Resin the Barbarian - Part 7

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Kingdom Come Superman from MikeTek

July 11th, 2009

Originally published Aug. 10, 2006, at GJSentinel.com

MikeTek

“KINGDOM COME SUPERMAN BUST”
First in a series of busts inspired by the artwork of Alex Ross.
Produced by MikeTek.
1/4 scale, resin, one piece.
Price: $50, including shipping inside the United States.

MikeTekTen years ago, comic books were pretty much over for me. Not entirely over, I’d pick up a title every now and then, but for the most part the writers were putting out stories I’d read before, the artists drawing the same muscle-popping heroes. I stopped in at Comics Odyssey on North Avenue (like most comics shops I know of, it folded years ago) and browsed once a month or so, but only when I was bored.

During one of those stops, I happened to see a promo poster for the upcoming four-part series “Kingdom Come” by Mark Waid and Alex Ross, neither of whom I’d heard of. I wasn’t interested. But then the shop’s owner pointed it out and said it would be good, so I figured I had little to lose and bought the first issue when it was available.

It was wonderful. Best comic I’d seen in years, since Frank Miller’s “The Dark Knight Returns” and Alan Moore’s “Watchmen” in the ’80s, and better than anything I’ve seen since.

Like “Watchmen” and “Dark Knight,” “Kingdom Come” is set in the future, when the children of the original superheroes are wreaking chaos around the world. They’ve grown up in a society that values revenge over justice; their leader is a ruthless superhuman vigilante called Magog, whose popularity so disgusted Superman years before that he retired to his arctic Fortress of Solitude.

The young superhumans’ carelessness climaxes in a battle with a villain called the Parasite. In a desperate moment, the Parasite manages to split open the nuclear-powered Captain Atom, which causes a blast large enough to kill a million people and destroy the farmlands of Kansas.

Seeing how much things have deteriorated during his years of isolation, Superman comes out of retirement, wearing an “S” shield with a black background that I presume was inspired by the 1940s Fleischer cartoons. The Man of Steel reforms the Justice League, and…

MikeTekWell, stop by a bookstore and pick up the graphic novel collection of all four issues if you want to know the rest. Believe me, if it sounds stupid, it’s probably because I simply can’t properly explain it. Mark Waid is generally a good writer and this is probably his best; more importantly, Alex Ross’ artwork is nothing short of… Read the rest

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Pirate Captain by H2Creative

July 11th, 2009

Originally published Aug. 3, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Pirate Captain

Pirate Captain“PIRATE CAPTAIN”
Sculpted by Jim Maddox.
Produced by H2Creative, info@h2creative.com.
1/6th scale resin bust in six parts.
$75 plus shipping.

Something about Disney’s “Pirates of the Caribbean” connected with me right from the start – and I don’t mean the movies, I mean the characters from the rides at Disneyland and Disney World, which I discovered when Johnny Depp was probably a year or two ahead of me in grade school. I’m pretty sure it’s because I was fascinated with the idea of “living” skeletons sailing the seas.

Like so many of the entertainment things I’ve loved in my life, I was introduced to the Pirates through model kits. Specifically, a series of kits from the company MPC, heavily advertised in comics in the early to mid-’70s. I remember staring at displays of those kits every time Mom took us to Kmart.

I’m not positive, but I think I did end up getting one of those kits – one of the skeleton ones, I’m not sure which – and made such a discouraging mess of putting it together that I quit bugging my parents to buy me more. Now I’m hoping someone will repop the kits for today’s kids (and grown-ups) the way Polar Lights did for the classic Aurora monsters, because I’m not willing to pay eBay prices for 30-year-old boxes of plastic.

For the moment, however, corporate America doesn’t seem interested in the relatively small but thriving community dedicated to figure model kits, even though the financial success of the first “Pirates of the Caribbean” movie and even greater financial success of its current sequel (which recently became Disney’s all-time-biggest money maker) would seem to indicate that repopping the old kits would make a little money for someone. Oh, well. Fortunately, hobbyists such as myself can turn to garage-kit producers for some wonderful stuff, particularly the “Pirate Captain” recently introduced by H2Creative. Inspired by the character of Davy Jones in “Dead Man’s Chest,” this pirate has been shivering the timbers of many a GK fan recently.

