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Harvest Terror and Angel of Death with KitKong

July 10th, 2009

Originally published March 9, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Sometimes I look around and think I’m the only guy in Colorado who gives a rat about this kind of stuff. Then I remember James “KitKong” Whitman of Lakewood and remember there are plenty of people who share my model-kit fascination.

I knew James by reputation quite some time before I actually had any contact with him, mostly because he was the person who so often outbid me on these kinds of kits on eBay, and a year or so ago I discovered his online store, KitKong’s Model Mansion. Now, James has started producing garage kits of his own, and they’re the perfect original creations for Halloween lovers like me.

Harvest Terror

Angel of Death

“Harvest Terror” and “Angel of Death” are 1/6 scale porcelain-resin kits, both sculpted by Nick Williams and the first GKs offered by the Model Mansion. Both kits come unbuilt and unpainted; James built and painted the ones on the box art himself. “Harvest Terror” sells for $65 plus shipping; “Angel of Death” is $45 plus shipping.

James’ model-kit collection – large enough to inspire a friend to give him the “KitKong” nickname – now belongs to the Model Mansion, of which he is the owner and sole operator. Here’s some of what he had to say about the background of “Harvest Terror” and “Angel of Death”:

“Both were sculpted by Mr. Nick Williams. The ‘Harvest Terror’ concept was his own, and derived from a concept and idea he had been playing with for years. We agreed to see how it would translate into a kit.

“The ‘Angel of Death’ kit was a collaboration between Mr. Williams and me in trying to come up with an interesting new look for the Grim Reaper. It was not originally intended as a bust, but we found that it seemed to present itself better as a bust than a full figure kit.”

Before I finish up this week, I’ll note that the prices on these two pieces are pretty low for resin garage kits, particularly “Harvest Terror” (1/6 scale GKs that include the base typically sell for $100 and up) and I’ve heard the castings on both are quite good. Anyone interested in checking out whether they’d enjoy building garage kits would probably find these a good way to ease into the hobby without overheating the checking account.

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The Forgotten One with Kitman

July 10th, 2009

Originally published March 2, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Most of the model kits I collect are easily recognizable characters. The Universal Monsters, comic-book heroes and villains, Indiana Jones … fantasy character stuff. Yep, I’m in my 40s and still prefer this kind of thing to watching millionaires with no sense of good sportsmanship play games on TV all Sunday. If that means my priorities are out of whack, so be it.

Every now and then, someone comes along with an original creation that catches my eye. “Aldrhiel The Forgotten One” from Paradoxx Resin is such a sculpt:

The Forgotten One

The Forgotten One comic

Aldrhiel is a 1/6 scale kit, cast in solid resin, sculpted by Alterton of Argentina, priced at $150 plus shipping and limited to a mere 25 castings.

The prototype in the pictures was painted by the remarkably talented and prolific John Allred.

“As much as I like all the superheroes and Universal Monsters,” John told me via e-mail, “I like original characters even more. So it was a lot of fun and a challenge to come up with a paint scheme for this piece. BTW, Norm surprised Alterton with this finished piece, not telling him who was painting it. Alterton e-mailed me and said he was very happy and amazed at how close the color scheme was to what he had always imagined. Needless to say, I was relieved!”

Norm “Kitman” Piatt of Paradoxx Resin – a fellow I’ve known about four years now primarily via The Clubhouse, a popular online modeling community – answered some questions about the “Forgotten Ones” series via e-mail.

Me: What can you tell me about this character?

Norm: The character is from an original story Alterton began writing a few years ago. He decided to sculpt a couple of figures from it. This is when we started working together on the project. There’s a description of Aldrhiel up on the Paradoxx Resin Web site.

Me: You mentioned that there is a “Forgotten Ones” comic book and plans for multimedia project based on Alterton’s characters, including theme music. Who writes the comic? Who’s composing the music? Where will people be able to see these things?

Norm: The whole multimedia idea came about when Alterton told me he was writing a story based on the Forgotten Ones. We thought it would be cool to see if we could turn this story into a comic book. I am handling the artwork and computer graphics; both of us are collaborating on the story. It’s really more of a graphic novel than a comic book.… Read the rest

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Jeff Yagher’s Aurora Box Art Bride

July 10th, 2009

First published Feb. 23, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

“Aurora” is an important name to anyone who enjoys monster models. It was the company that introduced the world to such kits back in the ’60s, first with the Frankenstein Monster and followed by many more, including a wonderfully detailed kit of the monster’s Bride:

Polar Lights Bride of Frankenstein

For the record, the picture above is the kit issued a few years ago by Polar Lights. It looks pretty much the same as Aurora’s, although I hear the glass parts on the original weren’t cast in clear plastic. The PL kit isn’t hard to find; original Aurora Brides are.

