Flash Gordon

 Flash is one of the newer kits I've received. Sculpted by Jeff Yagher, and produced by Pestilence Labs, it is, once again, 1:4 scale, white resin kit. It is also typically very well casted with only the smallest bit of seam lines in between the hair lines. 

 Knowing the sculpt was from the B&W film Flash Gordon's Trip to Mars I searched for a color render of his costume. I found  examples of him either having a powder blue shirt or a red one. I went for the red. I started with a Hull Red type of primer from Kaleido. I picked this as it will help with both the skin tone and the shirt. 

 

He's blonde, the collar is dark and I found out in a search that his eyes are blue. So those were next.  I also used some Aves to attach the forearm to the rest of the arm. 

 The next thing was to figure out how his wacky gun worked. Searching there was a consensus that it started out as a commercial salt shaker. The kit's ray gun looked like this - 

 And I found a guy on YouTube that made a replica that looked just like the kit part. But oddly also in his library he did another video for another version of the ray gun. Turns out he did another more accurate weapon based on a closer look at the movie prop. It looks nothing like the first one.  I cobbled together a few screen grabs of the gun from the movie and the one he remade. 

 I didn't have a styrene rod or tube to match the diameter of the main body. So I took the current gun and chopped the front, most of the top and most of the back off. Gathering some of the styrene pieces I came up with a close proximity. The thing wire thing on top I simply used a straightened staple. 

 I used some of the awesome Rustoleum Chrome to color the gun, and then when super-gluing it to the handle, I used activator for the quick stick - and the activator ruined the chrome. Arrgh! Being the chrome was a rattle can there was no way I could neatly color it while it was one the arm, so it got changed to simply V's chrome. 

Next I turned to the base was this temple looking structure. I painted it white, and then took some metal reducer which is basically the paint carrier with some glitter in it, and lightly sprayed the building. The dome plus the little spheres on top of the towers were painted chrome as well.  Finally I didn't know if I was given one and misplaced it or what, but there was a place for a sign. So back to the PC and found a Flash logo which I sized and then applied with some matte medium. and with that I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

 

 

Inga Finale

 For this session I started with the  base. It's the same base as the other YF bases, and I treated the same way as Kemp's base - Just leopard spot it until the colors blend. 

Now for the OSL. To me, it's like that Mel Brooks script line "I got it, I got it, I don't got it..."  I'm just not completely happy with it. But decided I'm taking it as a learning experience. Any here she is - all finished. 

And that completes the Young Frankenstein collection. Thanks for looking.  

 

Young Frankenstein's Inga

 With this build I will have completed two projects. One, it's the last model (so far) in the Young Frankenstein series, and it also completes my "Pledge" build for my LOCAL CLUB.

Now lets look at the kit. Once again the casting is nearly flawless, just slight seam marks in the usual spots. The kit comes in 4 off white colored resin parts - the bust, base, arm and candle. I *think* the model is based on two images. The first is the general pose, and the second is the portrait. Well, this is what I'm using. ;) 

 

The first step is, as usual, the skin tones, starting with the darkest value first. Then a highlight is added.  In the second image, you'll notice the pink spots on the face and neck. In a completely rookie move and knowing the paint wasn't cures I masked it for the hair. After all I was using SILLY PUTTY and not tape. The Silly Putty took things back to the primer. Lesson learned. Thankfully the repair went well and wasn't noticeable. 

with the pose the way it is, it just begs for the candle flame to create some OSL.  To check it out and with no flashlight nearby, I used candlelight. 

 While letting the skin and hair cure, I turned my attention to the night gown. With the film being B&W, you can just tell that the clothing is a light color. I chose a light pink, with off white embroidery. 

 Doing a quick search, I found out that the actress, Teri Garr, has blue eyes. So the eye base coat was added over V's Deck Tan sclera. With the eyes done, it's actually looking pretty good. Now I'm second guessing myself on the OSL...  Find out what happens in the next Inga post. 

 

The angle what will show the OSL.

Kemp Finale

 

To see part 1, go here: https://kevtk.blogspot.com/2026/08/young-frankenstein-kemp.html 

Moving on I started adding color to all his ornaments and such. First step was to mask off the sleeve to to put the silver bands on. Nice and easy until I took the masking off - then tragedy! The problem here is that I had to mix that dark blue color. Let's see how much paint I have to waste to get that color back. Yes, a wet palette should have been used. :/

 Taking a break from the good I turned my attention to the base. I suddenly remembered the old way model railroaders used to do their mountains just  putting wash blobs of color all over until things blend. Right down my alley, and it didn't come out bad. 

 After that I start with the darts. On that colorized version I'm guessing they had or saw what antique darts looked like. so I mimicked that. 

 I also painted the dartboard, but since it's a pretty large accessory, I'm deciding to leave it out of the display.  Doing a double check I was happy enough to call it done. Thanks for looking. 

 

 

Young Frankenstein Kemp

I'm getting close to completing the Young Frankenstein series with Inspector Kemp. He represents the Lionel Atwill character of Inspector Keoh. For YF, the Inspector is played by Kenneth Mars. 

For the kit the likeness is excellent as with the rest of the models. The bust comes in 3 parts - the bust, base and arm. It also comes with some darts and a dart board to replicate the humorous scene.  

 The first step is actually- what colors am I using? I was able to find a colorized version of the movie that shows him in a black hat and a very dark blue uniform. The ornaments on the hat are gold, but silver on the jacket.

 

My first go round with paint (before I found the images) had him in blue with blue. But you'll at some point the hat changes to black. 

