Sam Elliott

 I saw this bust that with SM being my wife's favorite, I just had to pick it up for her. My bad book keeping comes in to play again, as I do not remember where he came from. 

Sam is about 1/5th scale, and the kit comes in 2 parts - the bust and the had. While looking for info on the pose, I came across what I think is the inspiration for the sculpt.  

 

Around the time I got this kit, I also got some of the new formula Vallejo paints. I bought the Pale skin and the Tanned skin sets to try out. They are supposed to be absolutely flat, and not surprisingly they were.

Continuing on, I just followed the colors in the original image. The shirt was an off white, and a de saturated purple/pink for the scarf. The coat will be a charcoal color. I don't know why, but I was surprised at how red his face was, so with some watered down citadel wash I colored in his face. 

 and that's where we'll leave it for this session. check back.

Law and Order

 This kit is a bit of a puzzle. It's been sitting on my bench for so long, I can't find the box, I can't remember who made it or what the name of the kit really is.  

What I do know is that the figure is 75mm of well cast resin, as is the little porch base. 

Edit: Seems I was a little more organized than I thought. I had made a folder for Law and Order images - that IS the kit's name- and forgot all about it. The kit is from Mercury Models - 

It also seems that in the time it was sitting there, I only took 1 WIP image of it. I started out by finding an assembled image to see how the porch went together.  I figured that these western figures were out under the sun all day and became quite tanned (or leathered). I went to V's skin set of paints and started out with a dark base color. 

 

Example from online to see how the part fit.

When I was first doing a little research I found the figure painted and decided to base my colors on those colors. I figured any wood would have been dried and weathered, so painted the walkway and railing as if it had been out in the sun for decades. The total height including the base made from a wooden coaster and some Sculpt-a-mold is 150mm. I included a US Quarter with the last image as a size comparison.  Thanks for looking. 

 

Size comparison

Close-up

New

With my creativity level low this month, I have been lurking around the Net finding some new subjects to spark my mood. 

My first offering is from CGS Military Figures out of the UK and it's the companion to my recent Doc Holiday bust. It's Wyatt Earp. The kit is 200mm and comes in 10 parts: body, head, 2 arms, gun w/ hands, 2 hats, 2 flintlocks, and a pedestal.  The likeness to Kurt Russell is not as good as the likeness of Doc was to Val Kilmer. But I guess with the low slung hat and the giant mustache, there's not a lot of room for facial recognition points.

Next is from my friend John Dennett at MoonDevil Studios. It's an aquatic monster John calls The Deep One. It's part of a series he has in relation to JP Lovecraft. This is a 6 part kit in a bubble free, nearly seam free resin. The parts fit together very nicely and only a minimum amount of putty will be needed to make the seams completely disappear.

The third one was a kit I was able to see in the making at the modeling/sculpting forum The Clubhouse. "Pat Morea" created The Rock show WIP on this forum as he went along. It looks to be 1/5 or more likely 1/4 full figure. The likeness is very good. but it looks like the mold slipped, and separated a bit below the waste. A bit of work will be needed to correct this.

My final offering for this installment is a kit from a miniatures Co., called Terrible Kids Stuff  (TKS). The kit is a 75mm (1:24) kit called The Birth of Dracula. The scene depicts Vlad holding the lifeless body of Elisabeta, with his free hand up to his face in grief. I found it a very powerful scene. 
The kit is a limited edition of 75 castings. On the site they guesstimated that it would be sold out in Aug., but when I ordered in October, and the kit came it had a certificate of authenticity numbered 70 of 75. So there is a small chance to get one. 
It comes in 7 parts - Vlad's head/body/legs, Elisabeta's head/body, Vlad's upraised arm, his cape, Elisabeta's 2 dangling arms and a block base. The base also has a "base" in that extra material was used to lift the block floor off the ground. Nice touch.  The model is exquisitely sculpted and cast; no bubbles and no apparent seam lines. The resin is the type you some time run across in Europe and SE Asia where there is a pretty strong petroleum smell, especially when one cuts or sands the resin. That aside, this is going to be a pleasure to build.

Thanks for looking.

I'm Your Hucklberry

This time I have the legendary Doc Holiday, as portrayed by Val Kilmer in the movie Tombstone. I personally think this is one of the best modern day westerns.
The bust is from CGS Miniatures, and is listed as 1/9 scale. IIRC it came in 5 parts to the figure and a "stone" stand for the base. But I traded that out for a brass rod and a rustic looking wood plinth. There are no bubbles in the resin and any seam lines are fine and hard to find. 

Next was to see what colors Doc was wearing during this scene. Looking at the film, he made quite a few wardrobe changes. But the bust seems to be from the end when he meets up with Ringo for the last time.  I made a little collage to bring to the hobby desk. Seems like the top center image is the exact pose that the sculptor used for the bust.

 As usual I start out with a black primer and then give it zenithal light with white primer. From there I base coated the skin and take a look at where it's at - 

In the film Doc has an illness (TB?) so he never really looks rosy. So I tried to match the skin tone with Vallejo Air "Flesh Tone". From there it was a simple highlight of Pale Flesh on the cheeks, chin, and the bit of jowls that he has.
Then I base coated the rest of the bust. His kerchief, hat and vest were all black in the film, but I didn't want it to be to monotonous, so the hat was done in black and ultimately highlighted in areas.  The vest was done in Black Gray then washed and highlighted. Finally the kerchief was done in German gray and then washed in Citadel's Black.

Then I noticed the duster seemed too light. So I mixed up some darker gray with a light brown (some angles in the movie it looks more brown than gray). But it was never dirty looking so I had to avoid that -

From there all that was left was to add the little details. The silver to the badge, and the the buttons on the duster. The buttons on the vest were shiny black, so a dot of gloss worked there. His gun was also silver with a white handle. There was a line of metal thru the handle so that was done with V's Steel. I added the white dots to the kerchief, and the final bit was adding individual dots of gloss to his face, as thru out the film he was constantly sweating - from the AZ heat, or the fact he was sick - I don't know, maybe both...
Here's the final shots on the rustic plinth, thanks for looking.