A Look Back at 2024

 I went back thru my blog for a look back at what I've done this year. so so many as in the past but pretty respectable.
Also not too many vehicles this year. Thanks for looking, and Merry Christmas to all that do that sort of thing. ;) 

 

 

Toyland"s Bogeyman Finale

 With the seam filling pretty successful, I gave the piece a coat of primer.  And then looking at the images - and surprisingly there's not that many good ones - and even with the B&W images you can tell the body color and the face are different shades and the loin cloth is yet another color.  For the colorized images the body is a green brown and the face is close to skin color. So that what I tried to replicate.

 

While that was drying I turned my attention to the base. It's from their cave lair which in my memory was a wet dark place - hence making a "good" place to banish people - Sorry Tom Tom... So after the black priming I added different grays, and then took V's Light Slime to get a green hue to the rocks.  To finish things off I added some UV resin in a few of the deepest depressions. 

The final step was to get the Bogeyman on his base. and as it would turn out, he didn't fit well. At first I thought it was the peg that was in the bottom of the foot, but that was only a partial answer. So I ended up super gluing what foot parts me the base, and after that had time to cure I added Aves underneath and near the foot. I made sure that he wasn't standing on two pedestals. And with that I was finished, and he can be added to the rest of my Christmas related models. Thanks for looking - and Merry Christmas! 

 

Filmy's Pebbles Finale

 To see part 1 go here: https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1288699427458027210/965870427847097516

To see part 2, go here:  https://www.blogger.com/blog/post/edit/1288699427458027210/7413589169068839914

Wow! where has this kit been? Turns out I put it in a box to take to the model clubs "WIP Night" where everyone shows what they're working on. I guess when I got home I put it on my side table in the hobby area, without taking it out of the box. eventually the box got put on the stack, and there it sat in a box marked "Compressor"...

Putting it back on the worktable, I realized I was just a session or two from being finished.  As an important sidebar, I found this miniature painter, Sergio Calvo with a sort of unorthodox way of painting filling the base coat with lines and dots of paint - his work turns out fantastic. So I think I'll give that a try. Check him out at  the above link.

So anyway, I decided to "Calvo-ize" the hair and added numerous strands of different colors, and then glazed a red on top to bring her hair back to the more red of the cartoon. Looks OK, but I think I made the various strands to close together, and IMHO they all blended too well. Anyway IO was done, and thanks for looking .

 

Toyland's Bogeyman

 I just discovered this one buried in the stack, and since it looks fairly simple (famous last words) I decided to see if I could knock it out before Christmas. 

"March of the Wooden Soldiers" is an alternative title for the 1934 film "Babes in Toyland," featuring the comedy duo Laurel and Hardy. The film is a musical Christmas story about their adventures in Toyland, where they help save Little Bo-Peep from the villain Silas Barnaby and his Bogeymen.

 The kit, is a caricature style kit sculpted by Tony Cipriano from his name etched into the back of the base, and was available by (IIRC) Monsters in the Woods. The figure is 6 parts and another 2 for the base.

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This was an old school kit meaning there are some seams showing, a little flash and some filling needed for the parts. The below pic is after some filling with Aves.

Ready to get started, I primed the whole thing in black Stynylrez primer. There are enough colorized versions of the film that painting Mr. Bogeyman should be no problem. But that's for next time. Check back.

Flash Gordon's SkyFlash

 The SkyFlash is the next craft up on Fantastic Plastic's Classic Rocketship series. From Fantastic Plastic's website:

 The "Skyflash" was the hero ship featured in the "Flash Gordon" TV series that aired for one season (39 episodes!) on the short-lived DuMont Network between 1954 and 1955. Like many rocketships of its era, the Skyflash was a single-stage, chemical rocket-powered tail-sitter inspired largely by the German V-2 ballistic missiles of World War II.

Operated by the Galactic Bureau of Investigation in the year 3203, the Skyflash traveled throughout the galaxy, carrying Flash Gordon, Dale Arden and Dr. Zarkov on amazing adventures on the lowest of budgets.

The 1:288 scale model is well done resin cast, and comes in 7 parts. IMHO this has to be one of the quickest and enjoyable builds I done recently.  

The parts went together effortlessly, and the only tricky part was getting the nose cone to sit straight. While waiting for the glue to dry, it was time to think up a simple base for it. I had these 100mm plastic bases from Citadel. I took some 1/2 - 1mm tape to create divisions in the groundwork and then stippled to concrete color on. After pulling off the tape I added a shot of Smoke from the airbrush, and I had the launch area. 

Turning back to the ship I painted it in V's Duraluminum, and then gave it a zenithal shot from the airbrush of V's White Aluminum. And with that I was done.

Ghost of Christmas Present Finale

 Picking up where I left off, I started making the base look a little more busy my painting varied lines on each stone. hen that was in place I painted a blaz of blue to help tone that down, and to create the idea of cold.

I then added more color details to the beard. Haven been given a digital copy of the story, I read this ghost's description. All was ok, except it said his hair was a dark brown. Having done all that work, I couldn't just change it all, so I darkened it just a little. 

Finally, back to the base I added a little snow to complete the picture, and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

Salome

 Having wanted to try my hand at some freehand drawing on a model, I found this Salome kit from El Greco Miniatures and Kuton. Those that know the Bible know her as the daughter of the King who seductively danced for him in exchange for the head of John the Baptist. The kit is approx 120mm, and comes in 6 parts - the top half of Salome, the bottom half, the front of her hair, two feet, and a rocky step base. The image is her top half in a brown + white primer, and the bottom in gray. 

 The only image I can find of this subject/pose is the one that Kuton used for the box art. 

 so the first I start off with is my "pinkle" base for the skin - 

Then I had the bright idea that since to my knowledge, there was no description of her, so I figure that being Middle Eastern there was a chance of her being a slightly darker skin and a European person. So I over sprayed the pinkle with one of the darker base colors from the Tanned Skin set of paints. 

But now I'm torn between the new color and the original brown/white primer coat. So having to think about things, this is where I'll stop for today. Check back to see which direction I went. Thanks.

 

Sam Elliott

 I saw this bust that with SM being my wife's favorite, I just had to pick it up for her. My bad book keeping comes in to play again, as I do not remember where he came from. 

Sam is about 1/5th scale, and the kit comes in 2 parts - the bust and the had. While looking for info on the pose, I came across what I think is the inspiration for the sculpt.  

 

Around the time I got this kit, I also got some of the new formula Vallejo paints. I bought the Pale skin and the Tanned skin sets to try out. They are supposed to be absolutely flat, and not surprisingly they were.

Continuing on, I just followed the colors in the original image. The shirt was an off white, and a de saturated purple/pink for the scarf. The coat will be a charcoal color. I don't know why, but I was surprised at how red his face was, so with some watered down citadel wash I colored in his face. 

 and that's where we'll leave it for this session. check back.

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.