Nightmare!

 This Dellamorteco kit is a representation of the 1781 painting by Fuseli of a woman having a nightmare with an Incubus and the mare in attendance. 

 The kit which is probably really a statue comes completed in black resin with a gray or white drybrush. I would be in 4 pieces - the woman on the bed, the devil and the horse. I'm guessing the parts were attached with a metal rod and hot glue. A little twist separated the horse and devil from their spots. 

This was one of those kits that I built in between my other builds. so it took a number of weeks and with that I would forget to take pics. I only have a few WIP of this build. The first one is after I added the flesh color, and the second is with the model base coat.

 

The original painting was essentially very Black or White.  I wanted some color but tried to de-saturate the colors to make things a little more creepy. I have second thoughts on whether I succeeded or not.  My devil are different reds and my horse is reverted the the black and white. Thanks for looking.

 

The angle change to see the devil eyes.

 

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.  ;) 

Iron Mainden's Eddie Showcase

 This was a quick little project from Mike Swisstack aka CthulhuGizzard. It's Iron Maiden's infamous mascot Eddie as seen on the Piece of Mind album.

Simply done with washes of Citadel's Agrax Earthshade, V's Rose Beige for the tongue, Army Painter's Bone for the teeth. and black gloss under the metallic colors.

The eyes were done painting the orbits black the brush painting white for the irises (there's a n indication of where they go) and the white again in an airbrush to fuzz the white a bit. Lastly a bloack dot for the pupil.

My next trip to the craft store I'll pick up a mounting for it. Thanks for looking.  

 

Fr. Karras

 Staying with the horror theme a little longer, Fr. Damien Karras the troubled priest from the 1973 Exorcist film went on the hobby table. The character was played by Jason Miller who sadly passed away in 2001.  As a sidebar his son is Jason Patrick of Lost Boys fame!

The kit is in 2 simple parts - the bust and the base. Looking it over there was only the slightest flash line in the hair, which was easily removed. The sculpt IMO is a freeze frame of when the demon enters the priest, saving Regan. I was surprised that looking for a screen grab of that part of the scene was harder to find than I thought. 

 

With the black priest garb this is going to be an easy paint up. I start as usual with my "pinkle" and red base coat to the skin. While that was drying, my plan was to make the  name plate a tarnished bronze. I saw a tutorial where the tarnish is painting in first and then the metallic is dry brushed on later. So lets see...

 Then the bronzing...

 Next up is  the face colors, and despite him looking very pale in that last image, I felt he needed a little coloring as the first skin application. 

 The priest garb is simply black, and then I added some black gray as a highlight for the shoulders etc... V's Pale Flesh was added to the face and then with the outline of his eyes sculpted it, I added a little Agrax Wash to the round divots and then a greenish yellow to the irises once the Wash dried. The final need was taking my stylus tool and with a dip into black made the pupils. He was finished. He can now join his partner Fr. Merrin who was previously done. Thanks for looking. 

(Apologies for the bad pic)

 

Barnabas Collins

 This all started out when I re-discovered the 60's series Dark Shadows on Amazon Prime TV.  I remember seeing some of it as a kid, but I also remember my Mom telling me it was a monster show. So after seeing a few shows and not seeing any monsters, off I went to Magilla Gorilla or some other show...

I was probably into the series about 5 or 6 episodes when all of a sudden I see that Jeff Yagher had just released a Barnabas Collins in 1/4 scale. There was nothing else I could do except pick one up. 

The kit comes in 5 parts - the bust the coffin base his arm/hand, and two pieces for the cane; the stick part in wooden dowel and the wolf's head topper in resin. All cast flawlessly by Gillman.  

 

 

Starting off the usual way, primed in black and then sponged on the white highlight. After that I was at the point in the series where the show switched over from B&W to color.  I also noticed for most of the time, even when he was biting necks (tho you never see it - oops spoilers) he remained a regular skin color. Only well into the seasons did someone think that he could be made creepier with fancy lighting. So since his fangs aren't shoeing in the kit, I'll give him a normal flesh tone. 

 

Next I had seen on YT that guys were painting texture to mimic clothing by reducing the psi of the air brush to almost nothing and have the paint "spit" out of the brush. So I lowered mine to 9 or 10 psi and then tried it on my cloth. I learned that when you first hit the trigger the "spit" comes out in dots too large for the scale. So the thing to do is open the air over the rag and you can with nearly no mess move the a/b over the part you want to paint.  Any too big dots can be eliminated right away with a wet paintbrush at the ready. After covering the face paint with Silly Putty I just spit away...

I noticed after the fact as see in the kit image that his arm can go a few ways into the socket. Looking at so many episodes where his portrait is hanging in Collinswood's foyer, I placed his arm where the ring is front and center. 

 

  

 While the figure was drying I turned my attention to the coffin and cover. I wanted it very simply, so I mimicked wood, with a bronze handle and then just used gloss black for the covering. The pic shows midway thru the painting. 

 The last things was a similar spitting technique - I thought I'd press my luck - to do his outer coat, and to paint his cane. For that, believe it or not, the best chrome I've found is Rustoleum's Brite Metallic. Another vampire put to bed for the day... ;)

Sidebar- I also discovered that Collinswood is a real place in Newport RI. It's a private mansion so if you searching out filming locations like I do - remember their privacy