Weathering Skulls (Sergeant Mac Eliot)

[Jparr3085]

I wanted to put together a quick tutorial on painting/weathering to show one method for bringing some realism to a fake skull. In this case it'll be how I made my Sergeant Mac Eliot trophy skull.

With halloween around the corner, Skulls and bones will be plentiful and for those with access to a 3D printer there are always plenty of files available for free or to purchase online. For this specific trophy, I found a free skull on Thingiverse and printed that on a resin printer. 

Now Mac's trophy skull is famous for the plasma cannon hole and burn mark as seen in the reference photo here.

So, first step was punching a hole into the skull. From there I used snips and files to shape the hole how I wanted it to look and removed a tooth.

 After that I painted it white since I originally printed it in a gray resin. I also added a semi gloss coating to help seal the white before further weathering and to give it that polished bone look.

Then it was on to weathering with washes. For this I used four colors. Burnt sienna, burnt umber, injury ochre, and black and waited for each watery wash to dry with a hair dryer before moving onto the next. Here is a photo of the skull as each color went on.

I went with just enough washes to give it some depth and grime without making it look old aged since I was going for a fresher look for Mac's kill like in the reference photo so the skull wouldnt be that antiquated looking. Then I used an airbrush to add the final scorch mark around the wound.

And that wraps up how I put together a quick Mac trophy skull that can be used for display or as an addition for a costume.

Hope you enjoyed.