Member Showcase

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Welcome to the member showcase (even though I have not yet paid dues for this year). As most modelers, I grew up with the Aurora models as a kid, but later fell away from modeling. Shortly before the birth of my first son, I revisited the world of figure modeling since I would be spending more time at home. I had an old vinyl model from the movie, Robo-Cop; it was the ED-209 from Horizon. I quickly assembled this piece and showed it at my model club. From there, I was turned on to a magazine called Amazing Figure Modeler (AFM). I bought all of the back issues and was forever hooked on resin. My number one problem was the cost.

Sure, the kits I used to build were about $10-15, but now the kits I desire are about $100. This put a slight damper on my newly found hobby. After reading a number of articles on sculpting in AFM, Kit Builders and Modelers Resource, I determined that I could make my own kit. With my own kit, I would be able to trade with other producers for the kits I wanted. This led me to choose an obscure character from a straight to video film. This character appealed to me, more so than it did to everyone else. Well, needless to say, the first kit was not exactly the block buster I had envisioned, but it did introduce me to a whole new world of Garage Kits, sculptors and resin casters. Unfortunately, now I spend more time sculpting than modeling.

This brings me to the topic I would like to share with you: sculpting. When you are looking for subject matter for a sculpture, you often seek out something that embodies certain elements such as, character, pose, and of course, class. Well, you can not think of these three elements without coming to an obvious conclusion, “The Simpsons”. Yes, a friend of mine suggested that a sculpture of the beloved characters in the classic Halloween specials would be fantastic. So I took his challenge and started working on a sculpture of Montgomery Burns dressed as Bram Stoker’s Count Dracula. This episode was especially funny to me because his shadow, like the real film, didn’t follow him, but played with a Yo-Yo. This was the vision I had when I started. Vision—it is important to begin with a vision, whether it is funny, scary, off the wall or even obscure (as in my first endeavor). Choose what appeals to you.

To begin a sculpture, I research the character, pose and scale I want. I then bend an aluminum wire for my armature and cover the lower half with aluminum foil to make the bulk of the figure. I use foil for two reasons; it provides a good “sticky” surface for the clay and it uses less clay (did I mention I was cheap?)

	I then cover the wire and foil with a layer of Super Sculpty(SS), and rough out the figure. Super Sculpty is found in any craft store. I prefer the SS because of its consistency and its baking qualities. Once I have achieved a rough sculpture, I cook it to provide a ridged under structure.
When the sculpture cools, I brush it with Vaseline and then I wipe the Vaseline off. This makes the SS stick to the already baked piece. At this point, I finish any sculpting on it and check it from all angles. Once I am satisfied with the piece, I bake it again (fig 3a&B). With this particular piece, I was not too happy with the forehead and the nose, so I used my Dremel to grind it down and lengthen the nose. I made the hand separate for easier assembly of the final resin piece.

Painting:

Painting Burns is pretty straight forward. I used primary colors to paint him and a fine tip marker to outline some of his face. The only note worthy thing about the base is the shadow.

I traced the shadow from the TV and cut it out to use it as a stencil.

I laid it over an old gothic base and sponged it with dark gray paint to make the shadow

Once it is painted, I sit back in my chair with my hands together repeating “Exx-ccellent.”