Pirate CaptainFamily man Lonnie Hale, 38, of Atlanta is the man behind H2Creative. He has mostly worked at producing resin model kits – “literally dozens” – for other people’s companies and he also produces “a lot of movie prop stuff for people.” One of the biggest things he produces is a line of 1/6 scale “Hero Heads” and he sells once a month on eBay under the member name “TK570.”

“I really specialize in very small run stuff and/or… Read the rest

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Steve Riojas paints the Yagher Classics

July 11th, 2009

Originally published July 26, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Imagine you’ve got a kit that looks wonderful before you even start working on it. Something created by Jeff Yagher, a sculptor who is so talented and well-respected by garage-kit fans that the kit is named after him instead of the character it depicts. A kit that would look great if you just set the unpainted piece on a shelf.

Something like this:

YC12

If you’re like me, you might get intimidated and let the thing sit in its box, gathering dust until you feel you’ve gotten “good enough” to subject it to your talents. Or maybe you’d go ahead and slap some paint on it and figure, who cares that it’ll look worse when I’m finished than it did when I started? I’m doing this for fun.

If you’re Steve Riojas, paints are the tools you use to bring out the details and reveal the sculpture in a new light.

YC12

Take another look, side by side:

YC12

YC8“YAGHER CLASSICS VOLS. 1-12″
Sculpted by Jeff Yagher.
All 1/6 scale, resin.
Produced in limited numbers by Tower of London.
Available from X-O Facto.
Prices range from $150 to $250 plus shipping; check the X-O Facto Web site for specifics.

You know what I did when I first saw “Yagher Classics Vol. 1″? I cursed Tower of London. It was getting close to Christmas and I needed to spend my money on things other than model kits, but I saw that piece and reacted to it the same way I did to the neatest toys as a kid: “I want it!” I was well entrenched in the garage-kit hobby by then and was familiar with Jeff Yagher’s name, but I had no idea that “Vol. 1″ represented the beginning of one of the best series of kits ever produced.

I thought, “I’ll resist. It’s a model kit, I don’t HAVE to have it.” But all I’d seen up to then was a black-and-white picture of the raw sculpture. A few weeks later I saw full-color pictures of Steve Riojas’ paint-up and I knew where a chunk of my Christmas bonus was going.

Yagher ClassicsSteve Riojas, 50, has lived in Denver his whole life and loves it. He’s been married for 16 years to Lori; he has a daughter, Rachel, and two stepdaughters, Crystal and Jennifer.

Steve worked at a factory for 28 years; “when the company decided to shut its doors for greener pastures in Mexico, I… Read the rest

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Fantastic Plastic’s Galactic Raider

July 11th, 2009

Originally published July 13, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Galactic Raider

“GALACTIC RAIDER”
Galactic RaiderInspired by the Cylon Raider from the Sci Fi Channel series “Battlestar Galactica.”
Master by Alfred Wong.
Produced by Fantastic Plastic Models.
Scale: 1:48. Dimensions: 7 inches x 4.5 inches.
Solid-cast resin; 11 pieces. Casting and scribing by BLAP! Models.
The display stand does NOT come with the model. It must be ordered separately.
Price: $75 plus shipping. Display stand is $7.
The display model pictured painted by Allen B. Ury.

In 1978, “Battlestar Galactica” was a network TV show with great (albeit frequently recycled) special effects, wonderful sets and generally bad writing and acting. As I recall, it got off to a roaring start and then crash-landed at the end of the season. Two years later, after hearing from a lot of fans begging to give it another chance, ABC debuted “Galactica 1980″; the cancellation of that one was a mercy killing.

Fast-forward to the 21st century. The call to give “Galactica” another shot was again building; I wasn’t one of the people all that concerned about it, but I knew of a couple of groups trying to revive the show. It was the Sci Fi Channel that finally did it with a 2003 miniseries, which led to a continuing series that quickly became bigger and better than its predecessor.

