THE SEPULCHER

Brainsynch: Dominic Qwek

2012-01-30T18:10:00.007-06:00

Artist Dominic Qwek may be a newcomer to the Garage Kit hobby, but he's no novice when it comes to being an artist. Dominic has been a 3D artist for the gaming industry for a number years, and he's been working for one of the biggest companies in the industry, Blizzard, since 2008.

Dominic's recent foray into the GK hobby has resulted in a very nice 1/6th. scale resin bust titled, "Brainsynch". I was immediately attracted to the character for it's Guyver and Kamen Rider qualities. When I began painting the bust I very consciously wanted to avoid ending up with a Guyver styled paint scheme in terms of color. However, as I worked on it here and there after work it slowly but surely started to adopt that very look. So I had to step it down a few notches, grunge it up, and this is what I came up with.

Brainsynch is Dominic's first sculpture to be printed in 3D, and if it's any indication of what will be on the horizon, then hobbyists who are fond of original designs will be in for one Hell of a treat indeed. Be sure to have a look at Dominic's website, www.dominicqwek.com

The skull... of a Locust Grenadier

2012-01-19T17:20:00.010-06:00

Luis de la Fuente, the sculptor of monster skulls.

Ever wonder what those cinematic beasts look like on the inside with their leathery hide, layers of bulging muscle and alien blood stripped away? Nothing left but the smiling, gleaming skull. Luis is like the Predator hunter (yeah, he sculpted one of those, too): he collects the skulls of monsters from all over the universe and realizes them in clay to reveal them in all their ossified glory.

Here's my painted version of Luis' most recent skullpture, the Locust Grenadier, from the Gears of War game.

Buddies

2012-01-01T16:42:00.007-06:00

Like many of us, the Christmas season really wears me down; namely in financial regards. To try and remedy this I've made it a point to come up with creative gift ideas that won't break my fragile checking account; something I enjoy to do like painting, and I began giving gifts like that to my daughter several years ago. I bought a few pre-painted statues of horses, stripped and re painted them, and after painting horses for her as gifts two years in a row I decided on a different creative gift: a drawing.

Knowing that my daughter is an animal lover to the core, I again focused on that. I've taken hundreds of photos of her showing animals at a local 4-H competition over recent years. Last summer I took quite a few that turned out really nicely. I found one that just sung to me. This particular photo I liked so much because of the ambiguous expression on her face. I couldn't quite figure out what she might be thinking of. Without a doubt she was in full showmanship mode, but there was much more than thoughts of victory going on in there.

Drawing is a skill I've not nurtured more than twice in the last ten years, so I was nervous about how my sketch would turn out. But I brought it to finish, framed it and gave to her on Christmas Eve, and the look on her face... " It's Buddy ! ", she exclaimed. She was so Happy...

...and so was I... :)

SHAWK !

2011-10-27T09:18:00.011-05:00

Yes, it's October. An absolute favorite time of the year for me. It is October, and Halloween is very near; belly crawling like a wraith on it's skeletal fingers and toes, and I've not even set out any decorations; nor have I carved a pumpkin, smoked out my house with a fog machine, chosen a costume or anything like that. But I did manage to finish painting a Shock Monster bust, and that somehow makes it all alright...

There's just something about that face. He's damn ugly, and from the look of it, he might be willing to see what you taste like; but I'll bet he only wants to play. He looks too stupid to want to do any real harm, intentionally. I'm sure he'd play a little rough or drool a glob of rotten lung tissue on you while giving you a Dutch Rub, but other than that I'll bet he's a great guy.

The Shock Monster (originally titled "Horror Zombie") was illustrated by Keith Ward, also responsible to the illustration of the Elmer's bull. Shock Monster was originally seen in Famous Monsters of Filmland magazine advertisements as a latex mask from the Topstone company in the late 1950's.

He's still here today, and he's been hanging out on my lazy susan, compliments of sculptor Casey Love.

Casey Love released this piece in late 2009 if memory serves me correctly. There were some really cool life-sized, latex displays of the Shock Monster, but what I wanted was a smaller, resin bust, and this piece was perfect for me. I did some custom work to the mouth in reshaping the teeth; grinding a few out and deepening the mouth so that I could insert a nice, fat tongue.

