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 

 

Nosferatu

 This model is the star of the 2024 film Nosferatu.  If you haven't seen it yet, you must. While it's a take off of the 1920s silent film, it is 1000 times creeper. Bill  Skarsgard has the title role and boy does he deliver!

The 1/4 scale kit is from Pestilence Labs and comes in five 3-D printed parts that are flawless. 

 

The hardest part was getting decent sample images of the Count. If you have seen the movie, you know many parts of it are visually dark. I found 2 images I liked, but still had to lighten them. If nothing else it clearly shows that his decrepit uniform wasn't just "plain."

 

 

Lets get started. Being his skin is a pale, dead color, I started with a base of purple. I don't know if the coat color was an artifact of the lightening, but I thought it looked good enough and went with the darkest blue I could find. After I painted the blue, I found a pic of the costume on display and the coat is nothing like I was thinking. The dark tone of the film his all the details.  But the embroidery and extras on his coat were clear and I painted them a bronze color. Once dry, I dirtied it up. The hat looks dark, so that was an easy part. 

 

 The skin looked to me as if it was colors of gray, But I wanted to add a little saturation to it. So in the end I mixed V's White Gray with a little bit of Pale Flesh. I thought it gave me that sickly pallor. His hand was done in a similar manner.

I also noticed that  the fur collar was just one color, so I started dark and then added highlights to the tufts. The painted was based in black, and then highlighted in a dark gray and dark brown. The jewel was done in the style of miniatures ( not all that happy with the result). Then the feathers were done in a very dark red with some lighter red just to draw out the detail.

The base was next and I saw in a critique video that the reviewer was knocking bases that attracted more attention that the supposed focus - the figure. So the base was painted with V's Black Gray, and then I added that bronze (to unite the figure with the base) to the adornments and skulls. Dots of Turquoise gave it the verdigris, and then I dirtied it all up. 

I left the eyes for the end the way his head is slightly tilted down, it told me that he was looking thru his brow. I painted them like I always do with a base of black, and then the 1/2 circles of brown, and corners of that same White Gray. To add to the creep factor I added a dark yellow to the part of the iris that would be lit.  Then that was dry A used a Citadel red wash to get them bloody. A few coats of V's Metallic Varnish gave me the gloss and I was done. Thanks for looking.