The Origin of Lowbrow

 Starting the base I needed some foam, and something solid. I had a few oval MDF flats pre-made for bases. I took 2, and glued them together and then glued them to a piece of foam.

Once the glue was dry, I used my hot wire foam cutter to cut the oval shape into the foam using the MDF as a guide.

From there Is aw a YouTube video where they mixed Mod Podge together with paint and some sawdust to get a textured surface. Little did I know that everything is for sale on Amazon; even sawdust! I was able to buy two containers - rough and fine sawdust, and it was delivered in 2 days!  I mixed all the ingredients, including some black paint together, and because of the sawdust, had to add water. Unfortunately I mixed in too much and ended with a soupy mix. But I still thought I could use it. Taking a palette knife I was able to add my mixture like icing on a cake. I added a few pebbles, and bark chips to recreate rocks. I also temporarily pushed the car into the wet mix so it would have a spot for it to sit when this all dried.

This took a few days to dry, but while I waiting I took some folded over Frog tape and created leaves for a plant I was going to add. Then I mixed up a little ball of Aves and created what will be a cycad type plant. 

When the mix dried I added a few different shades of tan and yellow beige to the soil, and a reddish to the plant. I added the cycad and a big rock carved out of foam. Fred and the car were glued in next, and the final step was adding Wilma. She was glued to the back wheel and her feet to the ground. Thanks for looking. 

 

The Tsiolkovsky Moon Rocket

 Years ago Fantastic Plastic started started a new genre in their store of the classic rockets from the movies, etc...  A number of kits from the line were produced and he manages to release new ones.

But this one I picked up from CultTVMan from Adam Johnson and AJAmodels. From their info sheet: In 1935, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky  was asked by Boris Shumyatsky to assist in writing and designing a moon rocket for a film called "Cosmic Voyage." The films depicts ut's (fromIMDB):  

... 1946, the Soviet space program is undergoing turmoil. Professor Sedikh, who is planning to lead the first manned exploration to the moon, is denounced by his rival Professor Karin as being too old and too mentally unstable for the mission. Professor Sedikh, aided by his assistant Marina and a youth named Andryusha, disregard Prof. Karin's authority and make a successful landing on the moon. Although a few problems occur at the moon, including the discovery of a damaged oxygen tank and Professor Sedikh's becoming trapped under a fallen boulder, the expedition is a success and the cosmonauts return to Moscow.  

\Tsiolkovsky died during the film's production, marking it as his last achievement in life, and his goal of the promise of manned space travel.

The kit is made up of 6 gray resin parts, plus a number (they are still wrapped up) clear acetate pices to make a display stand. Decals are also included.

Starting the build I noticed the first problem. The fuselage parts are well done, but they are mismatched. They are both the same length, but if you line up end to end the 4 circular windows don't match. So the thing to do here is make sure the windows are circles and worry about sanding both ends of the ship later.

With the fuselage fully super glued. It was now time to tackle the seam-line along the length of the craft. To keep things neat I laid down two rows of Tamiya tape and then applied Tamiya Putty to the seam. 

That's all the time I had for this session. Check back when the 3 fins get installed. Thanks for looking. 

The Origin of Lowbrow - Flintstones

 This kit I first saw on You Tube or the Net, and since the Flintstones were a big part of my childhood as a kid, I had to have.  The kit is from Iceman Collections and parts are all 3D printed.All the parts are very well done, and the grow lines have all been well hidden - except for Wilma. But her sculpt is so dainty that I didn't want to mess with her too much.

I started out with the vehicles, and since it's made up of stone and wood, grays were used for the stone and a light brown was sprayed on first, then streaked with a darker brown for the grain was added with a thin brush. Finally a was of Citadel's Agrax was put over the top. While I had the brown out, I also painted the frame for the top.

 While that was drying, I turned to Fred. Having seen Fred a zillion times, I was well aware of his dark hair skin color and orange suit. The only thing I had to search for was the color of his tie. I this version he got a little soul patch which needed to be painted, and the weird part was he has no eyes - he'll be wearing shades later. He also has a stub of a cigar. So that will need some paint too.

 

While that's all drying, I turned my attention to Wilma. This version is showing a lot of skin, so I started out with my usual deep pink to start the skin tone. 

 From there I used Vallejo's Game Air Flesh for the skin tone. Then followed up with her white dress, shoes and necklace. Then the red hair was done, starting with the darkest color.

 

Coming back later, I gave her a face with lashes, blush, and eye shadow. Glad I had my Opti-visors! :) 

 With the figures more or less done, it was time to try and put everything together. This model, like all 3D designed models I've dealt with so far, have tolerances so tight that unless things are put together in such a way, things won't fit. The parts I saw that I noticed Fred, the steering wheel and the seat. Fred and the seat was fairly fiddle-y and it took a little negotiating to get the steering wheel into his hand and into the spot for it. But he was in there. Also as seen below I got the glasses on. They were VERY fragile. I wanted some of that changing iridescents from Green Stuff World for the lenses, so a glass black went down first, then two dots of the green to blue changing paint.