Truth is, while many of us love the classic Aurora kits, we recognize that the figures inside the boxes weren’t as spectacular as the box art paintings, most of which were created by artist James Bama. Here’s how Bama painted the Bride:

Bride of Frankenstein by James Bama

Similar to the kit, but better, right? A lot of Aurora nuts (and I became one of them in the ’70s) just accepted that this was how things were. But finally, all these years later, super-talented sculptor Jeff Yagher has translated Bama’s artwork into three dimensions:

Jeff Yagher's Bride of Frankenstein

The Bride Of Frankenstein Aurora Box Art Tribute Kit is a brand-new offering from Monsters in Motion. It’s the latest in a continuing series of Yagher-sculpted Aurora box art tribute kits, including the Phantom of the Opera, WolfMan, Dr. Jekyll as Mr. Hyde, Dracula and King Kong. Pictures of all of these can also be found on MiM’s site, but I’m linking to the buildups by Mike Rutherford, who is the biggest fan of the series I’ve encountered and has a gift for making them look just like Bama’s paintings.

Monsters in Motion’s new Bride is a pressure-cast resin kit, more than 40 parts, 1/7 scale, priced at $199.99 plus shipping and scheduled to be available at the end of February. Price got you intimidated? Hey, I understand, but it’s not like these garage kits are being mass-produced by sweat-shop workers making a nickel a day in China. Kits like this are available in very limited editions, and this one in particular is sculpted by one of the most talented people you could hope to encounter.

Speaking of whom, you may not think you know anything about Jeff Yagher, but there’s a pretty good chance you do. He’s a man of many careers, most visibly as an actor. He’s got a ton of titles to his credit, including the “V” television series, “Six Feet Under” and many, many more. He even played one of Elaine’s sponge-worthy boyfriends on a… Read the rest

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Night of the Living Dead with Al Matrone

July 10th, 2009

First published Feb. 16, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Back in my grade-school days, I’d sneak out after bedtime Friday nights to catch “Shock Theater” on late-night TV. I saw some wonderful horror movies, including a lot of the Hammer Studios stuff and some classics from the ’30s and ’40s, but it wasn’t until I viewed George A. Romero’s cheesy “Night of the Living Dead” that I knew just how much a movie could scare me. The first time I tried, I couldn’t sit through more than four scenes of that 1968 movie about cannibalistic zombies at a stretch. I’d turn off the TV, hide under my covers a few minutes…and then sneak back out for more.

The thrills started with the guy in the picture below, played by Bill Heinzman, who showed up early on while a timid woman’s irritating brother taunted, “They’re coming to get you, Barbra.”

Night of the Living Dead by GEOmetric Design

“Night of the Living Dead” is an upcoming offering by GEOmetric Design, a long-standing garage-kit company founded by George Stephenson (last I heard, he was serving as a trial judge in Minnesota, appointed by former Gov. Jesse Ventura) and now run by Al Matrone.

The zombie is a 1/8 scale resin kit sculpted by Joe Simon, should be ready around April and the price will probably be in the $100 neighborhood. Al was unable to give an exact figure because, he wrote in an e-mail, he was “thinking of adding another piece to the kit, like a piece of an eaten body part.”

Watch for information about the kit at the GEOmetric Web site, then order it from Al’sPhoenix Comics if you’re interested. He also welcomes people to give him a call at (570) 457-2691.

Here’s a little bit about what Al had to say in an e-mail exchange:

Me: What got you interested in producing garage kits?

Al: I was selling them as a product line. And I always liked models when I was a kid. I always liked the superheroes or science fiction line the best. So George was closing the company down and I had nothing to lose, so I asked him what he wanted for it. Then one thing led to another. At times I still find it hard to believe that I own it.

Me: Is producing garage-kits a money-making proposition, or a money-losing one?

Al: I make money, but I won’t give up my day job. I am making enough to keep doing more kits. If you want to become rich and famous then this is not the business, but it… Read the rest

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Nuked Supes by Mad Dog Resin

July 10th, 2009

First published Feb. 8, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Look! Up in the sky! It’s a bird! It’s a plane! It’s … a roasted Kryptonian!

