New Aquisitions

This time around I have 3 new busts.  The first one on the left is Jack from American Werewolf in London (AWIL). It obviously shows him post death, when he comes back to warn David. He's already been primed. Then we have David, again from AWIL, post attack, this bust shows him how he sees himself while he's having those wacky dreams while still in the hospital.  
Number 3 is an alien. Why? Because you can never have enuff alien kits. ;)

Till next time. 

 

Laignach Faelad, The Wolf Men of Tipperary

I had this kit by Spyda Adams in my stash for quite a while, being Irish and a fan of mythologies, I couldn't say no.  Finally this past St. Patrick's Day I decided it was the perfect day to take it out and start it.

The  Laignach Faelad were reputed to be a group of vicious warriors  who were said to be half man, half wolf. These men are mentioned in an incredibly ancient Irish text known as the Coir Anmann, which claims that these faelad (soldiers) would fight for any king willing to pay their steep price. The text goes on to say that these men dressed in wolf skins and were tremendously brutal in battle, which is why the old Irish kings wanted them so badly. During this time the land was drenched in the blood of battle, the country was constantly at war and the kings would do whatever it took to win, including hiring the inhuman Laignach Faelad, which not everyone was too pleased with.
Now, you may wonder why one would be wary about hiring the Laignach Faelad, kings have plenty of gold right? Yes, but unfortunately these warriors did not ask for money, instead they asked for something entirely more precious – the flesh of newborns. They would divide among themselves, falling upon the flesh like wolves and devour it raw. A king would have to be pretty desperate and ruthless to hire these warriors.

The kit came in 4 parts of white, odorless resin. There was a little seam line, but it was easily dispatched amongst all the fur. I then applied some Aves to the two arms where the seams were. The other parts was the axe and the base. 

Starting to paint, I decided to try out my new Vallejo Skin color set. But first I washed the fur and a few of the details in a new technique I first saw on Sorastro's You Tube channel.  I also coated part of the base in an orange brown. Here, I want to simulate wood. If you look over his shoulder I also painted the handle of the axe with the same color.

As I like working from dark to light, I then sprayed on a darkish flesh color. That **HAHA** just gave him a sprayed on tan orange color - 

While I was waiting for his body to dry, I turned my attention to the base. Having scroll work in typical Celtic fashion there was no other color choice that green and gold. I also applied some Citadel's Agrax Earthshade wash to the wood area. After I started washing I realized I should have roughed it up a bit to get some "grain."  Here I just have the green down - 

Taking a side step, I looked up what wolf pelts really look like. This was tough as there are as many different wolf colors, as there are people. I really liked the Black wolf color - 

But painting a pale Irish guy, I figured it would contrast too much with the black pelt. So I chose a mixed color wolf to copy. There are other wolves with brown in them, so I added some brown to my pelt - 

You can see I also added the mid tone flesh to the warrior. So far so good.

Then I added my last highlight to the figure, but IMHO I thought it was too bright. So I misted the middle color over the figure. This settled all my colors down. Next steps were to add color to the fur gauntlets, the leather straps, and the metal bits. For the metal I wanted something dark and added Steel from Vallejo's Metallics line to the axe blade, strap ring and a few "decorations" on the belt. I highlighted these with V's Silver.
Finally, again thinking Irish, I added a reddish hair under the wold cap, blue eyes inside the wolf orbits, and some (rusty) orange to the chin mimicking a 5 o'clock shadow.  
 I slipped the axe handle thru his hands. I was a bit nervous about this as it was tight, but thankfully none of the paint scraped off. Whew. I then flicked some dark red "blood" on the axe blade and let it hit the face body and hands. When dry I touched it with flecks of a brighter red and then some gloss.
Thanks for looking.

 

Dunkleosteus Finale

(See Part ONE & Part TWO) 
Having thought I was finished with the fish, I moved on to the base. I left off putting sand on the sea floor. From there I decided to add a few more clay coral and sponges, a starfish or two, a few sand dollars and an orthocone shell (red arrows).  Whether they were all alive at the time of the Dunkleosteus, I don't know. I decided to just use some artistic license to make the scene a little more busy. 

 Next I painted up the corals in different colors to brighten the scene. On some of the corals I used a pearlizer additive to the paint.

 The scene was still a little bland, so I decided to make some clay seaweed. As in a previous post Sculpey III was a little too brittle. I bought some Premo and it worked great. It had a bit of flexibility to the sculpt without making it rubbery. But once again my newbie kicked in and I realized I made each elongated leaf way too thick.  So off to the pet shop I went to buy some plants. 

I see a lot of people use aquarium plants right out of the package but to me they look too plastic and scream fake. So I primed and painted them. I even took a few extra leaves off the stem to use as dead leaves that found their way to the sea floor. 

From eBay I also bought one of those Devonian  fishes that are sold in the candy machines. I also primed and painted that to hide the plastic -

I was happy now. What I decided to do to tie the whole scene together was to give the whole vignette a mist coat of turquoise to make the scene a little darker and to mimic the subdued colors you see in under water photography -

Thanks for looking.

Trying Something New: Clay Plants

I've been getting into clays and sculpting lately. So I found a number of artists on You Tube such as Dugosaurus, Toby Wayne, Chis Darga*, Jordu Schell* and even western sculptor David Lemon. Then there's the miniature artists like Tom Mason, and a woman who's channel goes by the name Sugar Charm shop  Who has excellent tutorials that show you how to "fur" animals.
 But there was another miniature artist, Stephanie Kilgast,  that caught my attention when she did a few videos on plants. I figured I could use them on dios.  So after watching the VID a few times, I gave it a try. Seeing a number of artists use the colored clay, I went out and bought two colors of green and white and gave it a try - 

Then didn't turn out terrible. I used Sculpey III, and found it very brittle once baked. You can't really see it in the pic, but while sanding on of the leaves of the dark green plant I snapped a leaf. I'll have to look for a clay with a little more give...  Thanks for looking.

