IMPULSE BY: The Black

I FIGURED OUT HOW TO MAKE OILY TENDRILS!But first, let’s talk about The Black. It’s a bit of a departure for Valaverse / Action Force, from whom I’ve gotten a very good biker chick and a glow in the dark robot minigun dude so far. A lot of their stuff trends into the “Slightly More Realistic GI Joe Classified” vein which doesn’t interest me at all.

The Black was a convention exclusive they made available on their site, and as you can see, he’s a squidbearded beskulled piratey type. The body’s a bit dark on dark for my taste, but he’s got a wired cloak with hood, a great hat, a good sword, a GREAT old timey double barreled pistol grip shotgun thingy that opens up, plus hands. 

And he’s one of those figs that moves like a dream. Especially the torso and waist ball joints, which have tons of range and just feel good to pose. Detents in the elbows and knees but they’re inobtrusive ones. Good butterfly shoulders. Really just about anything you’d want unless you’re into toe joints. There’s a weird ineffable thing beyond number and range of joints that affects posability - the difference between “can I hit poses” and “can I realize my vision” that The Black has by the truckload.

The Wet Boys weren’t still out from the Eel pic but they were near the top of the bin and I had Wet Boys on the brain so… UNDEAD WET BOYS. 

The big thing here for me is the tendrils, which I got by taking a thick black brush, freehanding the pathways, applying the 3D effect in Affinity and tweaking it so the lighting highlights were prominent like the black pools, then rasterizing them to clean them up and blend and soften the edges. I do enjoy figuring out a new way to do a new thing.