Working with Some of my Resintopia Finds

With the unboxed Shiflett Executioner on my desk staring at me, as well as the boxes with the two Moon Devil Studio cryptids not far away. I decided to dive into them. 
The Executioner you already saw in primer. I did the skin in the fashion of most miniatures. Colors were from Games Workshop - Bugman's Glow, with Cadian Flestone, and Kislev Flesh for the highlights. I followed it with Reikland Fleshtone for a wash. Apologies for the stark lighting ...

His arms aren't attached yet. Wanted to make sure the skin came out ok.

The hood and cowl next - -

Next I unboxed the Abominable snowman, and gave the resin a wash. The Snowman I gave a first coat of primer, and then realized that I got carried away and should have assembled him first. DOH! Too anxious!  So then next I drilled some holes for the 2 part epoxy. I saw another modeler's post that instead of adding pins to tabs he would drill holes into the tab as well as the corresponding female part. His theory was if you put enough epoxy into the female part then the epoxy will be forced into the drilled holes creating a well attached figure. It worked for him so I thought I would try it too.  I did include a pin in one of the feet (that had no tab) for extra stability. 

While I was priming I also primed the large base. The base is supposed to represent some rocks and snow. So I primed the rocks gray, and the snow - white. I will enhance the rocks with paint and then flock the snow part. But that's later. 

Here he is having his arms epoxied on. 

Here's a close up of the primed face.

Here's the base from the back so you can see more detail. One foot will go on the taller rock, another on the smaller.
Note the footprint in the snow...

More later...

Resintopia Part 2

Continuing around the vendor room, I spotted a kit I knew. It was on the Moon Devil Studios table and it was the Jersey Devil kit I bought earlier this year. I have been a Cryptid fan since seeing that first Bigfoot video as a kid all those years ago. I guess it was just a natural progression from my love of dinosaurs. From there I just kept reading all the folklore. But anyway, at his table were all three from his series of "Crypto Legends." There was a aforementioned Jersey Devil, and then the Loch Ness Monster and the Abominable Snowman. My wife often teases me about all the Bigfoot shows I watch on TV, so in choosing a kit, I was going to leave the Yeti for another time and pick up Nessie - 

The owner/sculptor of Moon Devil studio is John Dennet. John is a very nice guy and once he knew I too was a cryptid fan, we had a long conversation including some of the other upcoming kits in the series. Two of them are Mokele-Mbembe which is an apparent apatosaur type animal that has been seen by generations of people in the Congo River Basin. The other is one of my top 5 - Mothman. Mothman is a creature that has been seen by witnesses in the area of tragedies before they happen. John is a very interesting guy and I look fwd to getting all the kits in his series.  Afterward, I leave to find the family with Nessie securely tucked under my arm.
But on my way out I saw a table staffed by the Shiflett Brothers. They have been described as to being to fantasy sculpture as to what Frank Frazetta was to painting. So there was no way I could leave without getting something from them. I didn't think I could get away with yet another full size kit, so I saw a bust they had available - The Executioner. This is a twp part kit - the head/body/plinth and then the giant axe with the hands attached. Here's a shot of mine after I washed and primed the kit (I'll have to post on my way to prime another time) - 

The figure is a Conan type muscle man with an executioner hood and cowl. The different part is that the part of the face exposed under the hood is a skull! Should be interesting to paint up! 

I found the the family in the hallway, all nestled into one of the couches outside of the Vendor Room. I sit and show what I was able to get and the wife mentions "Oh I saw that table." and then with a sly smile says  "You didn't get the Bigfoot?"
Me: "No, because I didn't want to hear it all the way home."
Her: "Well, you can't leave without it."
Me: "How about you get it for me then?"
Her: "Let's go..."
So off we went back to the Moon Devil table and John and I talked some more while wifey was getting out her cash. The Snowman is in 5 parts - his body, 2 arms, face and base (this image is from John's table) - -

One interesting part about Moon Devil's kits is that John puts a little easter eggs in there relating to the monster. For Nessie there is an eel (which is what some people thing "the monster" really is, as well as a Celtic Cross lying in the slit. It had been said that some ancient priests had said prayers and tossed the crosses into the Loch to ward off the Monster. 

