Trying Something New: Clay Plants

I've been getting into clays and sculpting lately. So I found a number of artists on You Tube such as Dugosaurus, Toby Wayne, Chis Darga*, Jordu Schell* and even western sculptor David Lemon. Then there's the miniature artists like Tom Mason, and a woman who's channel goes by the name Sugar Charm shop  Who has excellent tutorials that show you how to "fur" animals.
 But there was another miniature artist, Stephanie Kilgast,  that caught my attention when she did a few videos on plants. I figured I could use them on dios.  So after watching the VID a few times, I gave it a try. Seeing a number of artists use the colored clay, I went out and bought two colors of green and white and gave it a try - 

Then didn't turn out terrible. I used Sculpey III, and found it very brittle once baked. You can't really see it in the pic, but while sanding on of the leaves of the dark green plant I snapped a leaf. I'll have to look for a clay with a little more give...  Thanks for looking.

Dunkleosteus Build part 2

To see part 1, go HERE .
It was time to paint. I had an idea to use green and a sort of tan color for the  body - 

 As soon as I finished the tan I knew this wasn't going to work. Time to think of somethings else. Looking at the back of the fish and especially the belly part, there is no scales scutes or anything else. So I thought of the way some guys paint skin. They do it by painting little squiggles all over the figure with different color paint. Having never done this before I tried it with black, blue and red paint it turned out looking very busy - 

You see on the second side,  some of the lines are way too thick.  I was having troubles with my airbrush, and rather than stop and fix it I tried to muscle on and complete that side.  I'll just have to make the over coat a little heavier in sections where the thicker squiggles are. 

Taking a break of a day to clean the airbrush which became completely clogged by the time I stopped. I took bits apart but trying to keep major sections together. Didn't work. I got the brush all cleaned out and I was surprised at how much gunk was in there despite me regularly "cleaning" it after each session. So  being cleaned I had trouble putting it back together, thank goodness for a large number of videos on You Tube showing me how to put it back together. 
I also went and bought a cleaning kit and Iwata cleaner. 

 Back to the placoderm. Seeing many fish, they are dark on top and light on the bottom. So I was going to replicate that. Looking at my paints I found two colors that ironically were both named Gray Green. One was lighter than the other and their respective loc. numbers were 101 and 106. On top I used the darker color and dotted along the back of the animal. The lighter color was sprayed on the rest of the body keeping it light enough to see the squiggles underneath - 

  In the pics you can also see that I added a thinned red wash to the gill area and the inside of the mouth. I also added a brown wash to darken the deepest recesses. Since most fish also seems to have a silvery sheen to them. I mimicked this by giving a light spray with Vallejo silver. Except for a gloss coat, I'm calling the Dunk done.
The base is next. Thanks for looking. 

Monster Scenes Saber Tooth Rabbit

This time around I dug out The Saber Tooth Rabbit from Monster Scenes. Monster Scenes was a series of kits from Aurora in the 70's. Originals are highly sought after, and a few of them have been reissued over the years. A few new-ish kits have also been released.

The Saber Tooth Rabbit comes with a dungeon floor, a chain and collar, and finally a huge block of rock which ties the Rabbit down. 
The instructions stars me out putting the Rabbit head together and then the body. I wasn't going to be too concerned about seam lines etc... as this was going to be a strictly fun build.  I got the head together and there was a gap around one eye that was just a little too big for me to ignore. Once again I got carried away and forgot to take pics along the way.  Here we have the whole kit built and fitted together to see how it looked -

I wasn't too crazy about the little dungeon floor base. Things were just a little too crowded for my liking. So I tried one of the generic wooden bases I had laying around - 

Still no good. So I started hacking up the dungeon floor and tried playing with the pieces - 

Meh... I'll have to think about it. While thinking I started painting. I wanted the Rabbit to look like a normal bunny except for his killer fangs. So I tried to paint him cute - 

I had to make him psycho, so you may notice the red eyes! Yikes!
Turning to the anchor. I painted it gray, then a black wash. I also gave the metal parts a dusting of rust - 

Back to the dungeon. In the end the only thing I kept was the floor drain. The floor was made out of cork glued to the wood base, painted gray, and then washed with Citadel Black and brown washes. I also put some PVA glue down and sprinkled some sand down to break up the floor. I also dripped some Citadel yellow wash to simulate some pee, and a little diluted red paint for some blood spatter. Water Effects runs down the drain to complete the gross effect. 
Gluing the Rabbit and Block to the floor and I was done. Thanks for looking .

The Caveman T-Rex Part 2)

It's been a while, so to see part 1 - click here - http://kevtk.blogspot.com/2017/03/caveman-dinosaur.html

Picking up where I left off I primed the model black and started painting. In the movie the dinosaur was, depending on which image you looked at, simply all gray or a gray green color. I thought the gray would be a little plain so I used 2 Vallejo colors. Oddly enough they are both named Green Gray (?!). But the loc. numbers are different - 101 & 106. Number 101 is also know as RLM 2 for all you military plane modelers. 101 is darker than 106. So the painting began.

