Dracula A.D. 1972

 In 1972 London - a century after his final battle with Professor Van Helsing - One hundred years later, the colorful 1972, Johnny, the great-grandson of the servant joins up with a "group" containing Jessica, the grand-daughter of the present vampire hunter, Abraham van Helsing and with their unknowing help resurrect Dracula in the 20th Century who is determined to destroy the house of Van Helsing, but who can believe that The king of the Vampires really exists and is alive - in 20th Century London? 

The image below is what I think the sculptor got his idea from. 

The kit is in 2 parts, where one part, the Victim, Caroline Munro, sits inside the base which is also the Dracula (Christopher Lee) figure. The kit was once again very clean.  As with most kits there is only a slight parting line across the hair. 

As is my new usual, the skin starts off with a coat of pinkle and red - 

After the pinkle was dry I applied the skin tones. I didn't want them both identical so Dracula got a light coat of Medium Flesh, and the victim for the Game Air Flesh. After that was some dotting from Reikland Fleshshade wash.

Drac's hair is almost Black, while the Victim is done with the German Black Brown. They both are wearing black so I have Drac highlighted with a blue shine, and the Victims dress is just strictly gloss black.  Her cheeks and chest were done with a very thin Transparent red, and her eye shadow is simply black pastel. Drac's 5 o'clock shadow was done with a dark blue pastel.   Once dry it all was sealed in Vallejo Matte ending the project.  

The only downside IMHO to this kit is Dracula's expression. If he was about to bite, you think you would see the teeth bared and the eyes squinting preparing for the attack. Post bite, I would think his eye would again be squinting, and his mouth relaxing still with the teeth bared. This expression makes me think he's creeping on Caroline.  Thanks for looking. 

 

The Thing - Bennings

 It's time to tackle another figure from The Thing series - this time it's Bennings. George Bennings was a meteorologist stationed at American Antarctic research station, U.S. Outpost 31. The character appears in the 1982 film The Thing and was portrayed by actor Peter Maloney. 

This is another excellent kit sculpted by Yagher and produced by Gillman Productions. The kit is in 1/4 scale and comes in 4 parts - the bust the two hands and the base.  After a quick clean up, the parts were assembled and then, after priming, game the skin areas the "pinkle" (Groundeffected's word for the purple pink color) and red.

 

After that, the flesh color was added, and then a sprinkle of dots of Reikland Fleshshade was added.

Surprisingly (not) I didn't take many WIP pics. But looking at the film grabs, he's see with and orange vest, and then an olive green parka, with a darker green lining. The fur around the collar looks to be a gray color. 

The base shows him on the snowy rock outcropping with some gas cans and 55 gallon drums in thew scene. For whatever reason I assumed the cans were diesel, and looking up the color codes diesel is put in a yellow can. So that's what I did. But thinking back, with how fast the Bennings-Thing creature was set on fire, the fuel was probably just gasoline... Oh well. 

So before I knew it, I was done. Thanks for looking.

Ode to the Moon

 This was a miniature I picked up spur of the moment - as many of them are, while I was looking thru Blacksmith Miniatures website. Many of the figures are based of the art of Jean-Baptiste Monge as is Ode to the Moon. 

The kit comes in a 12 parts and the scene finishes up at about 70mm. 

 The biggest difficulty is that it is designed where tree roots balance the slanted tree. There are about a half dozen of these "supports and with the detail in the model,it difficult to see where each branch goes, or even where it goes. Luckily I found an image of one already done where the modeler did a number of images creating a 360° view. 

 Once having that, the model went together effortlessly. As you might have guessed the drone part of the bagpipe looked an was VERY fragile, and at some point I lost it. I replaced it with a bit of styrene rod, tho I couldn't replicate the details.  Primer was next. The next thought was if I was going to put this into a vignette, the dead tree took up a lot of space for just a dull object. I decided I would add some twisted wire to form small branches that I could hang leaves from.  You can see them mostly around the owl.

Next was the base colors. Old tree bark is mostly gray, so I added that and then splashes of color here and there to add a bit of color. It also looks like some moss was sculpted in, so that would be even more color.

Moving to the elf/satyr thing - he's not wearing any clothes, so his head and furry legs were painted in a dark brown and then made the mid color a reddish. The skin started off a little darker than my other figures. In the image he has 3 skin layers with a 4th upcoming. 

See more in the next session.