The Thing's Dr. Copper

 Copper was a physician stationed at American Antarctic research station,  U.S. Outpost 31. The character appears in the 1982 film The Thing and was portrayed by the late Richard Dysart. His fate is also briefly touched upon in the 1991 comic series The Thing From Another World. 

  The kit is another addition to The Thing collection of bust kits by Gillman Productions. As with the others, it is in 1/4 scale and the casting is very nice. There is only the slightest seam line across the hair and a bubble on one tooth. The scene depicts just after the Norris Thing's stomach munches off his arms.

After the usual prep for resin, it gets a prime and then I start with the skin. And begin with my normal coat of pink. 

 

 

Continuing on when the pink is dry, it's gets it's base coat of flesh. Then a little Citadel Reikland Flesh shade thru the a/b to reinforce the skin shadows. If you try this technique, make sure to leave some of the pink showing...

 While that was drying I turned my attention to the base. It is basically a big hunk of resin with the Norris Thing's stomach teeth. Wow that was a large description... I've been watching the videos of pro miniaturist Eric Swinson, and in his critique videos, he's often said don't let the painted base rival the figure itself. So I've been trying to make my bases a little plainer. 

 The next items on the agenda are his hair, the shirt, and the ... blood.  The hair was fairly easy, as it just a salt and pepper look. Now off the top of my head I pictured more salt, but in looking at the images, I was wrong. So a little more dark colors went into the head. The shirt is a maroon red shirt, with a beige-white undershirt. V's Cavalry Brown suit the bill. I added a little beige to some of it to create a highlight. 

The blood was next. My feeling in re: to this is that less is more. But this a pretty gruesome scene. So the stumps have to be bloody, but I left enuff flesh where you could still see it, plus a bit of the bone. I also put a little so some of the arm got it, but used a purple wash to indicate bruising (not that bruising would happen that fat. Finally, I mixed a water down blood color and with the a/b created some spatter - a little on the arms some on the shirt - which the red color of that tones down the gore, and then a few dots of it hit his face. A finally spatter on the base and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

Moon Hopper Finale

 Finally got the vehicle onto the moon base and took pics. 
Really disappointed in how the wooden base warped - never had that happen before. But where I was in the build I didn't have it in me to start over...  #-o 
Image revealed the ladder warped after installation as well. Ugh. 
Thanks for looking.

The SHADO Moon Hopper

 The Moon Hopper was the flying lunar rover that appeared in the TV show UFO. The 1970-71 show was from Gerry Anderson who also created  Capt. Scarlet and Space: 1999. The show just lasted one season - 26 episodes.  

The kit was first released from Fantastic Plastic in 2019 being master by Alfred Wong. The kit came in approximately 20 parts of well cast resin and 3D printed parts plus a sheet of decals.The instructions indicate that the original release included wire to stiffen the 3D printed landing legs, but with my copy I had to provide the wire in the form of an old coat hanger. 

 The kit turned out to be a pretty quick build. The main fuselage is one piece as is each of the 4 lander legs. In the image, the gold colored parts of the landing legs are the coat hanger wire. 

 The build quickly moved on to the painting part. This was equally as easy in that nearly all the craft was white. The cockpit windows were black, and the metal joints between the leg parts were silver. Making things a little more involved I painted all the parts to be silver and painted them black. When that was dry, I over painted the silver but left a little black to make it look like there was some washer or o-ring.

The decals were essentially "pick your favorite number" and then a bunch of black and red lines. 

 Most images online doesn't show an antenna, the illustration on the box doesn't show an antenna. The were no parts for an antenna, but the instructions call for one. Hmmm?  Luckily there was one extra landing pad and then I went to the greeblie box for the backing piece, and a few pieces of wire, and I had one. Correct? I dunno...

 With the decals done, I tuned my attention to a base. My idea was since the legs are fairly spindly, I figure gluing it down to a base. A trip to Hobby Lobby got my a nice plaque, and then to got out my DAS Air dry clay and created a moon base. Added a few boulders and some small craters. When that dries, it'll be painted and the ship glued on. Check back for that.  Thanks for looking. 

 

Looking like pizza now, it'll soon be a moon base.  ;)