Pulp Fishin' (Unpublished
Model Maniacs article)
Note: Some of the photographs do not depict
the colors accurately. I apologize for this.
Clicking any picture will enlarge it to its
full size.
What is it that makes The Creature From The Black Lagoon so popular amongst
fans? For sure, there are those like myself who’s favorite is Frankenstein’s
monster, perhaps the Wolf Man, or Dracula. But what is it that causes die hard
Creature fans to speak above the crowd, start fan sites, or even insanely devote
an entire model magazine to his gill ness? Is it the drama of the film? The
acting? The exotic location? Is it the powerful soundtrack that grabs a hold
of you and won’t let go? The hot chick? Nope.
He’s cool looking.
Needful Things and sculptors Rudy Garcia and Mike Sandbothe have captured the
Creature in all his scaly detail in a beautiful swimming pose, and a generously
large canvas for the painter to work with in 1/5 scale. The kit is cast in 5
solid resin pieces, and a cold cast base.
When finished, the Creature is rather heavy , and about 23 inches
long. The base is heavy enough, in cold cast, to keep the finished display from
being top heavy and wobbly. The arms and legs are keyed to fit to the body,
and quite well. It's not a perfect world, I hate to say. You’re going
to need to scrape a few seams off, and do a little putty work at the joints.
As thick as the plugs were for fitting, I still pinned the arms and legs to
the body when attaching with 5-minute epoxy glue. Probably the two major issues
I encountered while building this kit were the left shoulder, and mounting the
kit to the base. Neither are difficult, just require decision-making. Damn!
I hate making decisions!
After attaching the left arm to the body, there is a spot in the armpit that
is smooth and without detail.
So my decision was a simple one, and that was to fill in the detail. No problem.
I rolled up a bunch of little Apoxie Sculpt balls that were about the same size
as the scales on the kit. Using a sculpting tool, I stuck them into the armpit,
leaving a little gap in-between each one. This way, when I pushed them down
flat, using the tool, they were pressed together. Kind of like the time I tried
baking cookies and they all mushed together. (I didn't know they went flat and
got bigger!) Since the putty is water soluble, I took an old paintbrush, and
brushed some water over my new pits scales to further blend them together and
soften the edges. Easy enough. Maybe he's not supposed to have scales in there,
I guess they might rub when he's swimming, but that's my decision and I'm sticking
with it
The second decision at this stage is mounting the kit to the base.
There are no holes pre-drilled, or instructions on where or how to do this.
Here, you’re on your own. You could have him diving into the base if you
want, straight across, or swimming toward the surface like their display model.
I opted for the latter. So now, you have to twist the base around, to see which
side you like facing out, and test fitting the Creature in various positions
to see how you like it. I decided to mount his knee flush with the base. I always
hate swimming or flying things with a pole sticking from some part of their
body to the base. I didn't want a Fish-ka-bob! The size of the kit and stability
were an issue as well. However you decide to attach it, I recommend you use
a square, rather than a round pin. I picked up a square rod from the hobby store,
cut it to length, and glued it into the knee up into the leg quite a ways. Once
the 5-minute glue dried, I touched up the detail with Apoxie Sculpt. I drilled
a rather large hole into the base, to give me some "play". I filled
it with Apoxie Sculpt, and pressed the pin from the Creature into it. Put some
water on the pin so it doesn't stick. After cleaning up the excess that oozed
out, I did a few more test fits, making sure he would be positioned how I wanted,
and the fit would be good and tight. There is an easier way to do this, I read
in Amazing Figure Modeler (too late of course!) how to use two different size
of tubing, and set it up like the car antennas, so one slid into the other.
Man, those guys are smart!
Oh, I guess there is the BIG decision. How to paint it. Now actually, this kit
I'm painting belongs to our esteemed editor. I was starting to think that this
issue was not so much a tribute to the Creature himself, as much as a tribute
to Ed's ability to get all his Creature kits built and painted for him! It was
real tempting to throw a bizarre paint scheme on him, make him polka-dotted
or pink or something. However, it's been awhile since I've worked on a Netherworld
kit, so I wasn't feeling suicidal. I did want to try something different though,
and since this wasn't my kit...what the hell! Wow, I don't mean to bash good
ol' Unca Ed so much, but you know what they say, "you walrus hurt the one
you love". Go ahead. Groan.
Since my articles tend to end up more as how-don'ts instead of how-tos, let's
try the Alligator look. I wanted to try to leave the underskin in-between the
scales a lighter color, more of a fleshy yellow, and the scales themselves the
darker green. I mixed up a batch of Red Oxide and Yellow Oxide and airbrushed
that over the entire kit. I then took straight Yellow Oxide, and sprayed that
along the outside of each individual "plate". My thinking was that
I wanted highlights even under the scales. Where one set of scales overlapped
the other, it would go from dark to light. Even if it wasn't noticeable, I thought
it might be a subtle touch, and why not try it, while I'm at it? I mixed in
some Raw Sienna in with the Yellow Oxide, and misted over everything. I then
went back and did some spot highlights on the head and hands.