Resin bust.

“Nuked Supes” is a 1/4 scale resin bust available from the friendly folks at Mad Dog Resin for $55 plus shipping. It was sculpted by Gabe Perna and inspired by a harrying sequence involving the Man of Steel and a Soviet warhead in Frank Miller’s 1980s epic comic miniseries “Batman: The Dark Knight.” “The Dark Knight” gave comics in general and Batman in particular a major popularity push and helped persuade Warner Bros. to make Michael Keaton’s first Batman movie in the late ’80s. The latest, best Bat-movie, “Batman Begins,” is heavily inspired by Miller’s work.

If you haven’t read “The Dark Knight,” it’s readily available in the graphic novel sections of many bookstores, through various Web sites such as Amazon and even on the shelves at theMesa County Public Library District’s central branch.

As with most garage kits, only a handful of copies of “Nuked Supes” will be made, and once they’re gone, they’re gone. In fact, a companion piece of the Dark Knight called “I Am the Law” came and went within a matter of weeks (I’m one of the lucky folks who got one). What you get when you buy Supes is an unbuilt kit in three pressure-cast pieces; the one pictured was painted by Dan Cope.

I’ve traded a few e-mails with Charlie of Mad Dog Resin; here’s some of what he had to say:

Me: Was “Nuked Supes” your concept or Gabe’s? What attracted you to the subject matter?

Charlie: I have been a fan of Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” since it was published back in the mid-’80s. It really was unlike anything else being published at the time, and as a kid, it got me hooked on comics for years to come.

“Nuked Supes” comes from that book. There is a scene in the book where
Superman diverts a nuclear missile headed for the U.S.A. The bomb goes
off, and Superman gets … well … “Nuked”. The result is what you see, a crispy, zombie-looking Superman.

This was something I had wanted to do for a long time, and I thought
Gabe’s style fit this piece perfectly. There are very few Superman kits out there, and most of them are pretty standard … this was taking the traditional character, and doing something different with it, but still having it based on actual material from the comics.

If you are familiar… Read the rest

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Forbidden Zone’s Young Frankenstein

July 6th, 2009

First published Feb. 1, 2006, on the “Resin the Barbarian” blog at GJSentinel.com.

Growing up, the classic movie monsters were right up there with superheroes as my favorite things. I spent hours reading comics and magazines such as Famous Monsters, and I loved building model kits of my favorite characters.

I rediscovered the plastic-model hobby about four years ago, and shortly after that I found out about garage kits. Ever heard of them? Basically put, they’re model kits made of resin or vinyl, usually in very limited runs and often produced by people who simply enjoy the subject matter. The producers seldom make much money doing it, even though people like me barely think twice about overheating our credit cards when we find something new we like and know we really might miss out on if we don’t act soon.

Which leads me to this:

Forbidden Zone\'s Young Frankenstein.

Man, Gene Wilder could do no wrong in the 1970s, not in my eyes. In movie after movie, he was the person to watch. “Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory.” “Blazing Saddles.” “Everything You Always Wanted to Know About Sex * But Were Afraid to Ask.” He was a hoot in all of them. But he was arguably at his best as Dr. “Fronkensteen” in Mel Brooks’ “Young Frankenstein.”

What you see above is the Young Frankenstein (Gene Wilder) Bust offered by the wonderful garage-kit companyForbidden Zone. It’s made of resin, 1/4 scale, sculpted by Howard Senft of Denver, and sells for $55 plus $6 U.S. shipping. The one in the picture above was painted by Steve Parke. The kit (unbuilt and unpainted) is available now but hasn’t made it to Forbidden Zone’s “merchandise” page. Check out “coming soon” to see more pictures and, if you’re interested, find out how to get in touch with Forbidden Zone by clicking on the “contact us” link.

My wife, Lisa, gave me two Forbidden Zone kits for Christmas: a Frankenstein Monster bust and Frankenstein Meets the Wolf Man kit. They reached my home in great shape and the castings – by Earthbound Studios’ Mark Brokaw, who has a well-earned reputation as the best at what he does – were nearly flawless. Some garage kits can come with a lot of air bubble holes and flash in the resin that have to be cleaned up, but not these. Seeing them convinced me to go ahead and grab the recently introduced Young Frankenstein bust and it’s every bit I hoped for.

Let me finish up with a short e-mail Q&A with Mike Allen of Forbidden Zone:

Me: What… Read the rest

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