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Archive for the ‘Monsters’ Category

Introducing Alma, a new kit by William Paquet and Dedham Pond

March 15th, 2010

Garage kits have been a fascination for me since 2001. In 2006, I made my first attempt at producing a kit of my own, a bust of Ben from “Night of the Living Dead”, sculpted by Chris Wooten. It was a fun project and I’m glad I did it, but I had a lot to learn and not enough time to learn it.

Lots of things have changed in the last four years. With my wife’s encouragement, I decided to take another, more professional shot at producing a kit. To my great surprise and joy, I got an opportunity to work with William Paquet, one of the very best. The result is Alma, inspired by the work of Dick Smith. Phil Sera was the first to put paint on the bust.

I hope this is the first of many kits from Dedham Pond.

Read more about it.

Filed under Dedham Pond Designs, Hobby news, Monsters, Resin | Tags: , | 1 Comment » |

‘The time has come to tell the tale’

February 28th, 2010

DEDHAM POND DESIGNS: “THE TIME HAS COME TO TELL THE TALE”

Water runs over the tub’s edge and onto the tile, but the man doesn’t care. He wants an answer from the woman lying face-down on the bed. A minute before, he had asked, “Who are you?” But when he put a hand on her back, felt the chill of her flesh, his question changed.

“What are you?”

She allows him to roll her over to face him, showing him what she is. Moments later, he’s hundreds of feet away, dead and wet and cold.

She is Alma Mobley, and thanks to movie makeup and effects pioneer Dick Smith, she’s the kind of woman who stops the heart … forever. Many of us who first saw her on the big screen when “Ghost Story” was released in 1981 recall how Alma, and Eva Galli as well, made our hearts race.

Sculptor William Paquet was one of those people. After seeing it, “I was actually afraid to go into my folks’ dark house, having to go in the back door amid the shadows and loneliness of their cavernous backyard,” he wrote in an e-mail.

“This film, is wonderful. The cast, among the most impressive lineup of heavyweights in their golden years ever seen. The flashbacks are rich in atmosphere and nostalgia, and fully flesh out the characters as young, handsome and ambitious men-about-town. To try and compare this to the book is actually silly; it must be measured on its own scale.”

William is a longtime fan of Dick Smith, famous for his work on movies such as “Amadeus”, “The Godfather” and, of course, “The Exorcist”. Smith did some of his best, scariest effects for “Ghost Story”, creating visions of Alma and Eva that have remained in William’s imagination. He had long intended to translate his own image of Alma to clay.

AN UNEXPECTED OPPORTUNITY

Almost 30 years after “Ghost Story” debuted, William happened to browse the Clubhouse modeling community’s sculptors’ forum and saw I was considering my second garage-kit production. My first was a bust of Ben from “Night of the Living Dead”, sculpted in 2006 by a wonderful young artist named Chris Wooten. I wanted to do a more professional job of it this time around and was asking for advice about finding someone to work with.

William suggested the possibility of working with me, an unexpected and, yes, thrilling prospect. I’m a fan, have been a fan since becoming involved in the hobby in 2001.

ALMA

  • Sculpted by William Paquet
  • Produced by Dedham Pond Designs
  • 1/4 scale pressure-cast resin
  • One piece, comes unpainted
  • $55 plus shipping
  • If interested, e-mail todd.powell@resinbarbarian.com

Have you

… Read the rest

Filed under Dedham Pond Designs, Monsters, Producers, Resin, Sculptors | Comments Off |

The Black Heart of George Stephenson: GEOmetric founder reunites with Earthbound, Simon, returns to GK production

January 1st, 2010

Some people like pro football, so they pay attention to NFL players, and not just when the players are on the field. Same goes for fans of every other sport, or movies, books, daytime television … whatever. If something interests us we study it, and the people involved, with more enthusiasm than anything our social studies teachers could have dragged out of us.