For The Snowman, who John says has always been seen with dark fur, and not light fur that has been made popular by newer TV shows, also has an easter egg. At the base of the rock by a foot, you'll find some Tibetan monk prayer beads. 

I'm going to have to open up my Jersey Devil to see whats hidden there! 

More later...

RESINTOPIA and some goodies

Resintopia was just a few weekends ago and what a show it was. It was quite a bit smaller than JerseyFest, and IMHO it wasn't really worth the $25/pp entry fee. I know they had "big" names in attendance, but...  
Anyway, I forgot to look at the talk/demo page of the website to see what was going on, so I missed out on that. The model contest was also lacking in entries. So, in the end it just ending up being a "kit buying" day for me. :-)

What I normally like to do is make a lap or two around the room to see what's what. With the room being pretty small, that didn't take long. Two kits caught my eye from Monz Designs. The first was an alien bust called Hammerhead. He was quite a unique design in probably 1/3 - 1/4 scale. The other was the Frog Warrior. 

The Hammered head was nicely done in one piece of white resin w/o and hints of flash or bubbles. The finished painted Frog image isn't mine, but garnered from the web. It as a kit were a bit different than Hammerhead. There was thin flash nearly everywhere, and the was a bubble on two of his toes - 

One cool aspect was that the base has been cast in a semi-clear glow in the dark resin. Having it under a light for a few minutes it glows VERY strongly. Cool! But then I noticed something wrong about the imprints of where the frog's feet go. Despite the frog having 4 toes on each foot, one imprint has 4 toes while the other has 3! I lined the frog's legs on the base and found out that one toe hangs off the edge. Why would you make a base where the is a little extra room in the front and back and then hang part of the foot off the edge? So I'm probably going to skip the glow in the dark base and create another that fits the figure correctly. 

Then I saw his mouth. There's a little part missing. Don't know what happened there. But having been in the hobby since the mid 90's, I remember many of the old kits back then needing a little TLC so I got pretty good at repairs. 

Upper image shows the missing part and then below with a little help of Aves Apoxie Sculpt, is repaired. A few slits with an xacto blade and I pressed some very coarse sandpaper into the drying epoxy putty and that mimicked the texture pretty well.

The rest of the tour and purchases later...

(Also I'll be back to work on the X-19 soon. )

Back Again and Moving Fwd.

     Hey gang (if there's anyone still there). I've been away because I finally got my hobby studio - not finished, but good enuff to work in. Then I had to gather up all my tools and kits, that eventually got spread around the house and set them up in the one spot. 
     Having just returned from the IPMS Nationals in Hampton, Va I got a renewed energy towards scale modelling. I only picked up 3 kits this time around. Military topics isn't really my thing ( and it's a huge part of the IPMS) and since sci-fi kits are few and far between, I look toward the X-planes. While yes the Luft '46 aircraft are military, if they have an odd enough configuration, I'll also get them. 
This time I got Anigrand's M2F2 Lifting body and Orbital sciences X-34 RLV  at the Rare Plane Detective table. Over at the MPM table I picked up Planet Models' Blohm and Voss P.170. Talking about an odd plane - this one is it. The links will show what I mean. I also picked up more tools. You can never have enough tools. 
When I got home, I found that the Bubble Ship from Oblivion was in the stack of mail. This kit is from Fantastic Plastic. At 1:48 scale it's not the typical scale I stick to, but chance of it being done in 1:72 are slim at best, and I really like the design. So this time I made an exception. ;)

     I got all my goodies home and went up to my studio. I had been working on the VZ, when I started working again on the room. So naturally that was the first thing back on my table. I have no idea what happened, but the two props for the plane are gone... gone, gone. No where to be found.  Not wanting to slow my newly refreshed enthusiasm and until the two props turn up, I looked at another Anigrand model I had in my stash - the Curtis Wright X-19. The X-19 was supposed to be the prototype for a vertical takeoff transport.
Testing was done in nearby Caldwell, NJ. The first flight of the X-19 took place in November 1963 (other sources give 26 June 1964). It was intended that the X-19 would be developed into a VTOL transport aircraft. However the first X-19 was destroyed in a crash on 25 August 1965, and the program was subsequently cancelled.
     From now on, instead of photographing every single step as before, which really slows me down, I'm choosing to build a number of sub-assemblies and then let you see.

