TROG!

 Anthropologist Dr. Brockton (Joan Crawford) unearths a troglodyte (an Ice Age 'missing link" half-caveman, half-ape) and manages to domesticate him - until he's let loose by an irate land developer (Michael Gough) to go on a rampage and kidnap a little girl. Crawford's last feature film. 

This 1970 low budget film, which I've never seen has been declared so bad that it's actually entertaining. The budget was so low that Ms. Crawford had to supply her own wardrobe, and was rumored that the costume for the Trog  was actually 1/2 the monkey suit from 2001 A Space Odyssey. That was the reason he was half ape, half man, because they only found half the suit. 

The 1:8 scale model, sculpted by Michael Berglund, and comes comes to us from Escape Hatch Hobbies. The model is in 10 clean parts and are 3 D printed. Once again, in my eagerness to get started I forgot to take a before pic of the parts. Here he is all super glued together.

The parts fir very well, but they do need a little filler. Here I used to last of my Milliput - 

The next job was to fill the holes meant to drain out the excess resin from the 3D printer. Here I used Aves to fill the holes. The reason was to provide a spot to insert pins to hold the figure onto the base. 

Speaking of the base here's the rock base and bolder that's about to be thrown. 

Looking towards the models, there's very few images of the entire monster. Here's what I found - 

 

Painting the figure, the colors are fairly easy to follow. The only change I made is to me, his face is on the gray side. So I matched a little closer to his arms and legs. 

The last image shows him just about done. All that was left was gluing the bolder into his hands - it dry fit perfectly for me until I had glue on the rock. :/    I added dirt and static grass to the base and then I was done. Thanks for looking. 

MvA: The Missing Link

 Always having an affinity for good animation, I just loved 2009's Monster v. Aliens. An homage to the Monster movies from the 50s and 60s, the story is a bride to be gets hit my a meteorite of Quantonium, grows incredibly large and is capture and sent to monster "jail" with other monster inmates.  An alien comes to Earth to destroy the Earth, and recover his Quantonium. A general and the President releases the monsters to fight the alien. 

A few years back on producer released a Dr. Cockroach (one of the monsters) kit.  After that nothing.  so I decided to get some of my Cosclay, and do the Missing Link from the movie. 

 This is the image I used for my pose - of course another image added the feet. Haha

Not many WIP pics were taken, but here's Link - before paint.  Thanks for looking. 

 

Moebius' Frankenstein Finale

 Back again with the finale of the Frankenstein build. 

Painting the monster was a series of back and forths between a flesh color and a pale green. What I also did, with a very thin brush was to paint in some veining and bruises, tho they can't really be see with my crappy photography.  The suit and shoes was a dirty black, and the shirt was a brown.  

Since I got the kit, I really didn't like the way the doorway opened to nothing. I had no intention of creating the appearance of another room, so I took some sheet styrene, painted black, and covered over the door opening. 

With that he was done. Thanks for looking.

In case anyone needs to see the back of the door. :)

The Big Muddy Monster

 You just can't slow down Paul Gill and Co. Here's another of their kits (sculpted by Mark Van Tine). This time it's the Big Muddy Monster.  I have to admit I didn't know much about this guy. But because I collect Sasquatches, amongst other things, I had to pick him up. 

An easy one this time - only 2 parts  - the bust/base and the hand - of well cast resin. 

 Not finding a lot of pics for this guy, I stuck to my tried and true trio of browns. A gray for the tree trunk, and the the color will be from the green vines. Oh yeah there's a yellow lizard in the back too. ;) 

 I decided to carry the green onto the sign, and then to tie the whole thing together added a little swampy algae green wash to the fur.. With that I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

Look in to my eye...

Mothman

 This is another kit that was deep in the pile. My favorite Cryptid, Mothman! I'm surprised I waited this long to build it up. 

I picked this up from Jean StJean Studios. It came in 5 parts of gray resin. There were very few noticeable seam lines, and clean up was very quick. 

 Now, the typical description of the monster is a black being with wings, and bright red eyes.

But being that a lot of nice detail was sculpted into the wings, I couldn't just leave the entire thing black. The wings had "eyespots" on the inner and outer wing, so I mimicked the eyes with some of V's Black Red. Toward the top of the "eye" I lightened the red a bit. 

 

Then there was this crosshatching along both sides of the wings. I gave that some light gray on the outside and a darker gray on the inside. 

 

From there the body was painted in V's Black Gray, and then highlighted with some Medium Dark gray. The creases got a was of Nuln Oil. But then I didn't want it to be too monotone, and gave the whole thing a misting a Army Painter's Blue tone with the airbrush.

The eyes were painted gloss black, in prep for V's White Aluminum, and then some Transparent Red.

