The Thing - James Arness uncovered

Thought you might like to see these real interesting pics of the original Thing testing out stuff beofre putting his makeup on:


http://www.aintitcool.com/node/48630

The Joker - face almost done

Best bit of the kits nearly done now - just got to highlight the hair and tidy up the lip line. With paint on him its even more evident who's version he's based on, yes?

New Ship - all done

Here we are then with him all done. Kind of happy with it, but its come out more as something from Thunderbirds rather than the very clean, bright ships a la Chris Foss/Peter Elson that i'd intended. Oh well.

The Joker - face nearly done

(1) Promise, but there actually IS grey on the skin here. At this point i thought i'd built up the white enough but won't really know until its all done, so figured it'd be better to add than take away so stopped here. And added a basic flesh tone to the mouth area just to see how it'd contrast.
(2) Over that i put a basic red wash to make the detail pop and also Clear Red watered down around the edges of the eyeballs and eyelids.
(3) Blurry, but quite a bit of progress here - i've blocked in the eyes, eyebrows and hairline in Dark Green, again to see how things are going. Also put a Burgundy wash in the mouth to darken things down so the teeth when done will really stand out.

Falcon's Claw - sealed up

Here we have the underside covered with Plasticard - SO much better than the old cereal box card i used on the original.
Just need to get some P38 to blend them in. You can see i've done a rough sketch of what i want on the bottom - a sort of repulser device for vertical take off surrounded by machinery that branches off down the legs.

What colour a Joker?

Forgive the crappy shot - taken last night by regular lightbulb - but here, believe it or not, is a light grey wash over the white primer. Not at all noticible but it does give you an idea of the stunning detail to the figure.
Also, minds turned to what colour his clobber'll be. Its got to be purple of course for the suit, but i'm thinking of a real dark shade to really contrast with the whiteness of the face.
The trousers have a pinstripe cut in but there's no way i'm going with the palaver of picking them out.
Most build-ups i've seen have him with white gloves, but i'm going with purple.
And have decided to follow this example for colours of the shirt and waiscoat

The Joker - assembled

This was going to be a post to show my "ship made from a Sure bottle" was all finished. But the light here today is far too bright for this crappy camera, giving off much too much glare on patently not shiny surfaces.
Instead, here's the Joker with his legs filled with plaster and all assembled. Part fit was okay, with just a bit of filler needed.
I've only Blu-Tac'd the right arm on for the primer application as its too far in front of the face, making possible painting problems when i come to do the eyes etc. So will be removing it and only putting it back on when i get to the jacket painting.

The Joker

So, finishing off my Vampire Batman had two effects - (1) getting me back into the fella, hence the Bat-Blog (2) giving me an itching to do a figure kit after a LONG time of nothing but hardware building.
Thought i'd combine the two as, oddly, the Joker is a character i've never attempted in the past.
For me, if i'm choosing a kit of the fella, top of the list is this stunna produced by Horizon waaaay back.
Its clearly based on Brian Bolland's "Killing Joke" incarnation, which for me is about definitive.
So real chuffed to get one - but am even more chuffed to see in the raw vinyl what a stunning likeness there is on the face. You'll have to trust me on this for now as the whiteness of the material will make any close up a complete waste of time.
Here you can see the component parts. I'm going to do away with the rather clumsy flower, electing instead to pay the craft shop a visit for a substitute. First buy though is some Plaster Of Paris to fill those hollow legs.

Galactica Viper - done.

All finished, on its base and ready to go off to the model show.

B7 Hairdryer Ship - almost there

I've managed to find a fair few pieces to substitute the unknown one's that were used on the top section, so am dearly at the priming point now. Just need to find something for the very front prongs - thinking felt tip pen tops.

Falcon's Claw

I thought it might be nice to recreate a scratchbuild i made waaaaay back in the late 70's.
Veteran modellers may recognise this as the stand for the old Battlestar Galactica Viper kit.
Way back then i covered up the underside, detailed the underside, put engines on the back, and used the little locating bump on the top for the cockpit.
I'm going to do that again but hopefully better than last time - then i used cardboard to block up the underside and totally out of scale X Wing engines at the rear.
Oh dear.

Andersonic 11

Just a heads up for the latest issue of Richard's excellent Anderson magazine.
Got it this morning, so only had a chance to flick through so far but can see that of note for effects fans this time round is a pretty indepth interview with Visual Effects Director Shaun Whittacker-Cook and a real curiosity of a feature on "Interster", a South African SF series owing a LOT to the Anderson shows, especially the puppets and craft if the photos are anything to go buy.
A snip at less than 3 quid and highly recommended.

Vampire Batman - all done

Well, that was great fun splashing the Tamiya Clear Red around. Enjoyed coming back to figure work after such a long break from them. Think i'll have a look round to see what's out there for another go.