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. 

 

 

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.

 

Lost Boys' Star

 Boy, seems I'm constantly playing catch-up lately. Earliest images of the Star kit I took come from February...  :P

In case you don't know, Star is  is Michael's love interest and a member of David's gang, though she is only half-vampire, having resisted her thirst for human blood. She helps Michael, Sam and the Frog Brothers to battle the gang, seeing it as a way out of her and Laddie's nightmarish existence. After the head vampire Max is killed, Star becomes fully human again and apparently enters a relationship with Michael.  s love interest and a member of David's gang, though she is only half-vampire, having resisted her thirst for human blood. She helps Michael, Sam and the Frog brothers to battle the gang, seeing it as a way out of her and Laddie's nightmarish existence. After the head vampire Max is killed, Star becomes fully human again and apparently enters a relationship with Michael.  She is played by actress Jami Gertz.

 I kind of forget the scale I had the 3D file printed, but I think it's 1/10 or 1/12th.  The printing was done by a friend over at Gillusions, from a file by Diklich Arts.  

The kit came in 6 parts including two heads, body, two arms, two feet and a base-

Getting it together was no problem, tho - my fault - I did line up one of the arms crooked. 

The next was getting the info for the painting, and while looking at the example paint job, she was wearing a white shirt, and a pink/magenta long skirt. However looking at a screen grab of the skirt I was in for an interesting time. The designs was "interesting", not to mention the multi-color shawl she was wearing and that's featured in the kit. 

 

There's a lot of designs there, not to mention that waist belt she has. Plus looking at the screen grab, she has about 20 bracelets on, and I see a lot of different colors. I'm going to have to get my number 0 brush out along with my opti-visors...

I started with a simple flesh tone, brunette hair, and a belt with a lot of purple in it.  And the skirt base coat - 

 

 

Now to start the designs on the skirt - 

 

 

And that's where I'm, leaving it for now. I was seeing those square plinths with the high backs. So I was thinking of using one of those for star. I found a screen grab of the abandoned hotel lair the vampires use, and that may be my background. But that's next time. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

Buffalo Gal

 I figured it was time to get started on my "pledge model" for my local modeling club. Earlier in the year, I had chosen Buffalo Gal. This is a scene from It's a Wonderful Life, starring Donna Reed and Jimmy Stewart. I enjoy it, and watch it a few times each Christmas season.  Since it's been around since 1946, I'm sure everyone has seen it at some time.

The model is a well made 3D printed kit by Nostalgic Resin, and depicts the walk home after George and Mary fell into the school's swimming pool (BTW the pool's real and still exists at Beverly Hills High School). This is the first real scene where they start their romance.  

 

 The first problem I had was whether to do it in color or B&W. Due to the size I thought it was too large for it to be all in B&W, and soon after found a nice colorized image of what I needed - the clothes. 

 

The only problem I had with it was the sidewalk was warped, and no amount of heating kept it flat. So I quickly tossed it aside and got out a piece of sheet styrene. I also had a decent sized wooden base and tested fitted all the basing materials. Besides the sidewalk, it come with a section of hedge, a picket fence, and a pillar.

Getting started, the pillar was painted gray, the fence white, and the hedge a green. It looked a little too plain so the hedge got flocked, I painted the picket fence and added some miniature rose bushes to fill the void, and the  pillar was fine so it just got a coat of paint with a little dark wash. seems I never took a WIP of the base so we'll see it at the end. 

Now I know what's to be done with the figures it was just a matter of filling in the colors. 

 

Getting to the faces, Stewart's likeness was good, Donna's barely came close, but not being able to sculpt a likeness, I'll just add paint to this as well.

 My next decision was Mary's robe. I know it's white, but that's an awful lot of white and I didn't want to make her look like a ghost with a sheet. So being George's clothes were warm earthy colors, I tried making the shadows in the robe a similar earthy colors. No good... That just made her look like she rolled around in some dirt. So the robe was repainted and this time I took the palest blue to fill in the shadows. This looked better. and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

Sadly my roses were mostly hidden

 

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.
 

Cycle of Life part 2

 Continuing on with this vignette the first thing that needed to be tackled was the warpage on the horse's necks - 

From there, the painting could be started. As for Death, I wanted him in the dark and ghostly colors. For Life the bright colors were the plan.

Getting to the ghostly part, I had seen a few times where the Citadel people had used a green/turquoise color effectively as a ghost color. They used Nihilakh Oxide, But I didn't have time to wait for a mail order. So a quick trip to Hobby Lobby led me to 2 colors. All I had to do is choose the best look on the model.

 

I moderated the green some by desaturating the color with the lightest gray color I had, then added a little white on top to make a highlight. 

Then it was just a matter of attaching the wings, and then adding her figure to Death's base and we were done.  Thanks for looking.

I was really happy with her face, so zoomed in a little.