The head was sculpted without hair so one can replicate the near dreadlocked, shocked-out mop this creep is famous for. Casey sent along a small amount of charcoal gray crepe hair, which I mixed in with some dark brown and black wig hair I had stashed away.

So, for securing hair to the head I've always used Liquitex Matte Medium as an adhesive in the past, and I started out using it on this project, but it dries very slowly and also left the hair looking really rigid. I needed something that would dry much faster and also allow for some flex when it came time to style it. Rubber cement, Elmers, (with the bull ;), did the trick. When I finished applying the result made me think of a mix between King Buzzo (The Melvins) and Todd Trainer (Shellac):

A little Green, snip-snip, styling mousse and blah-blah-blah...he's done. I absolutely had to have it finished before Halloween. So after the photo shoot I'm gonna' sit him on a t.v. tray next to me, offer him a Pabst and we'll watch Dawn of the Dead together. Have a kick-ass Halloween this year, Ladies and Germs!

Spiderzero Priest, Unstained

2011-10-12T19:58:00.000-05:00

Spiderzero: Priest. From the moment I saw it, I felt a dark, beckoning to the piece, and I had to have it right away. Here are some photos of the bust assembled and primed, along with the strange bonus companion piece that sculptor Simon Lee released with the first ten pre-orders of the bust.

Ol' Scratch, by the Shiflett Brothers

2011-10-06T19:31:00.000-05:00

I've been spending time with this Fella after work for about forty five minutes each day; four days a week for three weeks, and he's finished. My original plan was to blast through it in one week, but that didn't happen. I had read something really inspiring on a forum about pushing ones self to do work quickly and being satisfied with it, and then moving onward. I believe in that, but it just didn't work with my schedule. Hell, he's done regardless. And I'm happy with what I've done with it.

The Shiflett brothers, Jarrod and Brandon...I don't know where to start. For those who already know 'em, you most likely dig them as people and artists, because they're down to Earth, and talented visionaries. Their style is very unique, and it helps to approach painting one of their pieces with a divergent hand as well.

I wasn't sure where I'd take this piece, but I realized after a few sessions that I was going to use really dull, septic Earth tones on the figure. I also wanted him to have these burning eyes that sear and drip with Hell, and I actually wanted to paint lava like drips trailing down his chest, but after a test I realized it was way too distracting, so I backed off. The base had me stumped all the way through, but finally at the very end I decided to paint it with some spectral blues and greens.

I loved working with this piece. The anatomy is a real statement to how well the Brothers understand a muscular body and subtle contrapposto (thanks Norman). A powerful piece all the way, so happy I got this bad boy in my Detolf already.

Scratch n' Shif

2011-09-07T19:35:00.000-05:00

Ol' Scratch sculpted by the Shiflett brothers. Pure...fucking...power.

The Devil, man.

2011-08-25T18:37:00.000-05:00

It never fails, every time I hear or think of the word Devilman I invariably drift to the White Zombie song, "Super Charger Heaven" with it's chorus, " Devilman, Devilman - calling. Devilman- runnin' in my head, YEAH!"

Well at long last, I finally assembled and painted a Max Factory Devilman kit. Had I not been commissioned to paint this piece, it's very likely that I wouldn't have painted one for myself. With all of it's lovely detail, the sculpture is quite intimidating to me. It may have been at Wonderfest earlier this spring when Brandon Shiflett and I were getting hammered as nails drunk, talking kits, Danzig and Art in general; he asked me if I would paint this kit for him. It had been many years since I'd last painted a Takayuki Takeya piece, so I said, "Fuck yes I will, man." To coin Charlie Sheen- the thought rollin' through my head was, " Winning..." Yes, I just did that.

The only direction I got from Brandon was that he really wanted to see some magenta tones, the rest was for me to work out. So I went in there with the magenta and purple tones, then accented with rusty oranges gold. It feels great to get the poison out with this; painting this beautiful piece was a tremendous release.