Well it’s only a matter of time, so let's get out the green. I mixed in
some Hooker's Green with Burnt Sienna, and started spraying that on the head.
I aimed the airbrush as if I were shading under the details, but with the brush
back far enough that it would sort of mist over the high areas as well. I then
went in tighter and did some mottling. I painted the tops of the feet and hands
in the same way. Once I started laying the green down, I noticed the rest of
the body color was way too orange. I didn't like it. Stuff like this happens
though, and I tried not to get too upset with myself. I mean, "it cod salmon
to anybody".
I took some Antelope Brown Ink, and thinned it down for airbrushing. I love
this color, its kind of a greenish brown, and I tend to use it a lot. I sprayed
this over everything, to take the red out, (could I have used Visene?) and then
lightened everything up again with some Raw Sienna Ink. Inks are great for tinting,
they are nice and thin, transparent, and go on evenly. While I was at it, I
used these colors and sprayed some more mottling and detail on the head and
hands.
Okay, now for my master plan! Rather than the conventional airbrush everything,
wash, glaze... whatever, I was going to dry brush all the scales to leave the
skin in-between lighter. Let me tell you right now, go ahead and airbrush, and
just use an ink raw sienna glaze if you want to do this. I didn't think a light
color glaze would work, but with inks (the opaque kind) it does. Save your hands.
Mine were sore for a week after all this dry brushing, but I digress...
I mixed up a large batch of Burnt Sienna, Hookers Green, a touch of Raw Sienna,
and a generous amount of Golden's Retarder. I know Oils are the best for dry
brushing, but not when you’re on a deadline! I built this up over all
the scales, then lightening the mix with more Raw sienna and adding some highlights.
Instead of using the usual "mop" brush, or ragged old trashed brush
like I normally do, I did my dry brushing with a medium sized flat brush. I
tired it with the before mentioned brushes, but I kept having to load up the
brush with paint, and it was taking way too long. I guess what I was doing with
the flat brush wasn't exactly dry brushing then, but for lack of a better word...
I then mixed up some Raw Umber, Green Light, and Bronze Yellow
for the outer parts of the sections of scales. By watching the film, like I
mentioned earlier, where the plates overlap seem quite a bit darker to me, more
than just a shading effect. More like stripes. After my hand went numb at this
point, I added some final highlights with straight Bronze Yellow. After all
that, I "sea eeled" the kit with Testor's Dull Coat.
I figured since gills are loaded with blood vessels, or at least I think they
are, I decided to throw some red into my paint scheme. On a pallet, straight
from the tubes, I laid out some Bronze Yellow, Pyrole Red, and some Van Dyke
Red. Van Dyke is more of a brown, Pyrole Red is more of a primary red, and Bronze
Yellow is, well, urine. Picking up some retarder on the brush before each color,
I brushed, or more dabbed the Van Dyke Red on the inside of the gills, Pyrole
Red in the middle, and the Bronze Yellow on the outside of each gill. With a
clean brush, I blended the colors lightly together from the inside out. Using
the same technique, I painted the fins along the back, arms and legs, using
just the Van Dyke and Bronze Yellow. For the Webbing between the fingers and
toes, I used Van Dyke, Burnt Umber, and Raw Sienna for the edges. I wanted them
more orange than red. I think they look more red now that I look at them.
After sealing everything, I went and did a lot of ink washes with Sepia, and
Antelope brown around the head, belly, hands and feet. The detail work around
the face involved some burnt sienna pastel on the lips, some blue pastel eye
shadow, and teal around the highlights of the face. Eyes were painted with reference
to the picture on the Yahoo Creature Club site of the prop eyes from the film.
Too bad the picture wasn't in color. I painted them off white, like normal eyes,
with a real heavy burnt sienna wash. The iris was painted black, then gold,
with a black pupil. While I had my pastels out, I hit a few of the scales here
and there with different browns and some of the nubs on the head. The base?
I cheated. I just took all the airbrush colors I had mixed up and started spraying
the hell out of it. I didn't even wait for each coat to dry. The colors blended
together really nice and then I used my darkest brown last, which gathered in
the cracks and recesses well. Not very professional, but sometimes you “haddock
do what you haddock do.”
After all is said and done, if you get real close, you can see the lighter color
in between the scales. Not sure if all that work was worth it. Like I said,
I could have done it with a wash, but I wanted the color underneath to have
shading and highlights as well. I gave it a shot, and had a whale of a time
doing it. Hopefully, Ed likes it.
Your Creature From the Black Lagoon kit can be flounder at:
Web: http://darkcarnivalmodels.com/
Snail:
DARK CARNIVAL
2949 Hempstead tkpe
Levittown, NY 11756
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