 

Wilma is only attached to Fred/the car by her tiny hands, so so sort of base was needed. I took one of my ovals and adhered it to some foam and then used the hot wire cutter to get the shape. From there I mixed up some of my black Mod Podge with some saw dust for texture. I added a little water to make it a bit thinner, and then with a palette knife to add it like icing on a cake. Being very wet it's time to dry it. That's where we will stop for now. Check back for the finale.

Edmund Fitzgerald

This is another kit out of the depths of my stash. The Fitz was done my Iron Shipwright Models, and in looking for the url, I see they are still around being bought by Commander Models. 

The ship is 1/700 scale working out to about 12" .  Being an older kit, the smaller pieces have a bit of flash on them and will take some time to clean. It looks like they took off the pour plug on the bottom of the hull with a grinder. The bottom is a bit rough, but if you are going to sit it "in water" that won't be a problem. The one big problem is that while the grinder was still spinning, it accidentally hit the side of the hull. That needs to be fixed!

The image from the website indicates they redid the molds and things are better arranged. 

 Since mine will be in water, I'm not worrying about the bottom, so the first think to tackle is the gouges on the side. I started out fill them with Tamiya putty, but didn't like the look and redid it with some Aves. The next thing is to tackle the decks. I guess they were in the box so long that each one had some type of warpage. A quick dunk it super hot water fixed that.

The gouge and the warp

 I decided that I would clean the fiddly bits as I needed them, so next is a coat of primer, and when dry, the base colors. The ship is basically two colors - white and Hull Red. 

 That's where we are going to leave it for this session. Check back for more.

Bram Stoker's Lucy

 This bust is from Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula film from 1992. The likeness is that of Sadie Frost who played Lucy Westerna, Dracula's victim in London. The pose shows Lucy has already been killed by Dracula and Van Helsing and the others confront her as she returns to her crypt. In the film she was just about to be married, so when she died she was buried in her wedding dress - hence all the frills...

 The model comes in 9 parts - 4 headdress frills, her head, arm, collar, body and base. It was a white resin casting and only 1 or 2 seam lines remained. 

As usual I started with paint the portrait. Since she's dead, she's very pale, but high rez images show blush was applied to her cheeks. So I had to remember that but not make it too obvious. she also looked to have gray eyes, but this round I picked paint that was too light.

Putting that aside to dry I tackled the next most obvious part, the frilly collar. Naturally the part is one solid piece of resin, but again looking at detailed pics, the real thing was mostly open lace where you could see thru it. How to do that?

What I did was give the whole part a wash of gray, and then came back with a makeup brush doubling as a dry brush and carefully brought back the highlights. Then I added some pearlizing paint to give it a shine. The pearls around her neck were also pearlized to give them a similar shine. The ornament was painted a chrome.

Since everything was overwhelmingly white, I decided to add some purple to the shadows of the ruffled headdress and her gown. The actual cap she wore showed up as a different white color, so that was painted Ivory. Similar was done for her arm.

I painted the base a simple black and then drybrushed some white to brig out the texture in the stone. At the end I added some "blood" drips and I was done. 

 

 

Medusa

Always looking to add to my Medusa collection. This time we have one that was sitting in the stash for so long that I no longer remember the producer or any other info. I tried doing a search but - no joy. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know...

 It came in 3 parts - the bust the snakes and the base. It was a nearly flawless casting - a few faint seam lines but nothing really worth noting. 

 

Started off with adding some flesh tones, and decided her outfit would be red. While that was drying a drybrushed the base and then added some green tint. 

Finally I addressed the elephant in the room and tackled the snakes. I didn't want them all to be the same color. There are so many sculpted in there, that I was afraid it would look like one big blob.  After getting them all colored in, they seemed too bright. So out came the Citadel Agrax Earthshade wash (brown) and dulled them down a bit. I added the black wash to the deepest recesses for that effect. 

Finally, I tidied up a few areas, and added a little more color to the base, and I was done. Thanks for looking.

My obligatory size comparison with soda...;)

 

Young Frankenstein's Igor

This time I'm taking another figure from Pestilence Labs' Young Frankenstein series. It's Marty Feldman as Igor! The kit comes in 4 parts of very clean white resin, plus one plastic container.

 

The first go round had me use white and brown primer mixed to make a fairly nice looking skin color. Then I put Silly Putty over the face to prime the cloak black. After the black primer had dried, I pulled off the Silly Putty, and for the first time ever (!) the Silly Putty completely took the primer off - right down to the resin. I guess my washing was a little lacking. So again I took some Simple Green (great stuff) and rewashed the face. This time the tan primer stayed on. 

As seen above, somewhere along the lines I also painted a simple stone wall base. From there it was just a matter of giving Igor a few skin highlights, painting the eyeballs, eyebrows, and teeth. Looking it up I found Marty had intense blue gray irises. So I initially painted them a dark blue to get a ring around the edge that he has, and then used V's Azure color to paint in the irises. I mixed a little light gray, and p[ut some small marks to give the iris some dimension. 

While that was drying I took the painted brain, dropped in in the jar and then filled it a bit with some light purple UV resin. This turned out to be a mistake as the brain fit the jar perfectly and some bubbles got stuck. Not being about to do a lot about removing them a just sighed, and continued to fill the jar with more UV resin. With that I was done. Thanks for looking.