Dunkleosteus Build part 2

To see part 1, go HERE .
It was time to paint. I had an idea to use green and a sort of tan color for the  body - 

 As soon as I finished the tan I knew this wasn't going to work. Time to think of somethings else. Looking at the back of the fish and especially the belly part, there is no scales scutes or anything else. So I thought of the way some guys paint skin. They do it by painting little squiggles all over the figure with different color paint. Having never done this before I tried it with black, blue and red paint it turned out looking very busy - 

You see on the second side,  some of the lines are way too thick.  I was having troubles with my airbrush, and rather than stop and fix it I tried to muscle on and complete that side.  I'll just have to make the over coat a little heavier in sections where the thicker squiggles are. 

Taking a break of a day to clean the airbrush which became completely clogged by the time I stopped. I took bits apart but trying to keep major sections together. Didn't work. I got the brush all cleaned out and I was surprised at how much gunk was in there despite me regularly "cleaning" it after each session. So  being cleaned I had trouble putting it back together, thank goodness for a large number of videos on You Tube showing me how to put it back together. 
I also went and bought a cleaning kit and Iwata cleaner. 

 Back to the placoderm. Seeing many fish, they are dark on top and light on the bottom. So I was going to replicate that. Looking at my paints I found two colors that ironically were both named Gray Green. One was lighter than the other and their respective loc. numbers were 101 and 106. On top I used the darker color and dotted along the back of the animal. The lighter color was sprayed on the rest of the body keeping it light enough to see the squiggles underneath - 

  In the pics you can also see that I added a thinned red wash to the gill area and the inside of the mouth. I also added a brown wash to darken the deepest recesses. Since most fish also seems to have a silvery sheen to them. I mimicked this by giving a light spray with Vallejo silver. Except for a gloss coat, I'm calling the Dunk done.
The base is next. Thanks for looking. 

Monster Scenes Saber Tooth Rabbit

This time around I dug out The Saber Tooth Rabbit from Monster Scenes. Monster Scenes was a series of kits from Aurora in the 70's. Originals are highly sought after, and a few of them have been reissued over the years. A few new-ish kits have also been released.

The Saber Tooth Rabbit comes with a dungeon floor, a chain and collar, and finally a huge block of rock which ties the Rabbit down. 
The instructions stars me out putting the Rabbit head together and then the body. I wasn't going to be too concerned about seam lines etc... as this was going to be a strictly fun build.  I got the head together and there was a gap around one eye that was just a little too big for me to ignore. Once again I got carried away and forgot to take pics along the way.  Here we have the whole kit built and fitted together to see how it looked -

I wasn't too crazy about the little dungeon floor base. Things were just a little too crowded for my liking. So I tried one of the generic wooden bases I had laying around - 

Still no good. So I started hacking up the dungeon floor and tried playing with the pieces - 

Meh... I'll have to think about it. While thinking I started painting. I wanted the Rabbit to look like a normal bunny except for his killer fangs. So I tried to paint him cute - 

I had to make him psycho, so you may notice the red eyes! Yikes!
Turning to the anchor. I painted it gray, then a black wash. I also gave the metal parts a dusting of rust - 

Back to the dungeon. In the end the only thing I kept was the floor drain. The floor was made out of cork glued to the wood base, painted gray, and then washed with Citadel Black and brown washes. I also put some PVA glue down and sprinkled some sand down to break up the floor. I also dripped some Citadel yellow wash to simulate some pee, and a little diluted red paint for some blood spatter. Water Effects runs down the drain to complete the gross effect. 
Gluing the Rabbit and Block to the floor and I was done. Thanks for looking .

The Caveman T-Rex Part 2)

It's been a while, so to see part 1 - click here - http://kevtk.blogspot.com/2017/03/caveman-dinosaur.html

Picking up where I left off I primed the model black and started painting. In the movie the dinosaur was, depending on which image you looked at, simply all gray or a gray green color. I thought the gray would be a little plain so I used 2 Vallejo colors. Oddly enough they are both named Green Gray (?!). But the loc. numbers are different - 101 & 106. Number 101 is also know as RLM 2 for all you military plane modelers. 101 is darker than 106. So the painting began.

 While the T-Rex is drying I turned my attention to the base. This time around I just wanted something really simple. But first I looked up the movie poster and saw the typical 3 color blend to the logo letters. I gave my best shot trying to mimic the look, first by spraying the yellow and then the orange - 

By adding the red and then the black background. I was finished with the logo - 

From there I set upon the rest of the base - 

Then I set the T-Rex on the base and I was done - 

I used wire to loosely pin him to the base. But it just didn't sit right. It looks like one guy sculpted the dinosaur and someone else sculpted the base and didn't communicate. I couldn't find a spot where he stood squarely on the base. In one of the pic you can see a toe on the left foot off the ground. That would definitely get "points off" at a model show...  I may go back and cut that toe off and modify it so it touches on the ground.
I also just saw a You Tube VIDEO where this polymer artist sculpted some plants. I have some green FIMO somewhere and just may give that a try to fill in the base a bit. 

Thanks for looking.