My Fat Yuan-Yuan
Posted: July 14th, 2014, 9:24 pmI just had to do it. 
The following describes my thoughts and reasoning behind this conversion and the painting. As some kind of disclaimer: this model is meant to provide some hilarity, not to offend. Any and all cliches used were included for the comedy value.
With that out of the way: don't you love that artwork of the Fat Yuan-Yan? I certainly do, and then there was a certain users signature... well, I always knew I had to do something about it. But there were a lot of questions to be answered. What model to convert? What had to be sculpted? Was my sculpting up for the task? And don't I have better things to do?
But first things first...
This was the artwork that started it all. As you will see, my interpretation is more „inspired“ by it than true to this picture. But in the beginning I tried to stay as close to it as possible. With that in mind I first had a good look through the Infinity range for a model to start with. Another manufacturer was out of the game, because I wanted to keep that „Infinity style“ as much as possible.
Now the problems started. The model I was looking for had to have a few necessary features:
a non-acrobatic male, since I wanted the pose to be at rest, similar to the artwork
light armour, similar to the other two Yuan-Yuans
some kind of droptroop backback
There is simply no human model in the entire range fitting those criteria (at least not when I started this project a month ago: see the end of this post for a new alternative). And most of them were not even suitable for „fattening“ either. After quite some evenings of contemplation and headscratching I finally chose Van Zant from the Ariadna line. While he lacked the backpack I wanted, at least there was room for a creation of my own (even though at that point I had no clue what tu use for it). And the rest was a good start: a badass „come and get some“ pose, at rest, with a suitable gun and a cigar holding arm alternative. All of that on a military style clothed body that would be not too hard to modify:
I chose the right arm with the gun and the left arm with the cigar for my Fat Yuan-Yuan. The resulting pose was what I was looking for: imposing, with an aura of arrogance in the heat of battle. At least a good start!
I'll say it once: I'm not a great sculptor. If you watch the final model, you will realise the truth of that. But I tried my best: the legs were „fattened“, a belly was added, the fur elements and the head were sculpted over, and even the arms got a bit more beef. Additional armour – in an attempt to mirror the artwork – was added as well. If you check the artwork, you will notice that I left some bags off the front armour: those just wouldn't work on this model. The head is the part that shows best how sucky me sculpting actually is... but it still does the job from two feet away.
The gun got some additional attention. Not exactly a Chain Rifle, but if you have ever heard of „Vera“, you should recognise it.
For the backpack I luckily remembered some GW Eldar Guardians I still had in my bitsbox. I only used the back half of the torso (essentially the back pack), and did cut some bits off. What originally would be back fins, were cut to shape, and glued upside down to the backpack – now looking like thrust stabilisers. Some connector belts to the chest armour were sculpted on, the backpack was glued in space, and the model itself was basically done.
I chose an Urban Rubble base from MAS, specifically the one with the two cans:
I want to tell a story with this model, and part of that story are these two cans on the floor. I imagine my Fat Yuan-Yuan just had a few fries and a coke; when having a second coke, disaster strikes, and some idiot shoots a hole into that coke – a big mistake!
I thought about sculpting some left-over fries into the paper bag on the base, but then I don't think somebody of this belly size would leave any fries, right?
As for the painting: you can see how it turned out in the end. I'm not a great painter either, which is one of the reasons for the „not Coca Cola“-cokes on the base. Those can things are tiny, and the original lettering is quite long – I simply lack the ability to paint that to scale. I can live with what I was able to achieve: you will recognise it as „Coca Cola“, even though it isn't. Originally I had planned to paint the McD-logo on the paperbag, but then I realised that you actually only see the inside of it – so no logo. And I don't even know whether there is still a McD around in the Invinite verse.
You might also note that I left off the tattoo from the artworks left arm: again, I was not able to paint something so small. The logo of the Yuan-Yuan went on the backpack instead, and that was difficult enough.
Originally I wanted to add a small US flag somewhere on the model (you know, „fat Muricans, hurhur“ and stuff). In the end I decided against the obvious route. If you take a closer look at the belt buckle: it has a few familiar stripes, and a single star. It could be some abstract symbol, and it could be a nod to... I don't know. Considering where this specific Yuan-Yuan might be coming from: isn't there only one USAriadna? If you want, take it as a dirty joke against Murica, but no US flag was harmed during the painting of this model.
