Salome Finale

If you read a previous post and thought I left star to the side for a while. This one has been on the table since Nov. of 2024!  To read part 1, click HERE. 

I left off without being able to choose a flesh color.  The first try went on a little too pink for someone from the Middle East, so I got my hands on V's Tanned Skin PAINT SET. I was a bit happier with that look. 

 I added dark hair and then some gold jewelry, and other highlights and she was quickly completed. 

 as seen in the image above the model is shown with her standing on a stone. IMO that was very "princess-y" So I got out some AVES and sculpted some pillows for her to stand on. I didn't seem to take a pic of them WIP, so we'll have to wait for the final shots.

The next task was to put her in a vignette like Star was in, but the pillows were made too large and she wouldn't find. So I found another base for her to occupy. I had some previous luck with creating a marbled look, and thought I'd try it again.  This time I found some Marble spray can. Giving it a try, it comes out of the can like Silly string but was doable. Until I tried it for real; what a mess. This stuff was not made for small scale paint jobs.  The I saw a YouTube VIDEO showing how it's done, and the guy was putting it on a full sized countertop!  So I had to be very selective with my spray. I painted a deep green as a base and then added thick streaks of a lighter green. The spray would give it it's white veins. I masked in where gold seams would be.

Looked good, except all the streaks weren't going in the same direction, again because of how brief the spray need to be. So I got out some white paint and with an filled in what I thought was lacking. Next I looked into ETSY and found a dollhouse vase with a plant that would fill in an empty spot. Yes, I didn't paint the plant. IMO taking a plant out of a package and gluing it directly on a base screams PLASTIC AQUARIUM PLANT!   I put a partial column I had under the vase to add some height.  

The final job was to epoxy the column, vase, pillows and Salome, and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

  

Lost Boys' Star Finale

 To see part 1, go HERE. I didn't realize she was sitting off to the side for so long!

The idea for the base was to be one of those mini-vignettes that you see on so many miniatures these days. star at 1/12 scale isn't quite a miniature, But I think small enough to pull off the look without taking up so much of my dwindling space. 

I was looking for a background, amongst the various Lost Boys wall paper. I was looking for something in regards to the demolished hotel. But there was nothing that showed up that I liked. There was a nice outside of the cave, but that really could have been anywhere. Then I found a scene of vampire David taking to Michael. And decided that's the one I'd use.  

Despite how it was fixed up it was still supposed to be a broken abandoned place. So I started with some sheet styrene scored to look like tile. I chewed away at it here and there and even partially lifted up one section. Then I used some Aves to crate a mound of stuff between the back of the flooring and the "wallpaper." Then it was just a matter of adding bits and bobs to fill it up to look busy. Another bit of stuff that I thought appropriate was the containers of Chinese food that was used in the scene. Knowing one could find card models of nearly everything I quickly found a container to cut out and glue together. 

 

 

The image has a red hue and I figured I'd need to bring that onto the base as well for a sort of OSL. Then the image was way too wide for the background and that needed to be cut down. I was just glue on with some LIQUITEX MATTE MEDIUM. The next thing to do was add some noodles to the container which I did with some COSCLAY.

 

Finally, Star was epoxied into her spot and I was finally done. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

Young Frankenstein "Froderick"

 "It's Fronkenstein" "You're puttin' me on?" "No..." "Well then why isn't it Froderick Fronkenstein?" "It isn't, it's Fredrick Fronkenstein." 

This time around we have another bust from Pestilence Labs from 1974's Young Frankenstein series - the Doctor. The kit is a pretty simple kit consisting of the 1:4 scale bust, castle base, the "How I Did It" book, and the 2 parts of the collar that flies open during the Act Normal! scene.

I would have to look hard to find any problems but one thing I would have to guess is whys does the Doctor appear to be looking down? I have a theory that I'll keep to myself, as it's an excellent likeness. 

