

Maybe that's what you are waiting for.

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I'm actually waiting for some $$$$
If they do come to life in the future I might have to pass, I have too many sharp pointy things around the house.

Beautiful work on those piercing blue eyes.

Loving all these updates Nathan, always a treat seeing stellar paint on Trevor's sculpts. Just breathtaking

I posted this pic on my Facebook page for all my friends who don't know how small these heads really are.

wofford29 said:

You need to see if you can get a hold of his Jaws trio to paint. Then send them to me when you're finished.

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I'd love to paint a set of those. Jaws is classic.

TheObsoleteMan said:

Beautiful work on those piercing blue eyes.

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I'm glad to pierce you with my paint job.

MarfMaster said:

Loving all these updates Nathan, always a treat seeing stellar paint on Trevor's sculpts. Just breathtaking

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It's always a treat to paint Trevor's sculpts. When a perfect likeness and the right paint come together you can really feel the character come to life.

Love that Lawrence sculpt and so nice to finally see a paint-up of it. I hope the rest of the figure can live up to it.

My friend Peter 'Maybang' Yang is selling his Endoskull on eBay that I cleaned for him and added the custom nameplate logo in exchange for some Hot Toys goodness a while back. I thought I'd post it here because I like what he put in the description.

"This custom, Clean Version T-800 Terminator Endoskull was done by Nathan "SilentSurfer" Eakins, a recognized name on the sideshow collectors.com figure forum, from the 1:1 scale Battle-Damaged Endoskull produced by Sideshow..."

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https://cgi.ebay.com/Sideshow-Termi...743?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item19c45985ff

great stuff!

Thank you.

Here's a Camo enhancemet on one of the custom P1 bio replacements for the Hot Toys P1. This was done for Reinhardt along with another mod to be posted shortly.

Reinhardt also had this Indy head (paint by Small Studios, I believe, by the look of it), but he wanted it to go onto this body.


So, I removed the neck without harming Josh Small's fine work, drilled it for the ball joint, and paint matched the body, which was a bit of a trick since I'm not sure what paint or technique Josh uses. I added hair to the neck so it would blend better, and gave him chest hair for the open shirt look.

I like that you work with different mediums and also with other people's established stuff.

Nice job on the Indy mods. I did in fact paint that one some time ago. Looking back at it now there are a few things i would like to change on the overall paint. You did a really nice job matching the tones as well as the beard length on the neck. I always thought that sculpt had a bit to much scruff for Indy though. Hmm maybe you can add the Silent Surfer touch to it.

Thanks. Paint matching has become one of my specialties. I even paint match stuff for Sideshow. I paint matched the updated visor for Clone Trooper Commander Bly's Phase I helmet. Sideshow changed the way it attached to the helmet, and it needed to be painted like it had been done when the figure was originally painted, ie, color, markings, and weathering. They innitially wanted me to paint up a whole new helmet for it to go onto, but I was also able to modify the existing helmet to utilize the new visor. The visor in these shots is mine, and I've done some even more complex matching for upcoming stuff since.

small_studios said:

I always thought that sculpt had a bit to much scruff for Indy though. Hmm maybe you can add the Silent Surfer touch to it.

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I also thought the beard was too heavily sculpted, but you did a nice job of making it not look to heavy.

Hey, Josh, I know you painted the Bly heads, but do you know who painted the armor? I never did know.