The following describes my thoughts and reasoning behind this conversion and the painting. As some kind of disclaimer: this model is meant to provide some hilarity, not to offend. Any and all cliches used were included for the comedy value.
With that out of the way: don't you love that artwork of the Fat Yuan-Yan? I certainly do, and then there was a certain users signature... well, I always knew I had to do something about it. But there were a lot of questions to be answered. What model to convert? What had to be sculpted? Was my sculpting up for the task? And don't I have better things to do?
But first things first...
This was the artwork that started it all. As you will see, my interpretation is more „inspired“ by it than true to this picture. But in the beginning I tried to stay as close to it as possible. With that in mind I first had a good look through the Infinity range for a model to start with. Another manufacturer was out of the game, because I wanted to keep that „Infinity style“ as much as possible.
Now the problems started. The model I was looking for had to have a few necessary features:
a non-acrobatic male, since I wanted the pose to be at rest, similar to the artwork
light armour, similar to the other two Yuan-Yuans
some kind of droptroop backback
There is simply no human model in the entire range fitting those criteria (at least not when I started this project a month ago: see the end of this post for a new alternative). And most of them were not even suitable for „fattening“ either. After quite some evenings of contemplation and headscratching I finally chose Van Zant from the Ariadna line. While he lacked the backpack I wanted, at least there was room for a creation of my own (even though at that point I had no clue what tu use for it). And the rest was a good start: a badass „come and get some“ pose, at rest, with a suitable gun and a cigar holding arm alternative. All of that on a military style clothed body that would be not too hard to modify:
I chose the right arm with the gun and the left arm with the cigar for my Fat Yuan-Yuan. The resulting pose was what I was looking for: imposing, with an aura of arrogance in the heat of battle. At least a good start!
I'll say it once: I'm not a great sculptor. If you watch the final model, you will realise the truth of that. But I tried my best: the legs were „fattened“, a belly was added, the fur elements and the head were sculpted over, and even the arms got a bit more beef. Additional armour – in an attempt to mirror the artwork – was added as well. If you check the artwork, you will notice that I left some bags off the front armour: those just wouldn't work on this model. The head is the part that shows best how sucky me sculpting actually is... but it still does the job from two feet away.
The gun got some additional attention. Not exactly a Chain Rifle, but if you have ever heard of „Vera“, you should recognise it.
For the backpack I luckily remembered some GW Eldar Guardians I still had in my bitsbox. I only used the back half of the torso (essentially the back pack), and did cut some bits off. What originally would be back fins, were cut to shape, and glued upside down to the backpack – now looking like thrust stabilisers. Some connector belts to the chest armour were sculpted on, the backpack was glued in space, and the model itself was basically done.
I chose an Urban Rubble base from MAS, specifically the one with the two cans:
I want to tell a story with this model, and part of that story are these two cans on the floor. I imagine my Fat Yuan-Yuan just had a few fries and a coke; when having a second coke, disaster strikes, and some idiot shoots a hole into that coke – a big mistake!
I thought about sculpting some left-over fries into the paper bag on the base, but then I don't think somebody of this belly size would leave any fries, right?
As for the painting: you can see how it turned out in the end. I'm not a great painter either, which is one of the reasons for the „not Coca Cola“-cokes on the base. Those can things are tiny, and the original lettering is quite long – I simply lack the ability to paint that to scale. I can live with what I was able to achieve: you will recognise it as „Coca Cola“, even though it isn't. Originally I had planned to paint the McD-logo on the paperbag, but then I realised that you actually only see the inside of it – so no logo. And I don't even know whether there is still a McD around in the Invinite verse.
You might also note that I left off the tattoo from the artworks left arm: again, I was not able to paint something so small. The logo of the Yuan-Yuan went on the backpack instead, and that was difficult enough.
Originally I wanted to add a small US flag somewhere on the model (you know, „fat Muricans, hurhur“ and stuff). In the end I decided against the obvious route. If you take a closer look at the belt buckle: it has a few familiar stripes, and a single star. It could be some abstract symbol, and it could be a nod to... I don't know.
Considering where this specific Yuan-Yuan might be coming from: isn't there only one USAriadna? If you want, take it as a dirty joke against Murica, but no US flag was harmed during the painting of this model.