 

@Pestilence image

To change things up a little I decided to do the base first. It's a simple pile of stones and decided to leave them blend into the overall look - so simple grays and blacks with light gray mortar were used. 

Moving on to the face I added my regular pink/purple mix. While I was waiting for it to dry, I painted the book with some of V's Cavalry Red.  

 

Adding some various flesh colors I got the color I was happy with.Looking closely at his hair it seemed that he had very dark roots with some bright highlights. It's also quite obvious that they had Wilder in a lot of mascara. Finally I had to look it up to find out he had blue eyes. While that was drying I turned back to the book to add the gold lettering. 

 

Finally, it shows him in a dark (black?)  tuxedo jacket with a white shirt and collar. Not wanting to use just black and white, I used V's Black Gray, and their Off-white.  Just recently I noticed the buttons on his shirt were dark. I'll have to make that change.  Thanks for looking. 
 

The Thing's Childs Finale

 If you haven't seen part One yet go HERE. 

Allowing a few days to calm down, and started on Take 3 for the portrait. By this time I was getting good at it (IMHO). ;)  

Getting that done is was on to the rest of the bust. There are only a few instances when you see Childs with his parka. One was when they were ducking down in the hallway - 

 But seeing him at the end, even with the odd lighting it appears that his parka is quite dirty. But the blue has to go down first. I coated the entire thing V's Dark Prussian Blue, and then hit the upper areas with just Prussian blue. Finally I added a light blue to the Prussian Blue for the last highlight.  Then I realized this would be all moot when the dirt when on. Sigh. 

Turning to the back of his head, I fixed the drip from last session, added the appendages and adjusted the colors a little bit. For the tentacles I used the Florescent Green, and the finger/arm I used a light flesh color. The flesh was toned down with some Reikland Fleshshade, and the green with some green tinted UV resin. I also made a gooey drip with it. 

 Putting the post together I realized I never took images of a WIP of the base. It was painted with various metallic colors and then washed in some rust. There was a few stains added with V's Oily Earth wash. I then mixed up some Woodland Sceneics SNOW, matte medium, little bit of white paint, and some Pearl paint. I slathered it over the sculpted snow and was done with that.  I painted the bottle green, and then added a darker color hoping to mimic there being some drink still left in it. The glove was painted brown. Then the parka, and arm/glove was dusted unevenl6t with MIG's European Dust PIGMENT.  I finally glued the bottle to the glove, the glove/arm to the bust and the bust to the base. I was glad to get this one off my desk.  Thanks for looking. 

 

The Thing's Childs

 Having a few collections to complete I decided that Childs from the 1982 movie The Thing was desk on the table. The character, Childs, was played by actor Keith David, and was the base's mechanic. Keith points out that Child's breaks the Horror film trope that "the black guy never makes it to the end of the film."  He is part of the Childs/McReady controversy in that who was the Thing at the end...

 The kit came in 7 parts - the bust, base, gloved hand, whiskey bottle, and 3 appendages. The likeness is spot on and the casting as usual with Gillman is nearly flawless.  With this piece, the Yagher, the sculptor, gives away two of his ideas of how things ended. Number one the base is created to look like a generator, which answers MeReady's question :How's the generator," and Garry answers "It's gone, MacReady!" As a sidebar Garry was his last name. On the character list he was M.T. Garry. 

 The Yagher also gives his opinion of whether Childs or McReady, neither or both were infected. From the front Child's portrait is spot on. But from the back you see his head is split open and all sort's of gooey things are emerging. 

As usual I start with the portrait. I don't get to do dark skin all that much so I was glad I picked up a number of Army Painter skin double triads (6 colors that all blend) . I started withe the darkest one, and then I really didn't like many of the companion colors as they seemed too desaturated. I had seen another painter use oranges to highlight the skin, so I turned to my set of rust paints.  A few different layers and I was liking what I had so far. 

 Turning to the back of the head I added various reds and oranges to make the wound. My thoughts on wounds and blood is that a little goes a long way. I went too far, so I got some Agrax Earthshade to darken down the crevices and ended my session there. 

