Miniature Skull Island Trees

My snail themed project got temporarily derailed. For the last week I've been finishing up work on four tree as set pieces for a stop motion Kong project.

 When working with the moss it just gets everywhere. My work space is going to need a good going over before I get my clay back out.

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.

Spider Pit Article in The Prehistoric Times

Welcome to the new followers of my blog! I wanted to give a heads up about an article I wrote about creating a diorama of the King Kong spider pit and its denizens. It appears in the current issue (# 101 ) of The Prehistoric Times : http://www.prehistorictimes.com/

I'm in the process of designing a new creature that will be residing in the pit shortly. Check back for updates!

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!

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!

Kong Spider Pit Finished

I have been working on my interpretation of the stop motion puppets and spider pit from King Kong (1933). I thought I'd share some photos of the completed work.

Here is a full view of the ravine.

A detail view of the right wall.

View of the top of the left wall.

The lizard creature slithering out of the cave in the ravine.

The lizard attacking one of the convicts.

The crab snatching one of the survivors up into its claws.

The lizard and the crab fighting over one of the convicts.

The spider polishing off a victim.

Convicts being menaced by the spider.

A view of the ravine shot through the cave opening.

The tentacle creature on the attack.

The inhabitants of the pit waiting for something else to fall into their lair.