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. 

Gina Brides of Dracula Finale

 This was probably the easiest session I did. All that was left was to paint in her eyes, add highlights to the gown, and glue her to the base. I also glued in a few grass tufts to make model a little different that everyone elses.  Thanks for looking. 

Brides of Dracula Gina

 This time around, I have Gina, from The Hammer Film's Brides of Dracula. As per the usual it's a 1/4 scale 2 part kit - the bust and the base. Sculptor Jeff Yagher once again nailed the likeness of  Andree Melly, who by the way just passed away in early 2020 at 87. 

Here the base coat is going on - dark hair, a light skin tone, and an almost white gown. Looking through lots of images, I saw she had light brown eye, bordering on green. I think the V paint English Uniform fits that bill, and will be what I'm using. Until then the eyes got their usual coat of black. 

With this kit, I tried a new technique of trying to get a more realistic skin tone. On other model builds on You TUbe, I saw other's when they want to weather, to apply a layer of thinner to an area, and then when they come back with some paint, it runs, spreads and dilutes, creating this uniform but uneven look. Why couldn't this be done with skin?  Vallejo paints won't respond well to thinner, so I took a brushful of V's Flow Improver. A heavy application of the improver resulted in the same look as the thinner - the paint spread and ran. Where the Improver was a little less, the paint spread a bit, but it could easily be manipulated with a ruined brush and some stippling.  Perfect? Nope. But I like the result and it was my first try.  I'll be using that technique more as I go thru my figure stash.

I sprayed a clear coat on the skin, and while that's drying I turned my attention to the base. It looks like the usual castle blacks of stone, but there are cutouts where someone was storing skulls. ;)

Going back to the bust I finished applying V's German Black Brown to her hair, and then gave the deepest areas a wash of Nuln Oil. All the pics have her with really dark hair, so I'll limit my applications of highlighting.

 That's it for now. Check back for the finish. Thanks for looking.

The Werewolf Leon

 This is another excellent kit from John Dennett's Hammerheads line. It's the werewolf Leon from the 1961 movie Curse of the Werewolf. I think I've only seen this movie once, but being a werewolf fan I had to have it. 

I thought I took an image of the kit, which was in 2 parts - the bust and the base, but I guess not. All my images are WIPs. I started with Vallejo's tan primer, and here he is with the base coat started. Even tho he had gray fur, I didn't want to start off with black and then come up to gray, so I used V's Chocolate brown which gave the warmer feel to start.

V's Beige Red filled in the skin tone to his face and then I highlighted the tan ridges with a little Dark Sand (which is pretty light). 

Back to the fur I gave a heavy dry brush of V's London Gray, which is just the same as Tamiya's Euro Gray.

 The it was time to look at the base. All of the Hammer Head bases (and most of John's busts have this similar stone base.  Most all of mine have been done in the usual "castle gray". This time I started out with Hull Red which is a reddish brown. Then highlighted it with a dotting Red Leather. Another highlight dotting of the Dark Sand pulls the two parts together. 

One further highlighting of the fur with Light Gray, and then blue eyes and a lot of blood in the mouth (but not too much) and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

Images appear lighter than in real life. Gonna have to get a regular camera...