Kong Bust Completed

I thought I'd share a few of the wip photos of creating the cart that the Kong bust will be mounted on.

 Here I'm scoring the Apoxie clay to look like rough hewn lumber

I visited quite a few hobby shops but couldn't find proper size wheels for my cart. I ended up sculpting a wheel, made a mold and casted the set I'd use. 

                                                           The finished cart curing .

                                          Dry brushing the grain of the cart to look like wood.

                                          Aluminum mounting pegs for the Kong bust being fitted to the cart.

                                                               The finished cart.

                                        B&W photo of the sculpture mounted on the cart base.

                                                          Kong chomping on a native.

Now that Kong is finished I'm going to be redesigning my spider pit stop motion puppets. First up is my tentacle creature.

Here I'm beginning to strip off its latex skin as the spider & crab puppet square off in the background.

King Kong Sculpture

I completed this original Kong bust over a year ago. But with getting my studio renovated after hurricane Sandy I haven't had an opportunity to paint Kong till recently. I also wanted to design an appropriate base for the King!

I had a lot of fun posing Kong amidst some foliage for a few B&W shots. I apologize for the low resolution shots but I've had some of my images used without my permission.

There's nothing like nibbling on a Skull Island native to chill Kong out!

In the near future I'll be posting photos of the finished bust mounted on it's new base.

Painting My Kong Bust

I thought I'd share a couple pictures of my kitchen table work area. Last week I started painting an original Kong bust I sculpted. I got the mouth painted and began dry brushing the fur areas. Our basement renovation had just been completed and I look forward to moving back downstairs and setting up my studio.

No sooner had I started to move things back downstairs then we got the Nor'easter warning about 3 - 5 foot higher tides and a 7 foot storm surge. Soooooo back upstairs everything came!!

Then came the warning that cars in our area that had suffered beach erosion from the hurricane should be moved to higher ground. I had just, just got my new car that Thursday! Talk about good timing! So we got a hotel room to ride out the high tide(s) well north of here. And of course nothing happened here - but after Sandy I was taking no chances.

Here's a larger photo of Kong. He reminds me of a hillbilly without his front choppers added. I'll update with new photos as work progress.

Kong Gets Some New Teeth

It was suggested to me by Paul Gill of Gillman Productions that to make creating a mold of Kong as easy as possible the bottom jaw would need to be removable. So here is some photos of Kong's new bottom jaw and his new teeth.

Kong Revisions

It was suggested by Paul Gill of Gillman Productions that the Kong bust I'm working on for him could use some wrinkles in the brow area and beefing up in the shoulder and back area. I tackled the wrinkles first.

The shoulders and back were a bigger undertaking! It pained me to have to cut into the areas I had so painstakingly detailed to look like fur.

After I removed the clay from the back I had to build up the armature. To do this I used balsa wood spacers cut to the shape of the back. In between the wood spacers I packed crumbled aluminum foil to bulk up the back area.

Once I had the general shape of the back done I covered it in a then layer of Ave's Apoxie Sculpt clay.

Here is a photo of the finished revision.

Kong Bust WIP Photos

I've been asked by Mr. Paul Gill of Gillman Productions to create a new Kong bust. You folks may remember my original bust (B&W photo) that I recently sold on eBay.

The new bust is too be somewhat smaller in size to make casting it in resin easier. I was also asked to redesign the shoulders of the bust so it sits in a more aesthetically pleasing way.

In my original piece the native was being munched on in a face up position. In the recreation the native will be face down.

Mr. Gill also asked me to give the fur on the recreation a bit more detailing than the original sculpture had.

After seeing wip photos of the new bust it was thought the creases I utilized to detail the brow area of the original sculpture looked too stark. So we are going with a more veiny, wrinkly type look on the brows.

To achieve this look tiny strips of clay are positioned using a 0000 detail brush. Then after melding them in place the brush is again used to carefully remove the tool marks. Finally a larger brush is used to blend the wrinkle in with the surrounding brow area.

I have one brow finished and I have to say that I do like the veiny look better than just creases alone!

The Tenth Annual Rondo Hatton Awards

Voting is underway for the 10th Annual Rondo Hatton Classic Horror Awards! For those unfamiliar with the Rondo Awards it was created in 2002 by David Colton and Kerry Gammill at the Classic Horror Film Boards . The awards are fan-based, and have no connection to any commercial sponsor. Anyone in fandom can vote or propose nominees.

Nominees for the Rondo are selected from suggestions by horror fans, pros and enthusiasts offered all year at the Classic Horror Film Boards . Each year's nominees are finalized by classic horror fan David Colton with the help of more than 20 classic horror fans from around the world with expertise in all parts of fandom.

You can see this years ballot by visiting the Rondo Hatton Awards . I voted for my friend Peter Kollarik for "Monster Kid of the Year". Peter is a passionate monster fan and a veritable mine of information on the stop motion work of Willis O'Brien and Ray Harryhausen!

If you'd like to visit Pete's pages on Facebook here are the links: Péter Kollárik Facebook ... Pete for "Monster Kid of The Year"!

As for myself I've been busy sculpting a new Kong bust. Here is a wip photo of what I've gotten done so far.

There is still a tremendous amount of skin detailing and fur work that needs to be done. The native in his mouth also needs to be completed.

Long Beach Polar Bears and WIP Photos

I've been working on sculpting the native Kong will be chomping. I have the legs and grass skirt just about done. The torso will have a hole to allow the body to be positioned over one of the canine fangs.

Once I have the size and position of the native locked down I can attach Kong's jaw halves together and begin sculpting Kong.

Since it was such a beautiful day I took a break from sculpting to take a walk on the beach with my wife Diane.

Today was the annual Long Beach Polar Bear swim. I wanted to see my friend's son Marc take his first February dip but couldn't find him in the mob.

Between the jostling and people walking right smack in front of you it was hard to catch much of the action. We got out of there pretty quick.

When I heard from my friends later they said two women were so drunk that they needed assistance to get out of the water.

When the lifeguards got them to shore one of the women started hitting them. And eventually she had a wardrobe malfunction and lost her bikini.

It is getting wilder and wilder down there each year!

On the way home Diane stopped to take a picture of "Peg" a seagull we know with a bum leg. Peg usually follows us around hoping for a handout.

New Kong Sculpt In Progess

Last month I sold my original Kong bust. I took a last photo before shipping Kong off to his new home in CA.

I'm at work now creating a similar, though smaller sized bust.This one will be cast in a mold so the teeth have to be made in two sections.

The top and bottom canine, and front teeth will be cast separately from the molars.

I rigged the jaw halves together with aluminum wire so I could articulate them to approximate how Kong will be chomping down on his native victim.

I'll be updating with work in progress photos as Kong takes shape!