Goonies Copper Bones - Verdigris patina effect advice

TuskenRaider

Active Member
Hey guys,
Been a member for a while now and been following lots of your builds. I'm always amazed at the incredible things you come up with and I've been inspired into starting a few of my own projects. I'm new to the whole prop making and don't have much relevant experience so really starting from scratch here. I figured I'd start with something easy and being an 80's kid I naturally thought of the copper bones from The Goonies. I'll show you my progress in the next post but my question is - does anyone have experience in replicating the aged copper/verdigris effect or have any advice? I figure I can mix blue, green and white paint and build it up in layers but if anyone has advice it would be greatly appreciated!
Thanks,
Rob
 
So here's my progress so far..

I wasn't going for 100% accuracy, just something that represents the copper bones from the goonies. It's my first prop build, sculpt and mould so lots of new processes learned and tried out.

It all starts with a plan. I sketched out a rough drawing with dimensions. After watching the flm I realised how little you actually see the copper bones. I grabbed a few screenshots and figured out the rough size and some of the features but a lot of the design is based on images I found online (so I'm probably copying another RPFer's build - but don't worry this is a one-off build for my own collection! I hope this doesn't offend anyone).
IMG_3767.JPG

I then sculpted using plasticine and came up with this...
IMG_3756.JPG

I used latex to make a mould (I know it's not the ideal material for this but I happened to have a litre bottle of latex for another project and I haven't found any cheap sources of silicone in the UK yet). I then cast a resin piece from the mould. This is my first ever mould so really pleased with the resul. A few air bubbles here and there and a little flashing but nothing serious. The mould was completely destroyed but pretty much expected that from latex.

IMG_3760.JPG

Now tidied up the bones and used some filler to add a little to the chin which I realised I missed off in the original sculpt. Weathered the piece by cutting into it randomly with an engraving bit on my multi rotary tool (i.e. Ryobi's version of a Dremel! - I used to work for Ryobi so have lots of their tools:)).

IMG_3764.JPG

Now painted copper colour with dark wash and some light dry brushing to bring out the detail.
IMG_3765.JPG

It now just needs a bit (or a lot) of aging with the verdigris patina. So if you have any advice on how to do that it would be very welcome.
 
There's a product at Michaels that does just this. It's not a fake patina. I used the bronze one. The trick is to apply the aging agent while the base color is still wet.
 
Thanks Gixxerfool I'm in the UK so no Micheal's unfortunately, but I'll check out my local hobby/Craft stores to see if they have anythig like this.
 
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Sir.....ALL of the Goonies props have be massively re-created and DONE and are easily available online ebay etc.... My best advice to you is if there is a certain prop you want to re-produce either for yourself... or.... to sell ..then contact your nearest jeweler..get interest here and then try to sell here in the forum... Yrs ago I was the the first to make a GOONIES Doubloon here available in solid / pure silver and I sold a fair amount of them. I was born in 1975 so ya when Goonies come out i was a 10 yr old kid. What country are you from btw ? ? ??
 
Sir.....ALL of the Goonies props have be massively re-created and DONE and are easily available online ebay etc.... My best advice to you is if there is a certain prop you want to re-produce either for yourself... or.... to sell ..then contact your nearest jeweler..get interest here and then try to sell here in the forum... Yrs ago I was the the first to make a GOONIES Doubloon here available in solid / pure silver and I sold a fair amount of them. I was born in 1975 so ya when Goonies come out i was a 10 yr old kid. What country are you from btw ? ? ??

Thanks a lot for the advice. If you read my original post you'll see I'm not doing this in order to re-produce and sell. I'm new to prop making and was just using the copper bones as a relatively easy first project to learn new skills and get a better understanding of how to go about making things. I'm not very good at this sort of thing so I can't see myself making anything to the level which people would be willing to part with their hard-earned money for! So for the time being at least this is all just for fun. I've seen the ones on e-Bay and they look great and are very reasonably priced but, as I said, for me this was a fun and educational little project. I'm from the UK and born in 1979 so I was into all the big 80's action adventure movies (Goonies, Indiana Jones, BTTF etc).
 
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To answer your patina question....I painted black over the copper, then took mineral spirits on a rag and immediately wiped off most of it. Leaving some black to fill the cracks in. Then i took an aqua blue latex paint, watered it down a lot and painted that on. Like the black I wiped it off and reapplied until I liked how much patina was on . Hope that helps. You tubes an amazing reference by the way on paint techniques if your interested.
Good luck
Chris
 
To answer your patina question....I painted black over the copper, then took mineral spirits on a rag and immediately wiped off most of it. Leaving some black to fill the cracks in. Then i took an aqua blue latex paint, watered it down a lot and painted that on. Like the black I wiped it off and reapplied until I liked how much patina was on . Hope that helps. You tubes an amazing reference by the way on paint techniques if your interested.
Good luck
Chris

Thanks a lot Chris, I'll definitely have a look on Youtube for some inspiration. I had used seach engines for how to mix up paint to replicate verdigris but couldn't find anything I really liked - but I hadn't thought of specifically trying Youtube.
 
To answer your patina question....I painted black over the copper, then took mineral spirits on a rag and immediately wiped off most of it. Leaving some black to fill the cracks in. Then i took an aqua blue latex paint, watered it down a lot and painted that on. Like the black I wiped it off and reapplied until I liked how much patina was on . Hope that helps. You tubes an amazing reference by the way on paint techniques if your interested.
Good luck
Chris

this sounds like a wash in reverse...sort of. Is there a different effect from this process than a wash?
 
Hi Tusken, is this more of the kind of method that you want to use ?
http://www.bhg.com/decorating/paint/projects/diy-verdigris-paint-project/

Thanks Steve. Yeah I was kind of looking for something like this. If I knew about the metallic reactive paints and activators at the beginning I might have used those but as I've already painted the bones with acrylics I was hoping to use regular paint to get the effect. Anyway, thanks to advice from bondoking I watched a few videos on Youtube and found somebody using Rub n Buff and it looked great so I've ordered a tube and I'll see how that works out. It should arrive this week so will wait for Saturday morning when I can work on it in natural light and post a picture with the results. I imagine this will give quite a uniform colour/effect so I'll probably then dry brush over the Rub n Buff.
Cheers,
Rob
 
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I tried using the patina Rub N Buff and the colour is amazing but it looked a bit too bright and clean...
IMG_3768.JPG

so I hit it with some powdered pastel (gray is it was the only appropriate colour I had) to simulate all the dust and dirt it's accumulated over the years! It looks a lot better afterwards, far from perfect but for my first proper effort I'm pretty pleased and I've learned quite a bit. Thanks again for your suggestions.

IMG_3772.JPG

BTW - does anyone know why my pictures are showing in landscape within the text but open up OK in portrait?
Thanks,
TR
 
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