When It Rains, It Pours

 Or, why do all the model kits I have on order - or Kickstarter etc... come in at the same time? ;) 

 First up is from Pestilence Labs, and is the star the brand new movie Nosferatu is the Count Orlock.  If you haven't seen the movie yet,what are you waiting for? It is Very dark and VERY frightening. This kit is mostly 3D printed (the base seems resin cast) with none of the typical defects associated with that process. It comes in 5 parts - the bust, head, hand, hat and base. 

I am a big fan of the artist Brom, and Mindwork Studios once again collaborated with him to put out a series of his artwork turn 3D. There was 5 or 6 figures, but I could only choose one, and this one had the most frightening face. 

I was playing around with Army Painter's Speed Paints (1.0) and loved them. In short they are more than a wash, but less than straight forward paint.  

It was designed to the mini guys would have to spend days or weeks painting and army to get them ready for the table top.  For our purposes I think it also fits in where it you're an armor builder, but doesn't really care all that much about figures, this paint would fit the need to get a figure or two on the vehicle with little aggravation. 

When you apply them over a white primer, the primer will be colored (like a paint), and also a bit will gather in the folds etc... (like a wash.). The method had become know as "slap chop".  The one downside with 1.0 is that if you think the color needs a second coat, and applied it the first layer reactivated and you ended up with a mess. So it was necessary for a clear coat to be misted over every step taken to seal the first layer in.

 To that end Army Painter came out with Version 2.0, and like regular paints, once the first layer dried - it was dried, and another layer could be put in over the top. And that led to the technique of "Double Slap Chop". Check it out and try it. 

 The next figure, from the Suite Life,  is recognizable to any 5th Element fain is the bad guy, Zorg. The likeness to the actor Gary Oldman is amazing. it is also 3D printed, and comes in 8 parts - head, bust, base, 2 arms, 2 hands, and the Zorg weapon, the Zorg ZF-1. 

Next is the latest addition to Gillman Productions' The Thing series - Childs. Once again the likeness to actor Keith David is spot on. Childs, along with MacReady were the last survivors of Outpost 31 after the Thing attacks. The ending is left ambiguous, but some feel that the Thing has replaced Childs...  This model affirms that theory. While he looks perfectly normal in the front, the back shows a split open head with tentacles emerging. Ewww... The kit comes in 7 parts - The bust, base Hand with the top pf a whiskey bottle, the bottom of the bottle and 3 tentacles. It also comes with a decal for the whiskey. I haven't look yet as to weather it's an actual water slide decal or just paper that needs to be cut and glued onto the bottle. 

Filmy's Girls usually come out with a new kit right before WonderFest. This year was no different. They had previously release a comedic 1/6th  (or is it 1/3) Space Girl, Daphne, who I think is an homage to the 1950s sci-fi space films. This time we see Daphne again. But this time as a 1/4 scale bust. Perfect for modelers like me who are running out of room. 

Another member of my modeling club and I often exchange kits. "You have this one? No? Here ya go." Back and forth. I gave him the full sized kit of the Daphne kit I just mentioned and in return I got this cool collection of miniatures. :) The group of guys are representing the main cast of Kelly's Heroes (1970), The one with the blue paper id Wolfman Jack howling with an LP in his hand. The one with the yellow is a car hop on skates, and then finally a Gamorrean Guard as seen in Return of the Jedi.

This kit was gotten because my Local club, The BPMS, has a number of group builds each year. This winter has become British Sci-Fi night. To expand it as much as possible we are allowing American movie subjects - War of the Worlds etc... as long as they come from a book written by a British Sci-Fi author.  I just loved The Thunderbirds as a kid, and especially Thunderbird 2 (I guess that were I get my love of big ugly spaceships from). so that's what I'll be building for the December. so all that should keep me busy for the summer. Thanks for looking.  

Aztec Princess mini

 Aztec princess mini - at least that's what I'm calling her. I've had this mini around my work desk for literally years. The packaging is long gone, and if you know my note taking skills, you know I don't have any... So no idea of the producer or the name of the kit.

She's about 28mm to her eyes, and 34mm to the top of her headdress. So this is actually past my size comfort range. Again being so old, I don't have any early pics of her - if I even took any.

This is the earliest shot from when I decided to finish her off a few weeks ago. 

 Doing a generic search, I came up with a lot of headdresses in the blue, green range. So that's what I did as well. Tho I don't know where an Aztec princess would find or want knee high leather boots...

 The next thing was what am I going to have her stand on?  I couldn't see just a simple 25 or 30mm circular base. Thinking of Apocalypto, I also couldn't make a giant temple, but I could do a small one.

