Art Toy: Final Space Rat

After 7 weeks of design and preparation, I finally present Galactic Rat in its final form.

The Story

An NYC subway derailed and blasted off into space, defying all natural laws of gravity! Along with it went four rats that clung to the bottom of the train. The rats had no problem adapting to their new space environment because the subway is already uninhabitable.

The Process

Started with a sculpt in air dry clay:

And finished it like this:

I had it 3D scanned at Laguardia Studio:

And smoothed out my new 3D model in NoMad. I added more deayils to the suit and rebuilt a tail after it broke off in the scanning process.

I got my models printed: 2 in clear resin and the other two in solid grey so I could try painting them by hand. I sanded the ones for painting down and removed all the support material.

I sanded them down, primed them, sanded them with 1000 grit sandpaper again, then spray painted them black.

I chose black as the base coat because I wanted the colors to have a rick, dark feeling when I painted them.

The first layer of acrylic paint, then several more coats later.

I then weathered the paint job using a paper towel and dry brush.

Then I added a silver spray paint for the helmet rim, a steel toe, and glove details. I masked the rest of the body, and then added some more dry paint over it to make it distressed like the rest of the body.

The paint job reminds me of my mom’s old Smurf figures from when she was a kid. It looks kind of tacky but in a charming, retro way.

And sprayed it with a modpodge clear acrylic coat.

I decided I was content with the matte black for the other one, but honestly, I probably will do something to it later. Perhaps a light weathering.

Packaging Plans

I realllyyyy wanted to have a box for these guys, but when I got the full-scale model, it was too big to cut in the laser cutter. And I’m awful at cutting straight lines. Here were the prototypes I made with my smaller 3D test model.

Perhaps I will order one out from somewhere else…

And finally, all four of them together!