Alien Egg

I was experimenting with Smooth on Silicon Rubber and cast a vinyl Alien egg from my Geometric kit as an experiment. I figure the egg would make good Warhammer 40,000 terrain and I could use several for an Alien diorama I’ve been thinking about putting together. However, this egg I painted as a Christmas present for my brother McKeen.

Marcus washed the mold release off the egg and I primed it as usual. I found a single picture of an Alien egg on my Alien DVD. It was brown with red lips and dark veins. I figured to duplicate that photo.

I used some discontinued acrylic paints I picked up at Michaels. Apple Barrel Colors Nutmeg brown made the base color. I used a brown oil wash over the acrylic, but it didn’t behave properly. It stained the entire egg. I think it was too close a color to the nutmeg or the acrylics weren’t all the way dry. I let the egg set and then used a black oil wash to shade the piece.

It was still very dark so I drybrushed nutmeg over it to make bring out the neutral brown I wanted. I then mixed the nutmeg with Liquitex Basic Acrylic Yellow Oxide for a lighter drybrush. I picked out the veins with Liquitex Basic Burnt Umber. The lips were drybrushed with Apple Barrel Colors Barn Red.

All the drybrushing and browns made for a great leathery looking egg. I sealed it with Testors Dullcoat and then painted gloss clear coat over the lips.

To compliment the egg, the base is an abstract collection of color left on my pallet. I used water to help blend the acrylics. I wetted the surface with water and then painted acrylics over it. While the whole thing was still wet, I used a feather brush to blend the colors. It's an adaptation of an oil painting technique I saw once. I used a similar technique on my Grim Reaper’s coffin.

Now that the model is done, photographed, scanned and posted to Nugax, I suppose I can send it off to my Mick.