Ghost of Christmas Present

 I received this kit from John Dennett so close to Christmas last year, that I didn't have time to get it painted. He's been staring at me all year and now it's time to get him finished and with the other characters. 

The Ghost of Christmas Present from the 1951 Christmas Carol comes in 2 parts - the bust and the base, in nearly flawless resin. There was the faintest seam line in one spot that scraped away in in a minute.  

 As always I started in right away.not looking at any images. And right away I got things wrong. With the beard I thought Santa, but I wanted a non-Santa look. So the idea was the white beard, and a green robe. When I decided to check an image I got it half right. All the images show a green robe, but he had a reddish brown beard. So time to change. Here was the pic I decided on using (even tho it's not the 1951 version). 

I started with the "pinkle" face color and then green for the robes and garland. Then I got out the Hull Red for the hair. I followed that out with some fair skin tone to lighten it up. I blacked out the eyes and when dry hit it Deck Tan.  Forgetting to take pics, this is where I'm up to. Thanks for looking and check back for the finale. 

 

The Thing - Norton Head Spider

 This time around we're taking a look at throwing paint on the Norton Head spider from The Thing. This is another Yagher sculpt, with Gillman producing. 

The way I got is was you buy a Thing kit, you get a few parts, the more kits you get from the series the more spider parts you get until you get all the parts - if you wanted.  

 The next step was to find a reference. something besides the movie since once the Spider is mobile you really don't get a good look at it color-wise.  Then I found this pic at the RPF.com - 

 

Before finding this awesome pic, I was planning on starting him off with some flesh color skin. So I begin with that "pinkle" undercoating. 

 

 

I do give a base coat of Flesh, and then add a bit of Pale Flesh on top. 

I wanted the legs to be a bit more mottled than the face, so I added various colors both washed and spattered on. 

This is another model where I could fiddle with it until the end of time. so at one point I have to push myself away from the workbench and say I'm done.  Thanks for looking.

 

 

Tsiolkovsky Moon Rocket Part 2

This session will be a short one.

It took a few rounds of filling and sanding, so now it was time to hit it with some primer to test the  fix. One line doesn't really matter as one of the 3 fins covers it. But the other needs to be as perfect as possible since the final finish with me a metal one. 

Then it was time to install the fins. I've been dealing with resin garage kits long enough so the idea of the fins fitting perfectly first time around would require a miracle.  And I was right. Running our of gel superglue, I was stuck with the fin stuff, and that meant that I had to go nice and slow to prevent runs.

They sort of fit together but there will again be a lot of filling. But nothing I couldn't handle. Once they were all on. I did a quick filling with the Vallejo putty. They spread pretty easily, but there will be a lot of cleaning taking the putty our of the grooves on the fins.  That will be for next time. Thanks for looking and check back.

 

Edmund Fitzgerald

I've been fascinated by the lore of the Fitz ever since I read that Gordon Lightfoot was compelled to write the ballad when he saw the local newspaper "Couldn't even have the courtesy to spell the name of the ship correctly."  From there I saw as many of the documentaries as I could, read as many of the books as I good to get a feeling for what really happened.  The I saw this ad for Iron Shipwrights. There I saw the 1/700 Edmund Fitzgerald. 

 

I started cleaning up the resin, and ran across one of the reasons why I dislike when companies try to clean things up for the buyer. After a while the get sloppy and thats when accidents happen. Here we have them using the grinder to take off the pour stub and oops whoever hit the side of the hull3 times with the edge of the grinder.

 So that will have to be fixed. A few layers of Tamiya putty did the trick. While that was drying I was feeling especially ambitious, and check to the accuracy of the portholes on the hull. The other thing was that after cutting the decks from the stub, they started to warp. I needed the very hot water treatment for that. Thankfully the decks were thin and straightened out just from the hot water dip.

The next step was painting the ship. Looking at the real ship we're looking at mostly 2 colors~ white and Hull Red.

 

So that's where I started.

 And that where we're leaving it for now. Check back...