So I got out my hot wire cutter and used a 1"X1" wooden block as a base. I drew bricks on it and a simulated stair. Next I created a background for her and looking up some Aztec designs, I found one that fit, that could be either a dragon head or fish.  Haha  I painted it a tan stone color and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

The Blue Meanie

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 Talking with my son (he's 20) I mentioned the Yellow Submarine. Him: whats that?  Me: You never saw Yellow Submarine? Him: Never heard of it.

So I got some of my polymer clay out (I'm not a great sculptor but no one told me to stop.... 😉  ) and started google searching. Coming across the Blue Meanie brought back memories of watching the movie + music, so away I went. Thanks for looking. 

For the base, I was looking for a Peter Max style design. I thought this one was pretty good.

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Iroquois Finale

 Go here to see part 1:  

 https://kevtk.blogspot.com/2025/04/iroquois-1755.html

Continuing on with the base, I used some of the grass tufts I had left, and then some of the birch seed "leaves" to busy up for forest floor. Those went on top of some regular soil and chinchilla dust (excellent for small scale realism), and gave it a coat of paint. 

Turning back to the Native, I followed most of the color choices from the box. One thing I needed to change was the war paint. So many examples online contained a lot of red.  But having the red coat, I made up my own design with less red. Next came all the beads and necklaces. And it seemed I got myself so involved in the painting that I never took pics. So here we have the final results. Thanks for looking..

 

 A larger size.

 

Iroquois, 1755

 This kit was given to me as a gift a month or so ago. The maker is Chronos Miniatures.  I'm thinking it depicts an Iroquois who "came across" the uniform of a British soldier. 1755 was a year into the French and Indian War, The Iroquois territory was mainly in upstate NY, so that's where I'm placing this figure.

The first quest that arises is looking at the  box art. This shows the uniform jacket a bright yellow with a red inside lining. Doing a search for British uniforms, all of them, as one would expect, since their called "Red Coats" was that the red on the outside and yellow was the inside.  Now some of their lapels were white, or blue, but since there's yellow on the example, a version of yellow is what I'm going with.

I thought could it be possible that it was a French uniform? But looking all of those were white, gray, or blue coats. I found this image and decided this is what I was going with.

So I started out with a black and white primer on most all the parts. The Indian was given a Cavalry Red primer. 

After that I added the first highlight - 

 While that was drying I started thinking about the base. The provided base was a piece of ground with the stump of a tree. With the piece of wood I found, I got a piece of rigid foam and started to carve. 

With that I was out of time. Check back for the next session.
 

Quatermass Martian

 Still messing around with my collection of clays, I was looking for something to sculpt and remembered seeing a long OOP kit of the Quatermass Martian. Quatermass and the Pit is a Hammer film made in 1967. Where "A mysterious artifact is unearthed in London, and famous scientist Bernard Quatermass is called in to divine its origins and explain its strange effects on people."

In the film you never get a really good look at the creature except for one of them as a falling apart fossil. 

 

While doing some image searching I came across another model that gives me an idea of what I'm about to do. While sculpting the critter with Super Sculpey Medium, I didn't take an images. But here's the image from that kit taken at a Jersey Fest from a few years ago. . 

In the movie the discovery happens while a British subway station is being renovated. So I decided the base will have a subway look to it. It's all made from a few pieces of rigid foam and some sand and pebbles.

 The sign was made from an image of the subway station, and it was just a matter of placing the critter. The station looked a little too neat so I added more debris.  Now from the original image these martians were only 3 foot tall at best. So I too some artistic liberty and made it look taller in the station setting. Thanks for looking. 

Not Mickey

 Every time I finish the last project for December, and take a break for the Holidays, I always have trouble starting up again. My breakout is to always start out with something simple. I was able to do that with Not Mickey from Escape Hatch Hobbies.  For those that don't recognize it but think it's that other famous mouse, this guy appeared in Hal Roach's 1934 March of the Wooden Soldiers starring Laurel and Hardy.

The back story is that Hal Roach at the time was one the top dog directors in Hollywood. A newbie to the business, Walt Disney, was trying to get his name out when he and Roach spoke. Roach told of his "Soldiers" movie and then asked could he use his little mouse character. Walt said "Yes" but asked that he just not call him Mickey. A colorized version made him look a little more like that other mouse. In the mouse costume was actually a trained monkey, which accounts for all the "odd" movements.

The kit comes in 6 white resin parts - the head, two arms the body, tail and base. 

Assembling the kit not no problem, and painting like the colorized image I was finished in no time. I also added a little static grass to the base. Thanks for looking. 

Here he is on the table at my local model club meeting.