I also jumped back into an old Citadel shad for a base flesh color, and a first highlight. That's where I'll leave him for today. Check back. Thanks for looking. 

 

Young Frankenstein "Froderick"

 "It's Fronkenstein" "You're puttin' me on?" "No..." "Well then why isn't it Froderick Fronkenstein?" "It isn't, it's Fredrick Fronkenstein." 

This time around we have another bust from Pestilence Labs from 1974's Young Frankenstein series - the Doctor. The kit is a pretty simple kit consisting of the 1:4 scale bust, castle base, the "How I Did It" book, and the 2 parts of the collar that flies open during the Act Normal! scene.

I would have to look hard to find any problems but one thing I would have to guess is whys does the Doctor appear to be looking down? I have a theory that I'll keep to myself, as it's an excellent likeness. 

 

@Pestilence image

To change things up a little I decided to do the base first. It's a simple pile of stones and decided to leave them blend into the overall look - so simple grays and blacks with light gray mortar were used. 

Moving on to the face I added my regular pink/purple mix. While I was waiting for it to dry, I painted the book with some of V's Cavalry Red.  

 

Adding some various flesh colors I got the color I was happy with.Looking closely at his hair it seemed that he had very dark roots with some bright highlights. It's also quite obvious that they had Wilder in a lot of mascara. Finally I had to look it up to find out he had blue eyes. While that was drying I turned back to the book to add the gold lettering. 

 

Finally, it shows him in a dark (black?)  tuxedo jacket with a white shirt and collar. Not wanting to use just black and white, I used V's Black Gray, and their Off-white.  Just recently I noticed the buttons on his shirt were dark. I'll have to make that change.  Thanks for looking. 
 

The Thing's Childs Finale

 If you haven't seen part One yet go HERE. 

Allowing a few days to calm down, and started on Take 3 for the portrait. By this time I was getting good at it (IMHO). ;)  

Getting that done is was on to the rest of the bust. There are only a few instances when you see Childs with his parka. One was when they were ducking down in the hallway - 

 But seeing him at the end, even with the odd lighting it appears that his parka is quite dirty. But the blue has to go down first. I coated the entire thing V's Dark Prussian Blue, and then hit the upper areas with just Prussian blue. Finally I added a light blue to the Prussian Blue for the last highlight.  Then I realized this would be all moot when the dirt when on. Sigh. 

Turning to the back of his head, I fixed the drip from last session, added the appendages and adjusted the colors a little bit. For the tentacles I used the Florescent Green, and the finger/arm I used a light flesh color. The flesh was toned down with some Reikland Fleshshade, and the green with some green tinted UV resin. I also made a gooey drip with it. 

 Putting the post together I realized I never took images of a WIP of the base. It was painted with various metallic colors and then washed in some rust. There was a few stains added with V's Oily Earth wash. I then mixed up some Woodland Sceneics SNOW, matte medium, little bit of white paint, and some Pearl paint. I slathered it over the sculpted snow and was done with that.  I painted the bottle green, and then added a darker color hoping to mimic there being some drink still left in it. The glove was painted brown. Then the parka, and arm/glove was dusted unevenl6t with MIG's European Dust PIGMENT.  I finally glued the bottle to the glove, the glove/arm to the bust and the bust to the base. I was glad to get this one off my desk.  Thanks for looking. 

 

The Thing's Childs

 Having a few collections to complete I decided that Childs from the 1982 movie The Thing was desk on the table. The character, Childs, was played by actor Keith David, and was the base's mechanic. Keith points out that Child's breaks the Horror film trope that "the black guy never makes it to the end of the film."  He is part of the Childs/McReady controversy in that who was the Thing at the end...

 The kit came in 7 parts - the bust, base, gloved hand, whiskey bottle, and 3 appendages. The likeness is spot on and the casting as usual with Gillman is nearly flawless.  With this piece, the Yagher, the sculptor, gives away two of his ideas of how things ended. Number one the base is created to look like a generator, which answers MeReady's question :How's the generator," and Garry answers "It's gone, MacReady!" As a sidebar Garry was his last name. On the character list he was M.T. Garry. 

 The Yagher also gives his opinion of whether Childs or McReady, neither or both were infected. From the front Child's portrait is spot on. But from the back you see his head is split open and all sort's of gooey things are emerging. 

As usual I start with the portrait. I don't get to do dark skin all that much so I was glad I picked up a number of Army Painter skin double triads (6 colors that all blend) . I started withe the darkest one, and then I really didn't like many of the companion colors as they seemed too desaturated. I had seen another painter use oranges to highlight the skin, so I turned to my set of rust paints.  A few different layers and I was liking what I had so far. 

 Turning to the back of the head I added various reds and oranges to make the wound. My thoughts on wounds and blood is that a little goes a long way. I went too far, so I got some Agrax Earthshade to darken down the crevices and ended my session there. 

Coming back to it the next day I see disaster struck. I had angled the bust face down at an angle so the wash would dry in all the recesses. What it did was to rundown the head and then gravity would take it around to the bottom which from that angle was the face.  I now had this  dark stripe running across the face and down to the chin where it dried. I tried lightly getting it off. It didn't really work that well. So I got out the paints and had Take 2 of doing the portrait. After getting it fixed, I sprayed it with a matte clear to protect the new paint (which I didn't do the first time). Tragedy struck again as the matte clear coat instantly frosted. I had heard that if you quickly spray it with a gloss, the frost goes away. The frost did go away - mostly. Disgusted, I chose to walk away rather than whip it off the wall. Check back.