Conquest of the Return of the Planet of the Apes

Cornelius/Caesar is finished at last! I ended up extending the layout somewhat..adding another ruined pillar. (made from a piece of plastic tubing and detailed with Milliput).

Ironically, the face didn't take as long as I thought it would...his tunic, however, took many coats of paint to create an even colour without blemishes. I had fun painting the ruins around him...the grass etc came from my stash of train-set vegetation painted to blend in with the overall colour scheme. I used DAS modeling compound for the main 'sand' texture on the base followed by a sprinkling of crushed chalk pastels for the finer grade sand.

 

Go Ape!....another one...

Ok...here we go again. This kit was my first ever Ebay purchase. I thought it might make a suitable companion to the gorilla kit I had completed.

I'm not sure whether he will be Cornelius or his son, Caesar. The ruins around him would make him more likely be the latter. Straight away I really didn't go for the pose recommended on the box.

I decided to add some good 'ol fashioned 'ancient sacred scrolls' to make the pose work a little better. That's blu-tac standing in for fingers there for the moment.

 

The feet also needed some attention. I guess the original sculpt for this was in the late sixties early seventies when thongs or flip-flops were all the rage. What appears to be bare feet in the films are actually 'ape boots' shaped like the simian's feet. I've started filling in the areas with Tamiya putty.

I really love the detail in the face. It's going to be a challenge painting this guy. I want to get across the subtle detail that was present in the chimpanzees' make-up on the show. The color scheme for this will be ochers and olive greens. I was also going to try for a sandy environment around him. I haven't exactly figured out how to do that just yet.

Space Jockey....finished!

I'm fairly happy with the end result. I shot these images on my workbench lit withmy desk lamp. I blurred any off-shoot areas in photoshop. I think the colours I ended up using are kinda close to the film.

 

In fact, it was quite hard to find any good reference for colour, particularly for the Jockey's base. It's funny... I used to be a big fan of  the spacesuits in Alien, having seen a load of photo reference of them in closeup they come off looking a bit crappy. I guess it's a testament to the brilliant way Ridley Scott shot the film that these things all look as good as they did.

 

The little figures were TINY! I made good use of my magnifier painting them. Anyway, I'm glad it's done....

.....NEXT!....

In space no one can hear you putty....

Well it's taken a while, but I've finally got around to putting the Space Jockey together.


It has gone fairly well so far...despite the fact there were gaps in some key areas. Nothing a generous batch of Milliput couldn't fix. I really am falling in love with that stuff. It's very easy to use and, man, is it ever strong.


I'm still not really sure I like the whole vinyl kit thing. It seems to take a lot of fiddling around to get things to fit and be symmetrical.

Escape from Beneath the Planet of the Apes

This is my first attempt at scale modelling since I was a teen. My old pal John P gave me this kit a few years ago. I have quite a backlog of model kits, which I have acquired over the years, sitting in a cupboard waiting for the day when I would 'have the time'.

If you read my earliest posts you would know that I'm a bit of a Planet of the Apes fan. So I thought it would be fab to kick start my rekindled modelling interests by giving this kit a go.



The first thing that struck me about this model, after the initial wave of nostalgia, was how inaccurate it was. I can forgive this when you take into account it was originally produced in the seventies. The surface details were one thing, but the 'far-out' paint scheme recommended by the instructions were positively drug-induced bizarre.

Original box art

I had seen this kit finished with the cover art paint scheme at a local hobby and model show. I thought it was a real shame that the same care and attention to detail that was shown to a lot of the military models there didn't extend to the sci-fi kits. So I thought I would download a ton of reference and try to stick as closely as possible to the movie/TV series colours.

Original look of the kit

The base that the figure comes with I thought lacked a certain amount of detail. I love the production design of the second Apes film 'Beneath'. I wanted to convey the twisted/melted feel given to the environment of a nuclear war ravaged New York.


My darling wife let me buy a brand spanking new airbrush to add to my arsenal of modelling tools. I put it to use base coating the figure and then 'dusting' it with a bunch of different colours to blend it all in. A small paintbrush was used for details and the gorilla's face.


I used foam fill from a can to create the melted rock as well as girders from a train accessories kit to simulate bent steel. I added the hand painted subway sign to help sell the location of the diorama.


Overall I was pretty happy with the little fella. It sure was good fun putting him together!