The base is rubble with the creature perched on some of the iron bridge remnants. I have the rubble a few browns and blacks, and the iron was painted steel, with a few different rust colors. I then added dots here and there of the Molotow Chrome for sparkle.  I looked up and found an image for the newspaper for the day the Silver Bridge collapsed. As soon as I get more ink for my printer, :P  I'll print that out an add it to the rubble. 

Thanks for looking.

 

The Reptile Finale

This session was to put the finishing touches on Anna. The biggest decision was what to do with her clothes. They seem to have that wavy two toned striped pattern - 

My solution was to paint the top black, gloss it, and then use semi-gloss German Gray for the stripes. Turned out OK IMHO. 
The other things were to color in the eyes and to whiten the teeth a little.  Was a little tough painting the black rings around the base of each eye...
This one is done and will be placed in the Hammer Film Wing of my little museum. ;) Thanks for looking. 

 

The Reptile

This is another beauty of a kit from John Dennett - from his Hammer Films collection it's The Reptile from the 1966 movie of the same name. In this village people are being murdered and discovered with what looks like a snake bite. It is discovered that the Doctors daughter has been tuned into The Reptile after being abducted by a snake cult. 

The kit comes in 2 resin parts - the bust and the base. The kit is practically flawless with no bubbles or easily seen seam lines. This is another case where I got right into it and didn't take any before pics. Here's she is with the base coat started.

 Looking closely at the image, she has a rather complicated mask. Looking ahead even the costume she wears looks rather complicated. I'll have to think about what to do for the costume.

Check back for more, and thanks for looking.

Sasquatch

When I restarted, of course I had to start up a few kits to keep my time occupied. Another kit was Troy McDevitt's Sasquatch. It is a two piece, 1:4 scale bust (the figure, the base)  in white resin. There was only the faintest of seam lines seen across the top of the head, and only one little bubble. Clean up took minutes and then it was a coat of gray primer. 

Vs tan primer was the basis for the skin tone on his face. From there I used Vs Black brown, and then 2 successive highlights of lighter brown. Around the face I gave give more high lights of a darkened tan primer, then gave him some mature dignity ;) with some Ivory hairs. That was a little too light and Citadel's Agrax Earthshade darkened it just enough. The face was highlighted with Vs Beige Red and a little added Ivory for the 2nd highlight.

 The base was also primed gray. From there I added more Agrax to brown the tree just a little and tie it to Sasquatch. The vines were done in Red Leather, and the foliage was plain ol' green.  I then added some Vs Light Slime to weather up the tree and a little more tan on one of the dead limbs to tie it to the bust.

Going back with another tie in, his eyes were also painted green. With that the bust got a matte coat and the base got a satin one. and I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

Godzilla!

I picked this one off the shelf as I saw it as a fast little build.  Sculpted by Troy McDevitt, is a very nice caricature, with one two bubbles on two of the teeth, and seam lines that were nearly invisible.  The part fit very well and only a little bit of Aves was used along the spines, and where the spines met his tail.  After that it got a coat of Vallejo Air NATO Black as a primer.

 I like the NATO Black because to my eyes it looks like there a little green in it, and models don't just look black. After that it got a drybrush of a mid range gray. while that was drying I got out some Ivory and painted the teeth and eyes. Then some Gray Green for the toe and finger nails. I also mixed some of the Gray Green with the Ivory, and painted his gums.

Liking the new Godzilla I had the idea to have his spines light up in that blue white coloring, so sprayed the edges a wide swath of dark blue.

 Leaving the blue to dry , I went back and gave the teeth a was of Nuln Oil. The eyes also got dots of Gory Red.

 From there I went back to the spines, and gave a smaller edging with a light blue. When that dried, I had an even lighter blue that went in a smaller strip along the spines. To finish it off a added dots of white to tallest spines.  To finish him off, his teeth got a dry brushing of Ivory.  Done, nice and easy.   Thanks for looking.

Atlantis Minis Sphinx

One of the two mythological creatures I got from Atlantis Miniatures (not the same as Atlantis Models)  is the Sphinx.  This is a well done 7 piece gray resin kit. There's no flash, or no bubbles.

Adding paint, the obvious reference is a lion so I used V's Beige, with the German Brown Black for the mane.

Then I added Citadel's Reikland Fleshshade  over the body and their Nuln Oil over the mane. Once that was dry I added bad the Beige but as a drybrush.  The main got a dry brush of V's Beige Brown

The wings got the same treatment of the beige and Reikland Fleshshade. This time the heavy drybrush was with V's Foundation White.  Later on I added a second go round of white to the upper wings and V's Brown Wash to the deepest areas of the wing folds.

The brick piles got a coat of V. Game Color Plague Brown, drybrushed with beige and highlighted with a beige/white mix. The ground work was some simply with V. Tan Primer over some Modpodge which had the Chinchilla dust sprinkled on it. 

I also added a few extra bricks out of the same sized balsa lumber. With that I was done. Thanks for looking.

The usual size comparison pic.