I like model kits and have learned a lot about the people who make them. One fellow I’ve always wondered about is George Stephenson, founder and former owner of GEOmetric Design.

GEO was one of the first big garage-kit companies I became aware of after re-entering the hobby in late 2001 and its models quickly captured my attention. They were wonderful, affordable kits sculpted by some of the most talented people in the hobby, including William Paquet, Mike Hill, Jeff Yagher, Joe Simon, Thomas Kuntz and Takayuki Takeya.

It didn’t take long to figure out George was the man who ran GEOmetric. It also didn’t take long to figure out George was quitting the business and slowly shutting down GEO.

Bad, bad news for this budding middle-aged hobbyist. It was a relief when Phoenix Comics owner Al Matrone made a deal to buy GEOmetric in 2003 and continue the company.

In the years since, I’ve crossed paths with many of the creative people involved in GEOmetric and have interviewed some of them for Resin the Barbarian. George … well, I briefly met him twice, once at Imagine-Nation Expo 2002, which I believe was the last hobby show he attended as GEO’s owner; and the second time at WonderFest 2005, where I found myself standing next to him in the dealers’ room. I took the opportunity to introduce myself before quickly running away for fear of being even more of a pest than I’m used to being.

Both occasions predated the creation of this blog, and so I couldn’t create an excuse to throw a bunch of fanboy questions at him. In the years since, it would have felt rude. The guy’s a judge in his day-to-day life, I had no business pestering him to talk about the hobby he departed years ago.

Imagine my delight upon hearing in 2009 that George Stephenson was returning to garage-kit production, and that his new company would be called Black Heart Enterprises.

GOODBYE GEOMETRIC, HELLO BLACK HEART

A brief confession is in order. An awful lot of what you’re about to read… Read the rest

Filed under Monsters, Producers, Resin, Sci-Fi, Swashbucklers and buccaneers | 4 Comments » |

Sculptor Kent Kidwell focuses for now on his original
creations and hopes to work with more familiar characters

December 1st, 2009

The Head Merchant. What a name for a character. When he lumbered onto the garage-kit scene a couple years ago, I was struck by both his originality and his familiarity. The character is a cheerful but deadly, axe-toting barbarian on the back of a … whatever that horned creature is, packing a bouncing supply of severed heads. If someone told me this was an image that flowed from the paintbrushes of Frank Frazetta, I would have believed it.

But it’s not Frazetta’s work. It was created by sculptor Kent Kidwell, and for many hobbyists it was a memorable introduction.

Kent Kidwell, 40, lives in Florence, Ariz. He’s married to Linda and has four kids, Chessa, 4, Gabriel, 6, Kaleb, 14, and Samantha, 17. His business is Kidwell Concepts, which offers sculpting, mold-making, casting, design and multimedia. Running his business is a full-time endeavor for Kent; he says it’s all he knows how to do.

“Sadly, almost 20 years of sculpting, mold making and casting has made me unqualified for normal employment,” he said. “I would get fired at Taco Bell, I would get caught making a zombie bust made of beans and that would be it.”

The majority of his clients are private buyers who want unique fine art for home use, some office, but he has done work for larger companies as well.

“Being so young in the resin kit industry, I have just focused on releasing original kits,” he said. He’d like to do familiar characters such as the Hulk or Batman. “For some reason, I haven‘t been pursued for that genre much, not sure why. But I’m pretty sure I will be doing some comic characters soon, I hope.”

For now, the garage kits available directly from Kent are the Head Merchant, Pod Creature and Shadow Host General of the Undead.

I always ask the subjects of these interviews to share photos of themselves. Kent declined, but suggested readers envision him as “Quasimodo meets Uncle Fester, with charm.”

Q&A WITH KENT KIDWELL

Resin the Barbarian: You sort of burst onto the garage-kit scene a couple of years ago with your Head Merchant kit. Since then, what have you most enjoyed about being involved in the hobby?

Kent: Before I answer that, Todd, I just wanted to thank you for the chance to meet your readers. This is my first interview based on this hobby so I’m flattered.