*Sigh.* OK, it’s confession time: I saw the 2003 “Galactica” miniseries and was IMpressed, but also DEpressed. A show about a ragtag fleet of spaceships carrying human refugees wouldn’t normally inspire me to use the word “realistic,” but this “Galactica” was so convincingly done that I found it hard to stomach a scene – presumably inspired by “Daisy,” Lyndon Johnson’s notorious anti-Barry Goldwater campaign commercial of the 1960s – in which a peaceful girl is killed in a nuclear flash. I just wasn’t in the mood for that, so it kind of soured me for the whole effort.

However, in the months that followed, I read more and more from people who flat LOVE the new “Galactica.” They called it the best sci-fi show around, possibly the best sci-fi show ever done, so I checked it out again and it was good. Intriguing, even, and the actor playing Cmdr. Adama - Edward James Olmos – never fails to impress me. I could see getting hooked on it if only I could catch up on the story line, but I didn’t get a chance to because we moved to a new home and still haven’t connected to a cable or… Read the rest

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Scott Johansen and Edgar Allen Poe

July 11th, 2009

Originally published July 5, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Edgar Allen Poe

“EDGAR ALLEN POE”
Sculpted by John Dennett.
Produced by Moohead Models, Mooheadmodels@aol.com.
Designed to be the same size as the classic 1/8 scale Aurora monster kits.
Made of resin, 13 parts. (Parts breakdown: Chair legs, 4; chair with Poe, 1; Poe legs, 1; Poe’s hands, 2; base, 1; cat, 1; book stack, 1; inkwell, 1; post with raven, 1.)
$90 plus shipping.

Edgar Allen PoeEdgar Allen Poe wielded the pen behind some of literature’s creepiest moments. Here’s one most readers will recognize:

Then this ebony bird beguiling my sad fancy into smiling,
By the grave and stern decorum of the countenance it wore.
“Though thy crest be shorn and shaven, thou,” I said, “art sure no craven,
Ghastly grim and ancient raven wandering from the Nightly shore-
Tell me what thy lordly name is on the Night’s Plutonian shore!”
Quoth the Raven, “Nevermore.”
- “The Raven,” 1845

Or how about this:

With a loud yell, I threw open the lantern and leaped into the room. He shrieked once – once only. In an instant I dragged him to the floor, and pulled the heavy bed over him. I then smiled gaily, to find the deed so far done. But, for many minutes, the heart beat on with a muffled sound. This, however, did not vex me; it would not be heard through the wall. At length it ceased. The old man was dead. I removed the bed and examined the corpse. Yes, he was stone, stone dead. I placed my hand upon the heart and held it there many minutes. There was no pulsation. He was stone dead. His eve would trouble me no more.
- “The Tell-Tale Heart,” 1843

Poe’s work was responsible for the kind of chills bound to earn the respect of monster-model-lovers such as myself, so I’m one of many who took notice when Scott Johansen’s Moohead Models reissued John Dennett’s classic “Edgar Allen Poe” garage kit.

Scott, 43, lives in Frankfort, Ill. He describes himself as “happily divorced for 14 years.” He is still friends with a former girlfriend and considers her daughter his own stepdaughter. Scott works as a millwright in a Ford assembly plant in Chicago.

“I’m sure there are those out there that will ask, ‘What the hell is a Moohead?’ ” Scott wrote in an e-mail. “Well, that is simple. My stepdaughter nicknamed my dog that and it stuck. So the company is named after my dog! LOL.”

Boy and Tiger

Q&A WITH SCOTT JOHANSEN OF MOOHEAD MODELS

Resin the Barbarian:… Read the rest

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Brutto and Baklar from G-Force

July 11th, 2009

Originally published June 29, 2006, at GJSentinel.com.

Brutto

“BRUTTO”
1/4 scale resin bust; 7 inches tall.
Comes in two parts.
$45 plus shipping.

Baklar

Baklar“BAKLAR”
One of the “Demons of Dance”; two more “Demons” (“Mubat” and “Krakor”; see pictures below) will come out this year.
1/6 scale kit, 13 inches tall on its base.
Made of resin, with 3 metal bells on the hat.
$90 plus shipping.