Devilman Sans Pigmentation

2011-08-04T20:35:00.000-05:00

Inarguably the most exquisitely detailed 'garage kit' ever produced. The Max Factory 'Devilman', Sculpted by Takayuki Takeya. This sculpture is even a personal favorite of Takeya san himself.

The next time you see him he'll be full of Hell. Please enjoy...

Mastodon: The Hunter

2011-07-27T21:15:00.000-05:00

I've been inspired beyond description by this band, and I'm very much looking forward to the release of their sixth studio album release, " The Hunter". The new album is scheduled to be released on September 27 of this year, and the band has released a track for rabid fans, like myself, to enjoy titled, "Black Tongue". The video for Black Tongue features artist AJ Fosik sculpting the piece that adorns the cover of the bands new album.

Black Tongue Video:

King Thalidomidas

2011-07-16T14:30:00.000-05:00

It's always the smallest pieces that provide me with the most fret and indecision. I feel that since they're small, I need to make the very most of the piece. King Thalidomidas.

I'm not totally sure what happened to this Fella. Artists Paul Komoda and Norman Meyers laid out a story that explains the life story of this mysterious thalidomide sailor. And speaking of thalidomide, it wasn't until after weeks and weeks of frustratingly trying to make sense of the name, and I found the answer in the most unlikely of places: listening to the Howard Stern satellite radio show. So we have a man who's an unfortunate product of his mother's indulgence of a pill to relieve morning sickness, and he's half the man that he would've been. But don't be mistaken! From what I've heard from Norman, King Thalidomidas was quite the man indeed!

Even though it is a small piece, Paul passionately blessed the King with a lovely organic pasture of convoluted, and tumor-fattened skin. Paul Komoda truly is one of the most interesting and curiously talented artist living today; everything he produces speaks of it.

Since this piece was a commission, my client and I had discussed quite a few different ways to approach painting him. But in the end, the "less is more" approach prevailed, as it often does in my experience in painting. Oh, and if you're curious about the illustrious history of King Thalidomidas, follow this link to Artist Proof Studio's blog and see what Paul and Norman have to say about him. Artist Proof Studio Blog

Hack Head

2011-06-10T17:10:00.000-05:00

Here's my most recent painted piece. It's a life sized latex mask display titled, "Final Chopper", sculpted by Jeremy Bohr, and produced by Dark Side Studio. I painted one of these a while ago, and with this version, I used more blues and violet colors. I also sculpted the teeth from ivory Super Sculpey. I added more blues to my bruise and shadow paint mix on a suggestion from a very talented painter, and I think it turned out better than the first.

FalcignoArt: Howard's Nightmare

2011-05-16T18:47:00.000-05:00

Heyy-ooooo... how ya' doing everybody?

Couldn't help it, been listening to Howard Stern all day and it's stuck in my head.

I'm just getting back into the swing of things after having been at Wonderfest in Louisville, KY all weekend with my good friends. Back to reality. And trust me, all my experiences at Wonderfest with my friends aren't the way things are in reality, it's always very wild and crazy. But it was a damn good time indeed. The week and a half leading up to Wonderfest, I spent most evenings painting the new FalcignoArt piece, 'Howard's Nightmare'. It's a 1/1 scale resin wall or vertical mounted piece.

Here it is in sculptor Mike Falcigno's own words:

" Really, I was a bit nervous to drop this on everyone because it's NOT a straight up version of any one HPL creature. But, considering his writings always talk about beings too strange to be described by humans...it seemed safe to just create my own sculptural amalgamation of his various themes. For the record, my little back-story-( in a highly shortened version) goes like this: the screaming visage we are seeing here is a wayward traveler, and outsider that gets courted by a young lady (nubile of course!) to her shoreline mansion...only to be used as an unwilling sacrifice by the woman and her fellow townsfolk (an evil religious sect, as all small towns in New England secretly have!). So what you see here is the traveler (or what's left of him) after being strapped down into an elaborate ceremonial restraint apparatus. He gets tipped forward slightly, hanging over some sacred runes carved on the floor of the house, while the cult members chant and conjure a Lovecraftian beast from the "other side". The beast of course manifests itself into our dimension THROUGH the human host... quite literally I may add! "

I really enjoy most anything Lovecraftian, as they say, or inspired my H.P. Lovecraft's stories. Coupled with my friendship with Mike, I was happy to paint this great piece. It was molded and cast by Scott Whitworth, and a fantastic job he did, because cleanup was very quick which was nice, because I didn't have a lot of time to finish it up in time for Mike to display at the Wonderfest show.

