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.

Dracula A.D. 1972

 In 1972 London - a century after his final battle with Professor Van Helsing - One hundred years later, the colorful 1972, Johnny, the great-grandson of the servant joins up with a "group" containing Jessica, the grand-daughter of the present vampire hunter, Abraham van Helsing and with their unknowing help resurrect Dracula in the 20th Century who is determined to destroy the house of Van Helsing, but who can believe that The king of the Vampires really exists and is alive - in 20th Century London? 

The image below is what I think the sculptor got his idea from. 

The kit is in 2 parts, where one part, the Victim, Caroline Munro, sits inside the base which is also the Dracula (Christopher Lee) figure. The kit was once again very clean.  As with most kits there is only a slight parting line across the hair. 

As is my new usual, the skin starts off with a coat of pinkle and red - 

After the pinkle was dry I applied the skin tones. I didn't want them both identical so Dracula got a light coat of Medium Flesh, and the victim for the Game Air Flesh. After that was some dotting from Reikland Fleshshade wash.

Drac's hair is almost Black, while the Victim is done with the German Black Brown. They both are wearing black so I have Drac highlighted with a blue shine, and the Victims dress is just strictly gloss black.  Her cheeks and chest were done with a very thin Transparent red, and her eye shadow is simply black pastel. Drac's 5 o'clock shadow was done with a dark blue pastel.   Once dry it all was sealed in Vallejo Matte ending the project.  

The only downside IMHO to this kit is Dracula's expression. If he was about to bite, you think you would see the teeth bared and the eyes squinting preparing for the attack. Post bite, I would think his eye would again be squinting, and his mouth relaxing still with the teeth bared. This expression makes me think he's creeping on Caroline.  Thanks for looking. 

 

The '41 Wolfman

 You can never have to many Wolf-men. 

This one is prom sculptor Troy McDevitt, and it is an awesome rendition of the Lon Chaney Jr. character. The model comes in 4 parts - the head, base, arm and name plate. The resin is perfect. 

 Right out of the box, and test fitting. Looks terrific

Starting to add some base colors -

 

 

More base colors and starting the highlights.

 Decided on a blue shirt color so I based it with a dark purple to show the shadows, and then epoxied all the parts together. 

 

 

Ghost of Christmas Past (additional)

 It was weighing on my mind. After having another look at the image of the Ghost  from the movie, I couldn't get past that the Ghost was too colorful - lively looking.

To remedy this I too some watered down V. Ivory, and with everything masked off, including his eyes I gave the face a mist coat to make him a little paler and more ghost-like. Thanks for looking. 

 

Before

 

 

The Ghost of Christmas Past (1951)

 This bust was actually purchased last year, but I waiting too long to buy and couldn't get him done by last Christmas. So I wanted to make sure he was finished by this one. 

He is the Ghost of Christmas Past, played by Michael Dolan,  from the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol.  Sculptor John Dennett has a number of bust in his Christmas Carol series.  The kit is a two piece 1/5 scale bust in nearly flawless resin. There was a very fine seam line in his hair that was quickly dispatched.  

My "problem" with these type of characters is do I paint it as the character, a ghost? Or do I paint it as the actor playing a ghost? (Thinking too much?)  My idea was for the former, and so I primed it blue. Thinking about it, my last ghost in this series was painted as a ghost, so I changed my mind and this one would be the actor.

 

As with others in this series color is always a problem with the film being in B&W.  But not in the case. Even with the lack of color you can see white on white one white. Which presents it's own problems...

 

As with most busts I start with the face and this was no exception.

 

Hi hair and gown were apparently white, so I tried a triad of grays, figuring I'd end up with almost white. I guess I have a problems with "almost whites" as they never seem bright enough to me. So I ended up giving up and painted the gown just white, and then backed into the shadow colors. I was also having troubles with the skin color. I would end up with the skin too healthy looking or too pale - again the white on white on white problem.

I followed an idea a you Tuber had (Groundeffected)  where he just mushes three colors together and roughly mixes them up for the base.  I sort of liked it but I think it looks better with larger models and this 1/5 scale needed to be a little more dainty. So I kept mixing the wet colors to blend them a little more.

The flower wreath was started in purple and then highlighted with two shades of pink. Finally washed it in Citadels Carrosburg Crimson. The text in the base was painted with one of the reds from the Nocturna set - which coincidentally matched the flowers in the wreath.

In the end I left the face a little more lively, and then called it done.   Thanks for looking.

 

Jabba the Hutt

 Bo-shoo-dah.  This time around we have another Gillman kit, that is Jabba the Hutt. It comes in 10 parts of gray resin - the bust, base, 4 gargoyle heads, and the 4 gargoyle rings. Don't remember why I didn't take a pic of the base, but you'll see it soon enuff.

 The closest primer color I had to the figure was a tan, so I gave it a covering. Then testing out what green I wanted, I tried out V's Black Green.

While that was drying I decided to do the gargoyle heads in a bronze color. They were never the center of attention, and I figured it would give the base a little color. Still not seen - the base was just painted gray and washed with dark colors.

 

For my 2nd session, there wasn't very many pics of Jabba (the puppet, not the CGI figure) from different good light angles, so my best guess from what I could see were oranges and tans (beside the green). The original green I used fit in well, but I didn't carry it as far up as I should have.  No matter, this is the benefit of me never mixing colors. ;)  Doing it all with the airbrush, made things go very quickly. 

 

For my final session, I just needed to neaten things up, do the eyes, glue the rings in the gargoyle mouths, and then since the gargoyle heads stick out from the base, I epoxied them in. I also added some Citadel Nihilakh Oxide to simulate some verdigris color.  Even tho it's the desert I picture that room like a wet musty cellar :P

With that, I was done. Thanks for looking. 

Rebel Finale

Click HERE for part 2.

 

For the glaze for the face, I used a Thinner Medium by Vallejo. It's basically the paint "carrier" without any pigment. With water you get dilute it down to where the pigments separate out. With this medium, you can go a lot thinner than with water. I thought I had a pic of it but no. 

Moving on I added a number of red highlights for the jacket. One the back I decided to use a b&W blend for the lettering on top of a black background.  Early on I added some Rustoleum Chrome for the switch blade. It was now when I added black to the handle, dotting it with silver. I also added silver to the jackets zipper.  With that I was done. Thanks for looking. 

 

CGS Wyatt Earp

 Wow, it's been a while. I've been building but just couldn't get around to filing a post here.  Aah well. What I have is a 200 mm Wyatt Earp from CGS Models.

The one thing I'm not really crazy about is their bases. To me, they seem just too small. So I have these decayed "wood" (resin actually) from Green Stuff World.

I couldn't resist base painting the face.

 In the movie Tombstone Kurt Russell is always in dark pants and jacket, with a dark hat. so I just continued that here.

Trying something new I decided I would paint the shadow of the hat onto Wyatt's face and not just rely on the actual shadow to do the work.

Starting work on the hands and rifle. Here I noticed that the rifle barrels were warped. The old hot water trick worked like a charm.

 

The arms were added to the hands and shoulders. I was like a juggling match to get everything lined up.

Putting the head on, I noticed that the sculptor, in sculpting the head separately mad Wyatt look straight ahead as in earlier pics. However leaving it like that looked a little silly. I went back and despite the pupils being sculpted, I ignored that, and put the pupils as if he was looking from the side. Now it looks like he's looking down the barrel as in the screen grab. With that I was done, and he can take his place next to the earlier Doc Holiday.