Both produced by G-Force.
Sculpted by Robert Blair.
Kits pictured painted by Scott Herel.

Much of Robert Blair’s sculpture is the stuff of nightmares … but in a good way. In addition to the jester and dancing demon above, he’s created a frightening assortment of clowns (including the Joker), scarecrows, a Dryad and much more. I don’t know what fires an imagination like that, but it gives our hobby an edge that’s sometimes surprising.

Demon of the DanceI like both of the pieces above, but “Baklar” is my favorite of the two. The thing just looks so flippinghappy about being creepy. So I e-mailed Robert to ask him if there is a story behind the “Demons of Dance.”

“There really is no back-story about these pieces,” he answered, “I just thought it would be cool to sculpt these evil jesters in different ballet poses. We have all these Royal Winnipeg Ballet books at home, my sister-in-law was a dancer with them. Just the idea of these evil, dark horrid jesters in these graceful ballet poses was hilarious! I think it works very well.”


Gary White, 41, of G-Force was also impressed by pictures of the “Demons” when he saw them on Robert’s Web site, and he made a deal to produce them as garage kits.

As garage-kit producers go, Gary is one of the veterans, having been in business since 1988. He lives in Acton, Ontario, an hour west of Toronto, with his wife, Shari. His “day job” is in construction; he works on heating, ventilation and air conditioning, plumbing and other mechanical systems.

Gary WhiteQ&A WITH GARY WHITE OF G-FORCE

Resin the Barbarian: Despite their originality (or perhaps because of it), these aren’t the kinds of kits I generally expect to see on people’s “grail” lists. What made you decide to produce these?

Gary: I liked them as soon as I saw them. They are different to the same old Frankenstein, Predator, etc. I also liked the feel that the poses have and the… Read the rest

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Sam Greenwell’s Umber Hulk

July 11th, 2009

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

Sam Greenwell\'s Umber Hulk

“UMBER HULK”
Inspired by the Dungeons & Dragons character.
Sam Greenwell's Umber HulkSculpted by Sam Greenwell, who also painted the kit pictured. (“Krylon primer, gel stain, done.”)
Produced by Greenwell Studios.
10 inches tall; 15 resin parts.
Price: $110 plus shipping; e-mail contact@greenwellstudios.com if interested.

Not long after I discovered garage kits, I discovered eBay. It’s easy to find a ton of problems with the online auction giant, but it’s often the best place to watch if you want to find a model kit that’s out of production for a decent price. It’s also where you’ll occasionally find new pieces, which is what happened to me when I happened upon Sam Greenwell’s auction for the “Umber Hulk.”

Sam Greenwell's Time BanditWhat is an “Umber Hulk”? I had no idea, but it looks like some kind of bug. A NEAT bug, and a big one, too. Maybe part gorilla. So I looked it up and found out it was part of the D&D role-playing game. I’m one of those geeks who’s never played D&D and still don’t want to start, but at least I’m more interested now than I was.

This sculpture comes to GK fans courtesy of the talented hands of Sam Greenwell, who thinks the first of his sculptures to be produced as a garage kit was “NomadAx” for Jayco Hobbies in 1995.

Sam, 36, lives in Georgetown, Ky. He is married and has two kids, a 10-year-old daughter and 6-year-old boy.

Sam Greenwell

Q&A WITH SAM GREENWELL

Resin the Barbarian: My parents both come from Hazard, Ky., a town I loved when I was small but haven’t visited in about 26 years. Have you ever been there?

Sam: No. My best friend growing up was from Hazard but I’ve never been there myself. I think the closest I’ve been would be Pikeville.

RtB: The “Umber Hulk” is, for me, the latest example of a resin kit I like that leads to me finding out more about the source material. What drew you to sculpt this character? Are you a D&D fan? Did you consider the market potential or just want to do it?

Sam Greenwell's Umber HulkSam: I wanted to do a cool monster so I flipped through monster books, I have a LOT of monster and creature reference books, and chose that one.

RtB: I’ve been doing a little Web surfing for pictures of the Umber Hulk. While most of them were consistent about a few things (such as the mandibles),… Read the rest

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