One of my favorite scenes in King Kong (1933) is Kong looming over the sacrificial altar to claim his "bride".I recently had the opportunity to recreate this altar in miniature. The miniature was going to be used in a stop motion prequel to King Kong by animator Eric Kessler.
He supplied me with the altar he had made and asked me to make it match the miniature Skull Island wall I had worked on.
The first thing I decided to do was to enlarge the altar by adding Styrofoam to the sides.
Once I had finished painting the wall I sprayed it with two light coats of Krylon Matt clear to protect the finish. Working on the wall was definitely an interesting project but I was glad to have finally finished it!Next up I'll be making a miniature sacrificial altar to match the wall.
After I had painted and antiqued the staircases I positioned them in front of the wall to take some photographs. I shot one in B&W to see how it would look.
Finding moss to add to the top of the Skull Island wall was difficult. The moss at the arts and crafts store was too large. The stuff I found at the model train store was in much too small of a scale. I opted for the moss from the crafts store.
I chose three shades of green moss and a brownish colored moss. By tearing it with my fingers and finely cutting it with scissors I arrived at a size of moss that would be in scale with the miniature wall.
Next I cut sections of burlap cloth to the size I wanted my mass of moss to be. Using a hot glue gun I tacked the burlap to the top of the wall. After adding more glue to the burlap I pressed small batches of moss into place with a metal palette knife.
In the original King Kong film the Skull Island wall has an ornamental carving over both the village and jungle sides of the gates. To recreate this for the miniature wall I rolled out a section of Super Sculpey polymer clay.I then carved the design into the clay. After texturing the clay and adding some cracks I made a one piece latex rubber mold. From this mold I was able to cast two identical plaques.
Here is a photo of the finished plaque mounted on the wall.
Eric Kessler the filmmaker that had designed the six foot long wooden wall had cut it in half to make transporting it to my studio easier. A fact I was thankful for when it came time to lug it outside to spray it with grey auto body primer.
After priming it I dry brushed several acrylic colors over the entire wall to make the stone texture stand out. Next I mixed up a thinned down mixture of acrylic paints to make a wash. Using a soft brush I applied this over the stone and wiped off the excess with a rag. The wash settled in the cracks and crevices giving an antiquated look to the wall.
A thin layer of Apoxie Sculpt clay was applied to the wood staircase. The area where the cornerstones would be installed was left bare wood.
When the stone work was finished on the staircases I used Zap a Gap instant glue to attach the cornerstones. I added more Apoxie Sculpt clay around the cornerstone to help blend it in with the rest of the stonework.
When everything had cured overnight I took the staircase outside and base coated it with grey auto body primer.
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