Here, I added the weight to the nose so the plane wont be a tail sitter, and added the wing pylons. I put the fuselage halves together and assembled the props to the nacelles.  
     If you look at the pic closely you you can still see bubbles on the props. This must have been an old kit from an old mould. The parts are chock full of bubbles, slipped moulds and "gouges" that need to be fixed.  When I was taking bonsai lessons, my Sensei once said "Don't ruin a good tree trying to make it great." So I'm going my this logic for this plane. I'm not going to sand and fill every single bubble - I've already been working on filling and sanding for hours and hours each session. Who knows how long I could keep going. So I will fill and sand the ones that really stick out, and then I'm calling it a day. 
     More soon. 

Doak VZ Session 6

After priming, I mentioned last time that a seam line stood out. Looking closer there were two small gouges on the bottom of the fuselage as well. 

The seam on top was was taken care of with one additional shot of primer and a little wet sanding. Here's a pic before the final priming.

The little gouges on the bottom (arrow indicated) took two additional primings and wet sanding before it came smooth.

This image shows the two areas that were giving me the trouble.

Now with all this done, I can really start moving. Next up is to mask off the part of the plane that's to be painted olive drab, and then the front of the plane which will get a red paint job.  More soon...

Doak VZ Session 5

I have a small update for tonight. It starts off with me re-masking the canopy so the back part and also the bottom rail  that's going to get the fuselage color is exposed. It went a lot easier than the previous masking job. It was also a lot less complex. ;) 
With the masking on I then attached the canopy in place over the cockpit. I touched the canopy in a few spots with liquid super glue just to get the thing in place then I was going to glue down the rest. But the fit wasn't the best. So I got out my LOCKTITE GEL super glue. This stuff is the best and you have to squeeze the side panels to get the glue out, so when you release the panels, the glue is sucked back into the tube and doesn't stay in the nozzle. With a tooth pick I filled in the open areas - 

In the image you will see a line of filler, that  line will come back to haunt me.  After hitting it with a light coat of Tamiya primer, that seam line shows up. :-/ Odd, since running my finger over the joint I felt nothing. But the primer doesn't lie. I'll give the primer a full day to dry and then I'll go back and make that seam disappear. I'll have a shot of the primer stage when It's all dry.

Finally to end this post, while I was in my LHS letting my son get a model or two (he's into WW2 armor now...) I saw a model that was one of the first models I ever built back in the mid- 60's. It's the US Moon Ship.  Back then IIRC Hawk was the manufacturer. This time it's Lindburgh. So another model get added to my To Do pile, and hopefully this time it'll look better than how a 7 year old did it. Haha :) - 

More later...

Doak VZ- Session 4a, and a little Warhammer

Okay, back to the build. Once the paint on the canopy was dry I removed all the masking and here it is - -

Not bad IMHO. I'm over in a few spots and there was a little bleed, which I gently scraped off. But all in all I'm happy. At the back of the canopy you'll see the Vallejo primer I brushed on. as long as the brush is dry and you don't keep going over and over the same spot, the primer dries smooth.
A few images shows the Doak with the back canopy part painted in, a few others show it clear. Being that on this model the back part slips into what's supposedly looks like a duct I've decided to paint that part.

While all this was going on my young son decided that he wanted to build something. when he was in his "robot phase" he received a GAMES WORKSHOP Dreadnought for Christmas.  Being that 1/72 is on the miniature size, I watch a number of miniature how-to videos on You Tube. As I said YT has an endless supply of terrific modeling videos. I've watched a number of Dreadnought paint-ups but was shocked at the amount of detail these sculptors put into these little kits. My son did all the building himself, and nearly all the painting. I just did enuff to show him how to use the CITADEL WASHES. These are a fantastic time saver and recommend everyone get a set of these washes. I also showed him how to drybrush. I think his results were excellent. what do you all think?

Finally I have another new tool to offer up. I recently bought a set of "sanding pencils" from my LHS. A set comes with coarse, medium and fine grits, and they make getting in to tight little corners a breeze. Highly recommended. 

Back to the Doak VZ shortly ...