Looking at the piece now after it's finished, I would've liked to add more color variations to the head dress, if you will. But at the time I was working on it, I felt like going in with too many contrasting elements to accent that area would detract from that terrible yawning visage, and that's where the action is at! Choosing to paint the teeth dark is odd, I know, but I did paint them to be light at first, and they didn't look right to me. They stood out far too much. Besides, I convinced myself that this otherworldly creature was bustin' through, and absorbing the hosts fluids, replacing it's own; which to me should be dark blueish black, like the ink of a cephalopod.

I applaud Mike for taking on this bizarre and outre subject matter. He did an excellent job designing and sculpting this one, and to see more of Mike's work, see his website at: falcignoart.com

Barlowe/Shiflett: Thype

2011-04-17T20:10:00.000-05:00

Where do I begin? This is one serious piece, this Thype. It's designed by a science fiction and fantasy painter who's work I've been tremendously influenced by, Wayne Barlowe, and sculpted by two brothers who've managed to accumulate a rabid following by way of their unique approach to sculpting, as well as their unique personalities, Brandon and Jarrod Shiflett; more commonly known as, " The Shiflett Brothers". Three talented juggernauts collide.

The sculpture is just fucking amazing, there's really not much else I can say. Clean and perfect fitting castings handled by Steve West of Cellar Cast. The sense of movement is wonderful, and Thype is carefully negotiating his way across the uneven rocks. I'm still reeling that there's a resin kit based off a Wayne Barlowe creature design sculpted by these Fellas, who've managed to create a sculpting style that's as individual as the great Frank Frazetta's approach was to painting. The Shiflett's have done work for Glenn Danzig, and to me, that means that their shit don't stink!

This is a stripped down, no frills, bad-assed piece of Art. I've spent many, many evenings studying the alien worlds and hellish landscapes realized by Wayne Barlowe; spent years admiring the unique skills of Jarrod and Brandon Shiflett. This was truly a righteous painting experience.

Artist Proof Studio: La Pestilencia

2011-04-03T20:15:00.000-05:00

This lady is finished...

...and it truly feels like an immense weight lifted from me for some odd reason.

I've been drawn to this piece since the first moment Norman Meyers sent me a shadowy, amber tinted image of the Paul Komoda sculpture in progress. Just look at her face; a human being subjected to an abominable condition. I wonder who she was? Her name, where she lived, what she did for a living. And most of all, if she was alive or dead in the infamous image of her that was published in a Penthouse magazine in the 1970's.

Google her...

I honestly don't know of any other artist who could study a visage such as this and avoid an all-out cruel, disgusting orgy of a sculpture. There's still a semblance of grace swimming around among her drooping and cratered features; her inky black eyes, completely void of emotion. That wonderfully ornate, ossified, art nouveau base is a treat indeed. Paul Komoda is, without question, " The Man".

My hat goes off to Artist Proof Studio for having the Balls to produce this piece.

Surreptitious

2011-01-31T20:16:00.000-06:00

I'll just get straight to the beans and suggest that if you are at all fond of Dragons, then do get this bust. From start to finish, I thoroughly enjoyed working with this piece. A few details:

The kit comes in two solid, light gray resin pieces. Assembled, it's a height of ten inches, with casting duties handled by Shane McGowin. There are so many tiny spikes and spines on the surface that I feared wouldn't survive the casting process, but to my surprise, most of them did. Don't get me wrong: there were some repairs to be done, but work was minimal and easy.

Now let's discuss the sculptor, Jarett Riva for a moment. This guy comes outta' the gate with a piece of this caliber, and it's just friggin' crazy...