Coming back to it the next day I see disaster struck. I had angled the bust face down at an angle so the wash would dry in all the recesses. What it did was to rundown the head and then gravity would take it around to the bottom which from that angle was the face.  I now had this  dark stripe running across the face and down to the chin where it dried. I tried lightly getting it off. It didn't really work that well. So I got out the paints and had Take 2 of doing the portrait. After getting it fixed, I sprayed it with a matte clear to protect the new paint (which I didn't do the first time). Tragedy struck again as the matte clear coat instantly frosted. I had heard that if you quickly spray it with a gloss, the frost goes away. The frost did go away - mostly. Disgusted, I chose to walk away rather than whip it off the wall. Check back.

Exorcist Regan

 I have had the busts of the two priests from The Exorcist on my shelf now for some time- Fr. Karras, and Fr. Merrin .   To finish off the trilogy Regan was also offered, but the sculpt was too good and it was just too creepy for me.  Move time fwd and Artist/producer Saul Alvarez of Silver Screen Icons has come up with another Regan. This time a little less creepy (IMHO). :D

 

 

The kit comes in 5 3D printed parts - the head, the body, the base, and then a head and base of the idol Pazuzu.  There is also a copy of the movie poster that fits into the base frame. Excellent idea for future movie models. 

 The kit looked pretty benign, so I epoxied the 3 main parts together, in what turned out to an early mistake. Turns out there are spots the way the hair is done that reveals openings to the dress/nightgown that can be seen and it was rather difficult to get primer in there. But with a little effort the job got done. 

Next, as usual for me was to add color to the face. This too was a little tricky as looking at screen grabs there are seemingly always  color filters over the lights. Do I paint it normally or do I give it that creep blue color? I decided to do it normally. Normal is a loaded word with her under possession, she was painted with pale sickly colors. Thankfully I bought a few triads of flesh color schemes. ;) 

 Her hair was brown and the nightgown was a pale blue so that was completed easily. Thinking back to the movie, when Fr. Merrin was excavating the dig site, and finding the little Pazuzu head it was a sort of dirty brown. So I decided to make the base a simple dulled down brown color. The base also has some imagery of Pazuzu, so I highlighted them.  To make the portrait a little more gross, I mixed some florescent green with UV resin and added a few drops to her mouth and gown.

The movie poster needed a little trim, and then easily glued into the frame and I was done. 

One thing I would have done differently is since the base was 3D printed hollow, it's very light. I'm so used to the bases being big chunks of solid resin. So I think I would add some weight to the base.  Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

Alice in Wonderland

 Shock of shocks! ;) I'm building a kit that hasn't sat in my stash for years. ;) This kit was picked up at at my local scale MODEL CLUB meeting a few months ago. Thanks Mike I.  Alice was sculpted by ELLA ARTS. And I've seen STL's over at Cults.

Alice is approx 1/10the scale  and was printed in a way that there was next to no grow lines nor dimples or "pimples". 

 Just jumping right in after cleaning and priming I tackled all the skin tones, and then turn to the blue dress - 

 

While that was drying I turned my attention to the base. It also gave me the chance to try out the new Army Painter Speed Paints 2.0.  I picked out a few colors and went to town. They went on very nicely, and even went thru the airbrush very well. 

The first pic is a little dark, but the second shows how the scene will look. At one point I put the kit base onto a wooden base - just so the painted surface wouldn't constantly be handled.

 

While I was at it, I painted up the Cheshire Cat. I just used the same colors as the example. I Also added the details to Alice's portrait. 

 

Next was to start to put the parts together and while doing that I painted the white articles of clothing - 

 

The other little thing I did was to add some of my new florescent paint set to the mushrooms and cat's eyes. The UV light really makes them shine!  I decided to leave the little head adornment off. seemed very fragile. 

It was simple to complete all the parts and I was done! Thanks for looking.