His Mother Was The Lightning!

FRANKENSTEIN by Polar Lights
Built 1/2018
Painted 10/30/2019

"It's alive. It's alive... alive!"

It must be the season, because I felt compelled to finish up another monster kit - the fourth this month! Here's my Polar Lights 90s repop of the classic Aurora Frankenstein. As with the Aurora Godzilla, I gave Frankie the traditional green skin. The only real customization here was the addition of some scenic foliage to the base.


As usual, this was painted with 100% cheap craft store acrylics by hand.

 

Grotto of the Gill-Man!

CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON by Polar Lights
Built 1/2018
Painted 10/24/2019

Another classic Aurora Monster kit (in this case, another Polar Lights repop from the later 90s) gets finished. I never had these models as a kid, so it's nice to finally build them.

Between this and the Nosferatu kit, I feel like I'm finally getting the sort results that I want.  Because paints made specifically for modellers are usually pricey, I work exclusively with cheap acrylic craft paints from Michael's. To get the gold shimmer on Creech's scales, I used a very light wash of what's called "color-shift" paint, which changes color depending on how the light hits it -  in this case, from green to gold. I used a little on the lizard, too, which is why the pics show a bit of an aqua shift on the otherwise red reptile.

The base is covered with real sand, lightly washed in brown and tan paints. I filled the little cave behind Creech with some dried reindeer moss from the craft store, just to add a little Amazonian foliage to the scene.

The Precious Blood!

NOSFERATU by Monarch Models
Built 11/18/2018
Painted 10/21/2019

With this, I have now completed all four kits produced by the much-missed Monarch Models. In fact, I searched a long time for this elusive kit, until my friend Terry Beatty (an esteemed modeller in his own right), traded this to me. As with their other kits, this was beautifully engineered, and went together smooth as silk.

This was the "Frightening Lightning" edition, which came with some parts duplicated in glow-in-the-dark plastic. I chose not to use those parts, with the exception of the spare rats (more on this below). I also chose not to use the provided nameplate.

For the base, Monarch provided a bunch of creepy-crawlies, including spiders and centipedes, but, when I think of Nosferatu, I think of rats. I used the all of the rats in the kit (two regular plastic and two glow) and then scavenged a couple more, smaller rats from another kit (Dark Shadows' Barnabas Collins), to provide Count Orlok with a small army of rodents.

As usual, this was painted with cheap, acrylic craft paints.

Up From The Depths!

GODZILLA by Polar Lights
Built 1/5/2018
Painted 10/16/2019

This was the first of the classic Aurora Monster Models (in this case, a late-90s repop from Polar Lights) I assembled back when I first started getting back into model building, and it's sat on a shelf ever since. But after Gorgo and the T-Rex, I felt a lot more confident about painting giant lizards, so I pulled it down off the shelf and slapped some paint on it.

As this is "Aurora Godzilla" - as opposed to any of the Toho Films Godzillas... or the "Hanna-Barbara Godzilla"... or the "Marvel Comics Godzilla"... you get the idea - I decided to paint him the way this kit has traditionally been painted, i.e. green. I have two other Godzilla kits that are more Toho-accurate, so I'll probably paint those movie charcoal gray when I get to them. 

I didn't do a lot of gradients or anything fancy with this one, but I did give the whole guy a pretty heavy black wash, and then highlighted the fins and forehead with some drybrushed olive green.

Mean Green Mother

GORGO by Monarch Models
Built 1/7/2018
Painted 7/19/2019

"One of London's oldest landmarks smashed like matchwood! Nothing has stopped this beast so far, nothing!"

This one's been sitting on the shelf waiting for me to finish it for a long time! Another excellent kit from the deeply-missed Monarch Models, Gorgo - from the 1961 film of the same name - went together fairly easily, though I screwed up and had to use some putty to fill a gap on her head. I also did a little putty work on her neck/chest as the model had an indent there that looked odd to me.

Very basic paint job - just a flat dark green base, with various shades of lighter greens dry-brushed over that. Finally, a dark wash to bring out some of the surface details. After I was done, it occurred to me to check the movie on Blu-ray and it turned out that Mama Gorgo - like Godzilla - is actually a charcoal gray in color, not green. Oh well... let's just say that I painted her like the Charlton Comics version!

The Spirit Is Wailing

THE GHOST OF CASTEL-MARE by Monarch Models
Built 10/28/2018  
Painted 11/3/2018

"The Ghost of Castel-Mare" is one of a handful of terrific original kits released by Monarch Models during its few years of existence, intended as a companion kit to the classic Aurora "Prisoner of Castel-Mare." I'm a big fan of Monarch's line, so when I got the opportunity to pick this one up at a reasonable price, I couldn't resist.

The paint job is a little rough - as usual, I rushed it - but it turned out okay. It's not exactly how I had it pictured in my head (I wanted the Ghost to look more spectral), but I'm pretty pleased with the painted "glow" and lighting effects on the wall, which was all done with layer after layer of dry-brushing and washes with cheap craft paints from Michael's. No glow-in-the-dark paint was used - it's all just simulated.

 

Don't Fear the Reaper

THE GRIM REAPER by Moebius Models
Built 1/2018 
Painted 10/26/2018

I'm really happy with how this turned out - the paint, the scenics on the base  - it's exactly how I hoped it would look.

I've seen some build-ups of this kit online where the modellers went way overboard with adding scenic foliage to the base, but I figured, this is the Grim Reaper, so everything should be dead, right? So I covered the ground with dead leaves (imported from China!) and tufts of dead grass. The cobweb in the tree was a single strand of simple, cheap Halloween webbing. 

Curse of Kharis

THE MUMMY by Polar Lights
Built 9/8/2018
Painted 10/21/2018

"For who shall defile the temples of the ancient gods, a cruel and violent death shall be his fate, and never shall his soul find rest unto eternity. Such is the curse of Amon-Ra, king of all the gods. "

This is the Polar Lights re-issue of the legendary 60's Aurora Mummy kit, from around 2000. I bought it at the Toys 'R' Us in Boca Raton, Florida... and then it sat in storage until this year. 

My first classic Aurora monster. I didn't putty/sand the seams since I worried that I'd lose too much of the bandage detail... and, well,  it would be a hell of a lot of  frustrating work. I sprayed the base with a base coat of camouflage tan and the Kharis figure with a flat white, then hit both with multiple washes of brown and black. 

I think I slightly overdid the wash on the wrappings and I wish I'd spent a little more time on the face, but the real white sand I added to the base worked out well.

Glorious Black & White