I remember seeing progress photos of it on a modeling forum called the The Clubhouse. Jarett must have been surreptitiously working with the piece for some time, and when he finally announced that it was his intention to produce the bust and make it available to purchase, I'm sure a group of ravenous hobbyists had their fingers hovering over the 'Pay Now' button.

Examining the creature's face, I see a hint of self-satisfaction in that half smirk, but maybe it's just me. The stoic, upright position of the head works the aforementioned aspect even further into being. I think it was an excellent decision for Jarett to imbue a little personality unto the dragon instead of portraying a fire-crazed, apocalyptic wyrm. (And let me tell ya', there's absolutely nothing wrong with that, either...) But the proverbial icing on the cake is without a doubt the wonderful field of reptilian textures the sculpture boasts. I might even take it to the ledge and say that this piece boasts some of the most exquisite textures of this sort that I've had the pleasure of seeing.

The whole piece is just handsome and full of pride; a combination of words which sum the piece up best in my opinion.

Prior to physically painting the piece, my mind's eye painted Surreptitious as dark, and dusty with layers of soot. That was my original destination, but my craft transported me to a different isle. However, I cannot say that I don't enjoy where I landed. There was a point that I had incorporated too many different transparent colors that I thought would add an interesting effect, but all that only succeeded in making the bust appear muddy and without any solid look. So in short, "Less is more"...or in my situation, " Additions through subtractions." In which case, I subtracted every scrap of paint and primer off it back down to the bare resin...

I had to strip the bust and start all over.

Well, I didn't have to, but I certainly wanted to. So I returned to the look that I was happiest with before the piece was 'lost', and slowly proceeded with caution from there. And I do feel content with the look of it all. Contact Jarett at: jriva@evilriva.com to harass him about this piece. ;)

Surreptitious: work in progress

2011-01-30T21:37:00.000-06:00

This piece it titled, " Surreptitious". Sculpted by Jarett Riva, a.k.a. Evilriva. I'll post finished photos as well as more details on the piece, hopefully tomorrow evening; but for now, I'll part with a few photos of the bust primed, as well as several ones showing the bust with a few early layers of paint on it.

Stay tuned...

Oil-Soaked (Spiderzero Creature Head No.7)

2011-01-17T21:26:00.000-06:00

There's a wall in my little 'studio', if you will, that's lined with boxes upon boxes haphazardly stacked (not at all unlike many other people in this Hobby). Inside one of those boxes lies a menagerie of some of the strangest creatures known to man. I reached in, pulled one out and imagined what it would like like with some pigment on it. This...is what happened...

Yeah, yeah... Enough with the dramatics already. I decided that I needed a quick fix, so lucky me, I have a box filled with those excellent resin creature heads that Simon Lee has been putting out over the last 3 years. This particular one, simply titled, 'Creature Head No. 7' was the one that had the honor of being subjected to my imagination.

If my memory serves me correctly, Simon actually used his Mantis creature bust as a substrate to begin this piece, and it does seem to be so, as there certainly is a semblance of that previous creature lurking in there. The head itself is no more than 2.5" tall and wide, according to Simon's website. I was always very interested in the photo of the No. 7 creature head Simon used on his website. It appeared very dark and oily; maybe some condensation steaming up the lenses, or whatever they are. So I used that photo as a launching pad.

I also wanted to make a simple themed base that went along with the greasy, lubricated look I planned to give the head, so I dragged out a box that I've been stowing away random interesting looking junk in for the last ten years. After wasting time on a few doomed designs I finally arrived at a suitable look that I felt cooperated with the head, which consisted of some parts from an old clock radio, an oscillating fan and some wires here and there.

Painting it was pretty simple, I just wanted the entire piece to appear very dark, grimy and unclean. I always look forward to an opportunity to get one of these little bastards out and be creative with it.

Enjoy

Mochiin Godzilla bust

2010-12-31T12:40:00.000-06:00

The last one of the year Two thousand and Ten.

I kept at this bugger while working on a few other pieces, and the damn base, of all things, showed me who was Boss. I painted it three different ways before I saw anything that I was satisfied with. Nearly every single project I work on lets me know, in one way or the other, that it isn't me who's walking the Dog, but rather it's the Dog that's walking me!

