Bob Burns as Kogar

I was in the need to do something a little quicker than the standard resin kits. So I pulled out Moebius' styrene kit of Kogar. 
The kit comes in a tan styrene, and gives you an option for 3 heads. One is to use the gorilla head for Kogar himself. The second is a likeness of Bob Burns, who is an avid Hollywood memorabilia collector and the man in the gorilla suit. The third is another gorilla head (named Tracy) , but it is made to have a propeller beanie on as seen in the live action TV series of Ghostbusters. 

I chose to make a tribute to Burns by using the human head. A curved arm will also allow me to add the gorilla head as a mask.

Since this was to be a quick build I didn't worry too much about the seams, tho I made sure there was no gaping holes. The toughest to fix was in and around that curved arm.

The head I had done in the same way I do all of my people. I start dark and work my way towards light. Burns had gray hair so I started with a darker color - 

When the body looked complete I added some color - 

Turning to the base. I wanted a wooden bottom, and then to use the foliage that was pressed into the plastic. I found this wacky pre-chewed brush in Michaels and it's just the thing to mimic woodgrain -

Then to just add the greens-

I wasn't too happy with that, so I got out my make shift grass applicator and went to work. I think the mistake I made was to paint the base that dark green color when all I had was the light green fibers. Oh well. Live and learn - 

Time to put Bob in the suit. I found a pic online that shows him without the mask and he has the black around the eyes and a hood. So I added the black eyes, but didn't want him to have the hood on - I thought it made the whole thing too dark- but it would solve the nasty seam across the head.

In the end I made a hood out of Aves, and just draped it around his neck, and painted it black. I added a little dark brown to the fur to give some color and then while the fur was sprayed with a matte coat, I painted around the eyes, mouth, hands, feet and chest a satin to match what I saw in the image. I was calling this done.
Thanks for looking.

New

This post is the after Jersey Fest article.  Ooh boy, I went a little mad this year. It started off with one producer, who wanted to be there but couldn't because of Hurricane Irma, gave an "I can't make it" model sale. From him I picked up a Hellboy and Abe Sapien bust. When I got them I realized they were HUGE! Parts of them were also cast in a translucent resin to aid in lighting. I may just light them up.

At JerseyFest, it really was like a kid in a candy shop. But knowing I had the two kits above coming, I *tried* to calm myself. 
Walking around I stopped at  John Dennett and Paul Gill's tables. From John, he sold out of the "Take Me to Your Leader" kit-

 but I did get his Ghoul - 

From Paul's table I got the new Pennywise kit from the remake of IT - 

Then in walking around I stopped at Goodfellas Resin, and picked up their terrific "Dragon Mother" bust. I like it because for whatever reason, many producers feel the need to have Daenery's kit in some stage of nudity. While I'm not a prude how many naked girls can you have on your model shelves...

The gap you see is for a lock of hair, not shown

At Troy McDevitt's table I picked up his mini Punisher bust from his comic book collection. The kits comes with stickers of comic books that correspond to each character. They fill up the blank spots on the stack base.

And finally there was a woman there with multiple casts of just two kits - a plaque that I don't remember, and an alien bust. You can never have too many aliens...  

Thanks for looking.

Paleocraft Elasmotherium

The newest entry to my prehistoric zoo, is the Elasmotherium from Paleocraft.  
From wiki:

Also known as the Giant Rhinoceros of Siberia, is an extinct genus of rhinoceros endemic to Eurasia during the Late Pliocene through the Pleistocene, documented from 2.6 Ma to as late as 29,000 years ago in the Late Pleistocene.^[2][3] Three species are recognised. The best known, E. sibiricum, was the size of a mammoth and is thought to have borne a large, thick horn on its forehead. Theories about the function of this horn include defence, attracting mates, driving away competitors, sweeping snow from the grass in winter and digging for water and plant roots.^{[citation needed]} Like all rhinoceroses, elasmotheres were herbivorous. Unlike any others, its high-crowned molars were ever-growing. Its legs were longer than those of other rhinos and were adapted for galloping, giving it a horse-like gait.

 The model was a typical Paleocraft offering - excellently detailed, in a bubble free, odorless resin. There was a little flash here and there in the thick fur, but took little time to clean it up. 

An Xacto knife shows the size comparison

 Oddly enough, the kit went so smoothly that I took no WIP pics. I just used various brown colors, washed the recesses with Citadel's Agrax Earthshade, and finally giving the highlights a topcoat of a tan flesh color.
Thanks for looking.

Jack Torrance - The Shining

This time we have Jack Torrance from The Shining from the studios of Gillman Productions. This is one of my favorite movies and really enjoyed painting up Jack.
This was a simple kit of only 2 parts - the bust/base, and the arms/axe. The resin was bubble free and only a little clean-up of a small seam line in the hair.