Willy Ley Orbital Rocket

Late last year at one of my Model Club's Zoom meetings there was mention how expensive kits were when all the aftermarket parts were obtained. someone else wished we could go back and just build a kit without worrying about anything. It was thought up early this year that the Club would have a group build entitled "Build Like An 11 Year Old." Being one of the sponsors of the build I was now on the lookout for a kit that I either built or could have built as a kid in the late '60's - early '70's.  Not long after, I saw in an email blast from CultTVMan, that the Atlantis had the Willy Ley Orbital Rocket available.   According to Scalemates, the original kit was released by Monogram in 1959, and then Atlantis re-popped it in 2024 in the same 1:193 (?) box scale size. 

It arrived at the house not a week after ordering and upon opening the box I was brought back to being a kid again with red, white and blue colors of the plastic. All the flash also brought back memories. 

 The back of the box also had a surprised in that the photos were those of Allen Ury of Fantastic Plastic. 

Now, how was I going to build like an 11 year old? First thing I thought of was that with the colored plastic, I wouldn't paint it. Remembering back, not having an older brother or dad who built models, I probably wouldn't have known how to fill seams- so I would leave this out too. 

An early problem was that one of the astronauts appeared to be missing. I figured that was fine as what's the chance a little kid would lose a part - pretty good- I thought. So in the main ship I had just one pilot. Bust as you would know it, after the fuselage was glued together, I found the 3rd astronaut on a different sprue covered in flash. Perfect, I thought, as I was prying the fuselage open to get the second pilot into the main vehicle. 

Thinking of the 50s and how the real spacesuits were silver, both pilots were brushed with silver and just a dot of black where their face shields would be. An 11 year old would be aiming, but I just quickly made two dots...
 

While I had the silver out I also painted the engines with the color.

The rest of the model went together fairly painlessly. With the interior of the second ship more visible and smaller, I smeared around some gray paint in there. I was also at this time I saw where the painting instructions were hiding and discovered that the astronauts were supposed to be in a light green uniform. It was too late for the first two guys, but the 3 pilot was painted with a lime green, a silver helmet, and the black dot.

Now it was time for the decals. I remembered that I wouldn't have know about Micro Set/Micro Sol, so I wouldn't use those either.  Here it was discovered an error on the decal sheet. On the wings of the main ship was two yellow, triangular stripes, one for each wing. I cut them out, dipped them in the water and then realized that they were both for the same side. An 11 year old would have known he couldn't use them, but probably wouldn't have figured that they could be used as stencils and paint the stripes on - at least I wouldn't have thought of it. So I just left them off. After all the decals were on, many stood proudly above the plastic because of all the rivets. So in an effort of trying not to lose them with handling, I gave in and Micro-Sol'd them down ~ -1 point for me. 

With that I glued the two ships together and then to the stand. I came as close as I could to being that 11 year old. My other point loss would be that I wasn't going to search out the Testor's Tube Glue I remember. So I just used the Tamiya Thin that I had. With that, I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

AWIL Werewolf

  I begin with the same ol' similar story. Yes, this kit is yet another kit that's been in the stash a long time. well done in a white resin, it only has a few thing seam lines. Cleanup should be no problem. I plan to match it to the movie the best I can. The only good shot I remember is the ending in the alley. Let's go. 

As mentioned, only a thin line from the mold needed to be cleaned up. Also a little putty is needed where the legs met the body. The teeth have to be added later.
 

 

The teeth were my first real challenge. They really didn't fit into the mouth properly. The thickness of the "dentures" needed to be thinned, and they seemed to be offset, and bit's taken off the ends to get them to sit straight. But after a little work, they looked good. 

Paint next. I primed in black, and then lots of grays, whites, and a little light blue to fill in the fur. The victim was a bit different. He got the same deal as any other skin tone, except a added a bit of V's white Gray to make him look dead. Some UV resin mixed with some Transparent Red gave be the blood stain. 

A few more tweaks and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

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.