To your question, I think there are two parts for me I enjoy. The first is the original kits side of things. I sincerely love the creative process of doing something that is uniquely your own, and being free to expand on that… Read the rest

Filed under Monsters, Producers, Resin, Sculptors, Swashbucklers and buccaneers | Tags: | Comments Off |

My first look at the new Moebius Frankenstein’s Monster

October 23rd, 2009

Disclosure: I sell this kit and need money, so the opinions expressed herein may be tainted. Please take that into account.

My case of Moebius Frankenstein’s Monster kits arrived today. I was pleased to note that, despite a hole in the side of the shipping box, my kits are in good shape, as opposed to the beating UPS gave my case of Spider-Man kits. There was a little bit of a muddy spot on the shrink wrap of one kit, so that’s the one I kept for myself and opened up this afternoon.

Let’s not bury the lead. Plenty of people have objected to the look of this monster and I agree that it’s not the out-of-the-ballpark home run of the Mummy. This kit looks less like Karloff and is overall a bit stiff, even for the Monster. However, I still like it, and I was pleased to see how detailed the kit’s facial features are.

At first, I thought it might help to use some Aves to lengthen the face a bit. Now that I see the kit in person, though, I might instead suggest chopping a couple of millimeters off the neck to give the creature a somewhat tougher, more bull-necked look. Of course, Karloff himself was thin, but the costume’s padding hid that. I wanted to show how this new Moebius Monster looks next to the Aurora classic. Unfortunately, the only version of that kit I have handy is a Luminators with that wild translucent orange plastic, but I did the best I could.

Here’s one where I turned the Luminators Frankie black and white to try to better highlight the facial features.

A look at the profiles. I love the classic creature as much as anybody, but the new one definitely has a sharper, more realistic look.

The kit’s head went together nicely and the seam line isn’t intimidating. If the rest of it is as easy to assemble, it won’t take long to get it ready to paint.

I really appreciate how Moebius pays attention to some details I don’t even consider.

For example, on the Spider-Man kit, the seam line on the head follows the web pattern on the character’s costume. On the new Frankie’s base, there are a couple of delicate connection pins that are nicely protected by a clear plastic shield.

Frankie’s box is nice. It’s about the same height as a classic Aurora long box, but substantially wider and deeper. It also has a little more heft than the Moebius Spider-Man and Green Goblin boxes.

Overall, I’m pleased with this latest Moebius Universal Studios Monster and look forward to seeing the recently announced Lugosi Dracula.

Filed under Hobby news, Monsters, Styrene plastic | Tags: | Comments Off |

‘Legends of Film & Fantasy’ James Bama, Jeff Yagher
and dozens more meet the maker of the Witch’s Dungeon

October 1st, 2009

Click here for an update about the DVD specifics.

In 1966, two people took major steps toward living their dreams. One was James Bama, a New York City commercial illustrator, about 40 years old, whose portfolio included dozens of cover paintings for Doc Savage paperbacks and the box art for many of Aurora’s monster model kits. The other was Cortlandt Hull of Bristol, Conn., great-nephew of “Werewolf of London” star Henry Hull, a 13-year-old lover of classic horror movies and builder of Aurora models.

Looking over my notes for this month’s “Resin the Barbarian” interview, recognizing the time frame of the turning points in these two men’s lives, I was fascinated to realize that Mr. Bama began to move away from the genre work that has remained popular about the same time Cortlandt embraced a life ever influenced by monsters. Cortlandt’s decision was made in part because he — like millions of others — so loved Mr. Bama’s box art. Decades later, Mr. Bama was impressed with the work Cortlandt and director Dennis Vincent did profiling artist Basil Gogos on “The Witch’s Dungeon: 40 Years of Chills”, so he invited them to visit his home in Wapiti, Wyo., for a rare interview that will be featured in the documentary “Legends of Film & Fantasy”, to be available on DVD in early 2010.

