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.

 

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. 

The Thing - Norton Head Spider

 This time around we're taking a look at throwing paint on the Norton Head spider from The Thing. This is another Yagher sculpt, with Gillman producing. 

The way I got is was you buy a Thing kit, you get a few parts, the more kits you get from the series the more spider parts you get until you get all the parts - if you wanted.  

 The next step was to find a reference. something besides the movie since once the Spider is mobile you really don't get a good look at it color-wise.  Then I found this pic at the RPF.com - 

 

Before finding this awesome pic, I was planning on starting him off with some flesh color skin. So I begin with that "pinkle" undercoating. 

 

 

I do give a base coat of Flesh, and then add a bit of Pale Flesh on top. 

I wanted the legs to be a bit more mottled than the face, so I added various colors both washed and spattered on. 

This is another model where I could fiddle with it until the end of time. so at one point I have to push myself away from the workbench and say I'm done.  Thanks for looking.

 

 

AWIL Werewolf

  I begin with the same ol' similar story. Yes, this kit is yet another kit that's been in the stash a long time. well done in a white resin, it only has a few thing seam lines. Cleanup should be no problem. I plan to match it to the movie the best I can. The only good shot I remember is the ending in the alley. Let's go. 

As mentioned, only a thin line from the mold needed to be cleaned up. Also a little putty is needed where the legs met the body. The teeth have to be added later.
 

 

The teeth were my first real challenge. They really didn't fit into the mouth properly. The thickness of the "dentures" needed to be thinned, and they seemed to be offset, and bit's taken off the ends to get them to sit straight. But after a little work, they looked good. 

Paint next. I primed in black, and then lots of grays, whites, and a little light blue to fill in the fur. The victim was a bit different. He got the same deal as any other skin tone, except a added a bit of V's white Gray to make him look dead. Some UV resin mixed with some Transparent Red gave be the blood stain. 

A few more tweaks and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

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.