Fr. Karras

 Staying with the horror theme a little longer, Fr. Damien Karras the troubled priest from the 1973 Exorcist film went on the hobby table. The character was played by Jason Miller who sadly passed away in 2001.  As a sidebar his son is Jason Patrick of Lost Boys fame!

The kit is in 2 simple parts - the bust and the base. Looking it over there was only the slightest flash line in the hair, which was easily removed. The sculpt IMO is a freeze frame of when the demon enters the priest, saving Regan. I was surprised that looking for a screen grab of that part of the scene was harder to find than I thought. 

 

With the black priest garb this is going to be an easy paint up. I start as usual with my "pinkle" and red base coat to the skin. While that was drying, my plan was to make the  name plate a tarnished bronze. I saw a tutorial where the tarnish is painting in first and then the metallic is dry brushed on later. So lets see...

 Then the bronzing...

 Next up is  the face colors, and despite him looking very pale in that last image, I felt he needed a little coloring as the first skin application. 

 The priest garb is simply black, and then I added some black gray as a highlight for the shoulders etc... V's Pale Flesh was added to the face and then with the outline of his eyes sculpted it, I added a little Agrax Wash to the round divots and then a greenish yellow to the irises once the Wash dried. The final need was taking my stylus tool and with a dip into black made the pupils. He was finished. He can now join his partner Fr. Merrin who was previously done. Thanks for looking. 

(Apologies for the bad pic)

 

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.

 

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 .

 

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. 

 

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. 

 

Bram Stoker's Lucy

 This bust is from Francis Ford Coppola's Dracula film from 1992. The likeness is that of Sadie Frost who played Lucy Westerna, Dracula's victim in London. The pose shows Lucy has already been killed by Dracula and Van Helsing and the others confront her as she returns to her crypt. In the film she was just about to be married, so when she died she was buried in her wedding dress - hence all the frills...

 The model comes in 9 parts - 4 headdress frills, her head, arm, collar, body and base. It was a white resin casting and only 1 or 2 seam lines remained. 

As usual I started with paint the portrait. Since she's dead, she's very pale, but high rez images show blush was applied to her cheeks. So I had to remember that but not make it too obvious. she also looked to have gray eyes, but this round I picked paint that was too light.

Putting that aside to dry I tackled the next most obvious part, the frilly collar. Naturally the part is one solid piece of resin, but again looking at detailed pics, the real thing was mostly open lace where you could see thru it. How to do that?

What I did was give the whole part a wash of gray, and then came back with a makeup brush doubling as a dry brush and carefully brought back the highlights. Then I added some pearlizing paint to give it a shine. The pearls around her neck were also pearlized to give them a similar shine. The ornament was painted a chrome.

Since everything was overwhelmingly white, I decided to add some purple to the shadows of the ruffled headdress and her gown. The actual cap she wore showed up as a different white color, so that was painted Ivory. Similar was done for her arm.

I painted the base a simple black and then drybrushed some white to brig out the texture in the stone. At the end I added some "blood" drips and I was done. 

 

 

Medusa

Always looking to add to my Medusa collection. This time we have one that was sitting in the stash for so long that I no longer remember the producer or any other info. I tried doing a search but - no joy. If anyone recognizes it, please let me know...

 It came in 3 parts - the bust the snakes and the base. It was a nearly flawless casting - a few faint seam lines but nothing really worth noting. 

 

Started off with adding some flesh tones, and decided her outfit would be red. While that was drying a drybrushed the base and then added some green tint. 

Finally I addressed the elephant in the room and tackled the snakes. I didn't want them all to be the same color. There are so many sculpted in there, that I was afraid it would look like one big blob.  After getting them all colored in, they seemed too bright. So out came the Citadel Agrax Earthshade wash (brown) and dulled them down a bit. I added the black wash to the deepest recesses for that effect. 

Finally, I tidied up a few areas, and added a little more color to the base, and I was done. Thanks for looking.

My obligatory size comparison with soda...;)