 While the T-Rex is drying I turned my attention to the base. This time around I just wanted something really simple. But first I looked up the movie poster and saw the typical 3 color blend to the logo letters. I gave my best shot trying to mimic the look, first by spraying the yellow and then the orange - 

By adding the red and then the black background. I was finished with the logo - 

From there I set upon the rest of the base - 

Then I set the T-Rex on the base and I was done - 

I used wire to loosely pin him to the base. But it just didn't sit right. It looks like one guy sculpted the dinosaur and someone else sculpted the base and didn't communicate. I couldn't find a spot where he stood squarely on the base. In one of the pic you can see a toe on the left foot off the ground. That would definitely get "points off" at a model show...  I may go back and cut that toe off and modify it so it touches on the ground.
I also just saw a You Tube VIDEO where this polymer artist sculpted some plants. I have some green FIMO somewhere and just may give that a try to fill in the base a bit. 

Thanks for looking.




 

A New Retro Future Space Suit + Robot

There have been many promises to the Real Space/Concept Space modelers that the Bottle Suit would be released. The Grumman Moon Suit was tested in 1960's.  From astronautix.com :

A favorite of Life magazine in the 1960's, this Grumman / Space General design for extended lunar surface operations allowed the astronaut to withdraw his arms from the flexible manipulators and work within the pressurized 'cabin' of the can enclosing his upper torso and head.

The Suit appeared in Life magazine in April, 1962, and was immediately copied by Mattel for their Major Matt Mason toy line. 

But as a real scale model either in styrene or resin, there has been none. Until now. ECWID has a number of retro futuristic suits and robots. And they actually have two versions of the Grumman Moon Suit. One of the astronaut standing, the other where he's running.  I picked up the one where the guy is running.

Most of the kit comes in ordorless gray resin, with a few clear resin parts.  There is no flash or bubbles, and the only negative is that the pour plugs are pretty large. But happily they are on the inside of the suit, and once build not easily seen if at all.  It also comes with a set of decals with the number 38 - 

 As you can see by the parts, it should be very easy to build. I can't wait.
While the kit ships from Japan, I added one of the Robots. I picked up the "Prototype Vincent." I didn't open that package so the following pic is from their website.  As the image indicates, the scale is 1:20 - 

Thanks for looking. 




 

I bought a Piece of my Childhood Back

All my toys and other childhood memories are long gone. Long story too. So every now and then I think about or see something that reminds me of the old days. This latest go round was was I was goofing around on You Tube, and ran across a guy that restores old beat up Matchbox cars. Hey, I had Matchbox cars! So I watched a few, and then on one, I was lead to this other guy, and his CHANNEL and PAGE. 

Watching one of his vids featuring cars from 1968, I saw the Land Rover. As I was also fascinated about animals and had a good number of the little plastic ones, the Land Rover seemed a natural. 

Well, long story short he had the Land Rover in it's box, So I couldn't resist - 

Do I need to start collecting these too? No. This gives me enough nice memories of when I was little. 
Thanks for looking.

Arena Rex Ywain and Dextarius

This next entry is a mini shop I actually found on Kickstarter. From their site - 

Arena Rex is a game of gladiatorial combat.  Battles of 3 to 6 combatants per side are recommended, and take approximately 30 to 40 minutes to play. Simple, intuitive rules offer myriad tactical possibilities.  Maneuver and arena terrain play key roles in the game along with a fatigue-based activation system that twists a traditional round structure in new and exciting ways.   

Arena Rex has a number of terrifically sculpted minis all in the gladiator mode. With my poor eyesight I'm limited to only a few larger figures, but boy are they worth it. 

As usual I get anxious to start and don't start taking pics until I'm well under way. This is no exception. Ywain is done in a lot of leather colors with some metal here and there. I had to think about making his skin like it's been out in the sun training a lot. I also suspect that he was always on the dusty side from his training.  Here I have the base coat done and started doing the washes - 

As is usual I usually find spots I missed and will address them as I go. 
While Ywain was drying I turned my attention to his horse Dextarius. Here I just kept things simple, painting it brown with a darker mane and tail. Figuring the saddle was just a gladiators towel, I also did simple colors. Again, it's just base coated and washed  - 

More soon. Thanks for looking.

Caveman Dinosaur

Feeling a lot better now, I got back to my little attic lair or is it studio. :-P
I was looking for something easy to whet my appetite for building again, so I pulled out the T-Rex from the 1981 slap stick comedy Caveman. It starred Ringo Starr and a number of other recognizable names as Barbara Bach, John Matuszak, and Dennis Quaid. 
At one point the groups runs into a large T-Rex and more comedy ensues - 

The model is very well done and looks just like the model in the movie.It comes in 6 white resin parts plus a base.

It only took me an hour to get all the parts pinned. The only problem I had was there was a gigantic bubble where the tail joins the body -

But once pinned it was nothing to pack the gap with Aves. I then spent a little bit of time matching up the skin texture to the repair. I think I did an ok job. I then spent another hour adding the little scutes and skin folds to the rest of the join spots. 

Next up is priming and painting. What I'll have to think abut is that some images have the T-Rex gray, while others have it a gray green color.  If anyone actually reads these posts, what do you think? Gray or green gray? 
Thanks for looking.

Another new mini

This time  we have a mini by Hangar 18. Among their model offerings is a series in a tasteful pinups  style reminiscent of the WW2 nose art on the bombers.  They come in either a 32mm or a 54 mm size. The 54mm collection is the larger collection of the two. 
Being a space fan I was drawn to the Cosmonaut model. This is a female cosmonaut riding on Sputnik. 

Both the sculpting and casting, is terrific. There is no apparent seam lines and the parts go together in natural separation point so very little (if any) putty work needs to be done. 
My typical complaint is that I only wish this came in a 90-120 mm size. But I can't wait to build this. I'm thing about getting out the new Vallejo Metallics Chrome for the Sputnik. Thanks for looking.