Wapiti is where Mr. Bama finally settled a few years after he and his wife, Lynne, departed Manhattan, according to the introduction to the book “The Western Art of James Bama”. They’d visited a friend in Wyoming in 1966 and began to realize how different their lives could be. After return visits in 1967, the Bamas settled in Wyoming for good in 1968. Bama continued doing commercial work for a few years to make ends meet, but his focus quickly turned to his own works. His realist approach to Western people and places has gained Mr. Bama widespread respect as a fine artist.

Around the time Mr. and Mrs. Bama were discovering Wyoming, Cortlandt was working with his father, Robert, to turn a Swiss chalet-style building into the Witch’s Dungeon, a place to house the life-sized monsters the boy had started fabricating when he decided the Aurora models just weren’t big enough. The Dungeon, open every year around Halloween, continued to grow over the years, as did Cortlandt’s artistic abilities. In October 2009, Zenobia the Gypsy Witch (Cortlandt’s original creation) welcomes visitors to a visit with many of Cortlandt’s monsters, including the Phantom of the Opera, Frankenstein’s Monster, Count Dracula, the Creature from the Black Lagoon and, of course, the Werewolf of London.

Cortlandt and Dennis… Read the rest

Filed under Monsters, Movie makers, Sci-Fi | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments » |

The Headless Hearseman digs up classic figure kits,
gives hobbyists a 21st century lesson in Monstrology

September 3rd, 2009

The impression I get is that Fritz Frising, “The Headless Hearseman”, could happily start his day watching his 4-year-old son, Andi, put Band-Aids on his monster models’ ouchies, move on to a comfortable tea-time chat with a WWII veteran’s 88-year-old widow, then finish up late discussing deathrock icons in the heart of a group most men in their early 40s would go out of their way to avoid.

A blend of past and present, courtesy and peril, elegance and roughness, plus a healthy dose of talent, that’s how Fritz strikes me … much like Monstrology Models, which Fritz has resurrected.

MonstrologyLogoMonstrology originally rose in the 1990s under founder Jon Wang. “I was a huge horror movie fan and Aurora monster model builder since I was a little kid,” Jon said in an e-mail interview. “At the Fangoria and Chiller shows of the late ’80s and early ’90s I saw incredible sculptures by guys like John Dennett, Thomas Kuntz, Yagher and Bowen and of course the Billiken stuff — and was inspired to start sculpting.

“I hadn’t really planned on starting a company, but things just spiraled and eventually Monstrology was born — the idea being the ‘study’ of these horror characters through sculpture.”

The company produced more than its share of early garage-kit classics, particularly a handful of figures sculpted by William Paquet, “who did what I consider to be some of his best work for Monstrology,” Fritz said via e-mail.

Those figures include a John Barrymore Mr. Hyde, based on the 1920 movie “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde”; Vincent Price as Nicholas Medina in 1961’s “The Pit and the Pendulum”; and Charles Ogle as the Monster from Edison Studios’s 1910 production of “Frankenstein”. Jon also sculpted his share of great figures, including the ape man from a lost 1927 film called “The Wizard” and Glenn Strange as Petro from 1942’s “The Mad Monster”.

“It was satisfying to bring a project from something in one’s imagination to something 3D and all that went along with that as far as marketing and advertising — box art, instructions, etc.,” Jon said. “And it was fun to work with all the people involved in creating those projects — people like mold maker MP Stehlik, of course master sculptor William Paquet and graphic artist Rich Hilliard — who were most involved at least early on. Of course Fritz as well, who was initially a great supporter of Monstrology and then by way of our friendship and similar artistic visions became a collaborator — he’s also a huge Lugosi fan and that’s a passion we both share.”

Many of the characters were monsters — rough, slouching beasts of demented or evil intent — yet they were so artistically created… Read the rest

Filed under Monsters, Painters, Producers, Resin, Sculptors | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments » |

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