Wednesday, October 18, 2017

Gran'Pa Munster

Gran'pa was gotten on eBay. I actually bought his Zombo kit. I guess Gran'pa wasn't selling or whatever, anyway he was added to the box. There was no scale listed, but the model is 4.5" tall, and looking it up Al Lewis was 6ft. That makes it a 1/16 scale kit.

Finding an image of Gran'pa in color wasn't as hard as I thought, considering the show, to save money, was filmed in B&W. 
The color of his face tho was a bit of a problem. Some images show him, like Herman, to have a greenish tint to the face. Other's have it in a blue gray cast. I went with the blue gray. After all why would a vampire be green?

 One little easter egg I added was that I found a picture of Gran'Pa without his jacket, as you might imagine they only made up his face and hands. His arms were regular flesh color. On the model there's a little gap in his gloves so I put a dot of regular flesh color to give that fact a nod. 

Next was to move on to the base. I didn't want anything elaborate so I ened up with a square of styrofoam, and added wood to the sides. The I got some coffee stirrers  and laid them down at a bit of an angle (for interest). The sides were stained with an Espresso stain, while the floor was stained with some Spanish Oak that I had on hand.

At Jersey Fest, there was a seminar on making bases. I didn't attend because I sort of know how bases go. But someone videoed the talk and put it on You Tube.  I watched it there, and the speaker used a product I never heard of - SmoothOn Free Form Air two part epoxy. So I bought some.

My verdict on the epoxy is still up in the air. Taking each part out of its container feels like a light and airy Play Dough. But as you begin to mix it, it starts to feel wet and VERY sticky!  

I had another piece of foam that I planned to put the FF Air on, and then roll one of the roller stencils from Green Stuff World to create a rocky background. 

Trying to get the FF Air onto the foam was very tough. The speaker used water to keep the stickiness down. But there's a fine line between "not sticky" and mud. I was prolly 2 or 3 steps onto the mud side when I gave up on the roller.  Annoyed now, I just drew lines in the epoxy and I didn't even care that the lines weren't straight and even. 
Getting the foam wall covered was completed, but it looked to bland. It needed something else. I had a few pieces of model "lumber", so i roughed some up to form 2 beams. I stained it with Citadels Agrax Earthshade, and just jammed it into the epoxy. 
The epoxy dried to the touch in a few hours and I started painting and staining the wall with Vallejo paints and stains.  I also sculpted a little bat and glued it to the beam.  I was glad to be finished. 
Thanks for looking. 









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