I had no particular color scheme, or movie/suit references in mind when painting this, I just went with what seemed to look good to me.

Have a Glorious New Year!

'Equus'

2010-12-26T17:11:00.000-06:00

Yet another horse sculpture painted for my lovely daughter as a Christmas gift.

I searched high and low for a piece with just the right feel, and this one made the cut.
Released by a company called Mill Creek Sculptures, and sculpted by artist Arich Harrison. It was exactly what I was looking for: simple, beautiful design and flow, and the musculature was obviously very well thought out.

I'm not familiar with the company or the artist, but from what I gather, this piece is based off a popular war horse sculpture in a smaller scale. It's 8 inches tall, cast in a solid resin. Right out of the box the bust looked very nice. It was hand painted with an antique patina effect. So nice in fact, I had thought to just give it to my daughter as it was, but I had to give it my own personal touch. So I stripped the paint from it and painted my own version. (First photo below is of the bust stripped of original paint)

It was originally my intention to paint the horse very dark, near black. But I became quite attached to the dark red browns and other color effects I threw in there.

Mo'Zilla

2010-12-21T20:59:00.000-06:00

Mochiin Designs hits the G-spot...

Whoever attended Wonderfest 2008 won't likely forget the one of a kind sculpture of an engorged and suspicious Godzilla hunched over the dislocated corpse of King Kong that proudly sat in the contest section of the convention center. BAM...there it was. Visceral and in your fucking FACE! Not only had Godzilla violently mutilated King Kong, she was eating the bastard, too! Sculpted and painted, courtesy of one, Moses D. Jaen.

Since then, Moses has haphazardly proven himself to have a true penchant for the putrescent, having released some of the most revolting zombie kits the hobby has ever seen as sculptor and producer of his Garage Kit outfit, Mochiin Designs. But in 2009, Mr. Jaen, again, hearkened unto his Kaiju kinship to release an exclusive piece for the 2009 Wonderfest convention, a two piece resin bust of the Mother of all Monsters, Godzilla.

The entire display is roughly 8" tall, and is cast, (wonderfully at that), in light gray resin. Moses sculpted her with all the rigid, rough textures, shard-like dorsal spikes, and feline facial features that are common to most Godzilla sculptures, but one can clearly see the Moses Mojo imbued in it's design. Godzilla herself locks into the top of the base, which was fashioned to resemble crumbled masonry, with lots of cool organic textures, and Japanese characters that read ' Godzilla'. The entire display is roughly 8" tall.

Glad I snagged one of these up from Moses before they totally disappeared. To see more of Moses' work, check out his website (and harass him about releasing another full-figure Godzilla piece!)
: Mochiin Designs

Mechanically Violated

2010-11-14T17:25:00.000-06:00

If you're not already familiar with the work of master sculptor Takayuki Takeya, or a model kit producing company named, 'Fewture Models', then I'm sorry; this isn't the time or place for me to delve too deeply into the history of either one.

A long time has it been that I've had this piece in a box waiting to be painted. I did a bit of prep work on it last summer, but since then it's been hiding out in a dark corner. It's titled, 'Hakaider: Mechanical Violator', and was produced on the very cusp of 1999 or early 2000, I believe, by a legendary company named Fewture Models. Hakaider is a study of a Japanese science fiction film of the same name. The film was directed by Keita Amemiya. Sculptor Takayuki Takeya actually worked on the film, and this is his version of the character.

If you've not seen the film, there are slight differences from Takeya san's sculpture and the film version character. The piece illustrates a scene from the end of the movie in which Hakaider and Michael (Mechanical Justice) battle it out; and as you can see...Hakaider busted his balls.

If it's evident from the photos I took of the figure proper, you might be able to see the subtle movement of Hakaider walking off the square base. The figure is full of tension and attitude. It's always been one of my favorite works by Takayuki Takeya. I'm painting this for a friend, so it will be tough seeing it go, but we'll see...it's been quite a while ago that it was sent to me, so I'm hoping it's been forgotten ;)

Stay tuned...