The Ceti Eel

Based on the creature seen in Star Trek: The Wrath of Khan. This was a quick little model I've been tinkering with for a while now and decided to finish it up and get if off the bench and onto the shelf.

I received the kit thru Gillman Prod.. It came in 4 parts - the body, two "leg claws", and the tip of the tail. It was cast in a cream color resin, and had only 4 or 5 tiny bubbles. On an intricate surface like this, that is excellent. 

After washing the parts, I primed them all in black.  Then I went about assembling the kit. The legs fit fairly well, and used some Vallejo Putty to fill the voids. Turning to the tail, I drilled both parts and pinned the tail to the body. There was a bit of a gap between the two parts and this too was fixed with V's putty.

Next I painted the entire top pf the model Vallejo's Cork brown. 

I then washed the segment spaces with Citadel's Nuln Oil. Once that was dry, I washed the rest of the plates with V's Agrax Earthshade.  Later on I hit the highest parts of the plates with V's Sand Yellow.  
Along the lines I added Citadels Sepia wash around the eye, and finally used V's Glossy Black for the eye slit.

Next up will be it's enclosure. Check back for that. Thanks for looking. 

Dennett's Cosmic Corruption (aka Melting Man)

The next kit I tackled was another from John Dennett's MoonDevil Studio. It's called Cosmnic Corruption. As usual John has a backstpory to go with the sculpt --

"The effect of the radiation on the crew of the Space Station was unprecedented. The breach in the shields from within the vessel and the pulsing surge from outside the hull left no area untouched. According to the last transmission, nothing, no part of their bodies, not a cell was left unaffected by the invading poison. The idea that a human being could be exposed to such contamination and still survive is hard to fathom and yet eight people have done just that. However all communications have stopped. We cannot imagine what is happening out there. The approaching supply ship is only nine hours away from the station at this time and are detecting no unusual radiation in that sector. It will be that ship's Captain who will decide whether to approach and ultimately enter the station and risk exposing her crew to what remains on board." 

I named it The Melting Man. He went thru several incarnations as I mad up my mind on how I finally wanted it to look.  

This time I tried a new technique for starting a model. I first prime it black and then heavily drybrush the model with white. In doing so when you get that first light coat of color, you automatically start with two colors. Here I sprayed a tan and a little red color over the B&W, and it looked something like this --

 At this point the eyes and teeth  are still the drybrush white. Then I took a few colors, Brown, red, blue and purple and spattered dote over the top of what I had. No good. The color was already too dark, and the spatters didn't really show up. So I decided to light it up with a little more flesh color -- 

 Better, but a little too mono chromatic. So I added a few other colors in the form of Vallejo Game Color Inks. It was here that I needed to give him the terror look so I added they eyes.

As I was painting "Melting Man kept going thru my head  So I decided then that towards the end I would take clear 2 part epoxy, mix it with some red ink and end the model up that way. Well, the red ink was too thin and too red, so I mixed up a more of the little of the epoxy I had and used VMC Vermillion. What happened next was the addition of the paint started to set the epoxy. So I needed to rush the application. 
This is what I ended up with. I kinda like it, tho in spots the hardening epoxy is too thick in spots.
I also noticed in the pics that the inks I painted over the epoxy cracked and had to be painted over. I also noticed the black base got scratched in a few spots. Thats the bad thing about Vallejo primers - they are very stong once dry, but it take a full day or more for them to dry... 
So the these things have been fixed after these photos. I'll get around to a real final pic soon. Thanks for looking.  

 

The Croaker King part 2

Looking over the bust I felt that the dots for eyes just didn't do it for me. I didn't want to scrape them of the paint, so it took 3 or 4 coats of Scarlet paint to make them disappear. Then I tried out my Windsor & Newton Series 7 brush to add 3 lines to each eye (1 black pupil and a line of flesh each side of it). Next I felt there was too much green so I darkened down the purple I was using around the eyes and used it on his back. 

You'll also notice the base is done. In what turned out to be a semi failed experiment, I tried to use real fern leaves to make a camo pattern. The leaves were just too floppy and I didn't have enough to have it turn out the way I wanted.   Thanks for looking.
 

Late May in the Shop - Galileo

I got a little time to work on kits. What I did was to try out the new Stynylrez one two of the new Moondevil mini busts. I gave them a shot in the black, only adding a few drops of Vallejo's Retarder Medium and it sprayed on very nicely. Since the models are now just black I didn't see any need to take pics of that. Look at the previous pic and instead of the green, think black.  ;)

Then I got to thinking about the Classic Space ships I've been working on - and dug out Fantastic Plastic's Rocket Ship Galileo. 

It's a kit based on the Heinlein book of the same name. To be honest I haven't read it, but did download it to my Kindle for a summer read. Anyway, it is a typical FP kit - very nice castings with odorless, bubble free resin. The only work you'll have to do is remove some of the pour plug.  In this model you get to choose the engine you want - be it the chemical or nuclear version. I chose the nuclear.

Here are some of the parts (my nuclear cap was on my PC desk as I was removing the pour plug as I went thru my emails...  On the top left you will see the chemical engine tho.

I started assembly by putting the wings on, and although it was a tight fir the seams did show so I it them with some putty.

That's were we are as of now. Check back for more. Thanks for looking.

New Aquisitions

I've been a little spotty with my blogging here. Health and other life issues are in the way, and I only get up there when I can. 

But that doesn't stop me from buying. The latest round are a few more of the mini busts from John Dennet and MoonDevil Studios. I didn't take pics this time but I did use his image to highlight what I have. The ones circled in purple are the ones I already have. The ones circled in green are the new ones.

Thanks for looking.

Rogue 1 Images

There's been a sneak peak at some of the new characters and ships from the new SW movie Rogue 1
If you don't want to know don't click passed the break. ;) 

New Aquisitions

Been away for a while - health problems, but I'm back for now.
Just because I'm not building, doesn't mean I'm not buying. Haha  First two kits are from the Classic Horror category and from Gillman Productions. One is Fredric March';s version of Mr. Hyde. The next is Boris Karloff playing Ardeth Bay in The Mummy. I must apologize in advance for the lousy pics this time around. I'll have it fixed for next time -- 

I saw these next figures a while ago, and instantly was drawn to them. They are from Forge World and are part of the Warhammer 40K.  To me they looked like an alternate world or a sci-fi version of WW1 warriors. I picked up three horsemen, and a command crew. I little dio will be in the works. There are lots of little parts so I tried to take the pic thru the package. I think you get the idea of how it looks ---

For the next ones I jump to the sci-fi realm. The first one is from the show Farscape. It's the ship Crighton was in when he got sucked into the worm hole by Black Sun Models - 

Next is the Gaiderol Class ship from the Japanese show Yamato 2199. They are small kits, but there a lot of them and each has a unique design. I got this one from the Starship Modeler Store -- 

Now I jump to Real Space and have two busts from the Soviet space Program by the Czech Co., 2dreamers.  The first is Yuri Gagarin, and the other is Alexi Leonov --

Lastly are some new primers. Frequenting the modeling videos on You Tube, a number of the guys have been raving about Badger's Stynylrez primers, so I thought I'd give them a shot. The name indicates they they will work on styrene, vinyl and resin, so I'm hoping to have the same good results that I've seen on the vids. I picked up my set on Amazon -

 Whew, that was a long entry. Thanks if you've made it all the way to the end. Thanks for looking.