At last years Jersey Fest, I attended a demo of doing skin tones. First thing mentioned was to use a red primer instead of the gray or black (or white) as it gives a glow to the upper layers of the skin. So I gave it a shot. I may have used a too dark a shade, but it's what I had -

The base color added, but you can see primer color

While that was drying I took a look at the axe/hands. and added some base color to the hands -

Back to the bust I painted the hair and beard scruff. Later on I will dry brush the skin color over the scruff to tone it down a bit -

The big challenge for me was to try the flannel shirt for the first time. I took a long bristled, series 7 size#1 and went to town drawing the lines. Some of the lines were engraved in giving me a template for the rest. If I were to do it again, I think I would use a gray rather than white for those stripes. despite being white on the shirt -

It was definitely too bright. And I wasn't about the ruin the whole thing trying to dull the white down. So I have this-

Turning back to the axe, in the film the axe is obviously brand new. But my thoughts was that if it was there at the hotel, it would have been older and well worn, if nothing else from the accumulating dust and grime. So I chose to darken the wood up a bit -

I adjusted the skin color a bit, painted his head wound, and then attempted to add the corduroy pleats to the jacket and then called it done. Thanks for looking.

The Sky Flash - Just one More

I thought I was done with the Sky Flash. While cleaning the work area, I discovered the landing gear doors that I never put on.  So I got out the CA glue and installed them. Since I'm really finished, I took out my air field "set" and set up the plane on it - 

Thanks for looking.

Sky Flash Finale

We last left off with me ready to smash the model off the wall. I didn't.
Looking at the model the alligatoring clear coat in many places had settled down to just a rough pebbling.  Being the pebbling was very close to the decals I wanted to be ultra delicate so I wouldn't have to redo the decals. I had 3200 sanding sticks and went to work. Not strong enough. I moved to some Ultrafine sanding pads (I forget the number) and once again started in. Even that wasn't budging any of the material. Finally I got out the regular "Fine" pads and started in this seemed to work. After a few minutes of light scrubbing I had the fuselage to where I wanted it. I got a little too close to one of the decals, but some paint fixed the goof.

From there my next step was to mask off where the anti-glare panel - 

Yellow tape is Tamiya, Green tape is Frog tape - good stuff

Using Vallejo's Black and my a/b set to a low psi, the panel went on with no problems.

Now, back to the clear coat. Trying not to repeat the problems, and knowing Future is self leveling, I took a wide brush and brush painted on the Future - 

I'm calling this one done. Thanks for looking

Glencoe Retriever rocket

While I'm letting the paint dry on the Sky Flash, I pulled Glencoe Model's Retriever Rocket out of the stash. It's another kit that I had quite a while and taking a break from resin, it'll be good to work in styrene once again. 

The first thing I noticed was that there is a huge flight deck window. Looking thru the parts there is no flight deck ... nothing.  So two things that can be done is to just shade the windows over so you can't see in, or create a flight deck. 
If anyone actually reads this stuff, and if any of those who know me, knows I have to make things WAY difficult for myself. So I am going to create a flight deck.  The box says this kit is 1:72 scale, so the first thing I did was to get one of those tools that lets you figure out curves angles etc... When that came I figured where the back wall of the fight deck was to be. From there I figured out a floor covering every angle that could be seen from the inside. 
Next I bought some 1:72 cockpit seats.  They came from a Ka-27 jet strictly becasue they had four in the package. The I wanted to make it really busy, so I also bought instrument panel PE.

The PE set is actually 1:48 scale. I didn't mind it being big as I wanted the flight deck to look "busy' and this will definitely do that. 

Let's start building - 

Oops, that came busted.

 Turning my attention back to the flight deck, I think I did a review of Blue Stuff. It's looks like squared off lengths of blue hot glue sticks. It softens when it is put into *hot* water, and is used for making copies of parts. I had a 1:72 pilot mold sitting around for a long while. So I got it out and started making pilots. I decided to use 3 seats, so I will need 3 copies.

Here's on pilot done sitting on the Blue Stuff mold with pilot #2 inside "cooking." The pilot is made of Yellow Gray Milliput. You can use any sort of 2 part epoxy. The one caveat is that for whatever reason Aves Apoxie Sculpt will not work. No matter how long you leave it, the copy won't harden. So far Milliput and Greenstuff has worked for me.  For other epoxies - try it out. If it doesn't work it won't ruin the mold, only waste a little time.
Thanks for looking. See everyone next time.

 

New Aquisitions

Been busy buying again. :P This time around I start with something from my childhood.  Way back there was a series of model kits from... I don't remember who, but I was scenes from Disney's  amusement ride Pirates of the Caribbean. This was long before the movie. 

Next kit is from from Gillman Productions - it's been dubbed as Old Logan. The kit is 5 pieces plus the base. Sculpted by Yeagher, so the likeness is awesome. 

Thanks for looking.