I've always liked the Universal monster films for the '30s and '40s but have never incorporated them into my modeling hobby. Unlike most of the modelers my age, I never built any of the classic Aurora monsters as a kid. I was consumed with model cars and spaceships with the occasional airplane or ship thrown in for good measure. As a result, when my modeling tastes turned toward figure kits, I never felt the nostalgia that others felt for those old monsters. I did, however, find the Horizon vinyl figures to my liking and eventually acquired four of the best classic monster kits in their line--and there they sat in the ever-growing pile of kits, awaiting their turn. Finally, a couple of weeks before Halloween '07, I decided to take a page out of a friend's modeling book and build one of these kits for the coming holiday.
The choice of kit was dictated by the short time I had before the coming holiday. Since I had very little time and some sort of display base would be needed as well, I decided to go with the monster who had the simplest paint scheme--The Mummy.
What can you say about the color scheme for a mummy? Really, there isn't much to it...ashen skin, moldy bandages, not much more. In this light I chose to use four colors--white, ivory, grey, and burnt umber.
The bandages were base coated in ivory while the flesh was based in grey. Burnt umber was made into a thick wash that was applied over all the bandages and then rubbed off--much like a glaze. When the wash was dry the bandages were drybrushed with ivory then an ivory/white mix. The flesh was drybrushed with a light grey/ivory mix while the hair was brushed with light grey only.
Construction of the kit was fairly straightforward, as all vinyl kits are. A little careful application of heat and you can get an excellent fit of the parts. The only complexities to this kit involved the attachment of the dangling and trailing bandages, the alignment of the right arm to the torso, and the installation of two screws through the feet. The bandages were simply a matter of cutting out the installation holes and softening the pieces so that the flash could be inserted in the body and left to cool. The arm, likewise, was softened and tacked to the body bit by bit with CA glue and allowed to cool.
A screw was inserted through each foot from the inside out so that the kit could be mounted to a base with a nut.
The unique part of this build is the base. The kit didn't offer any sort of display. I'd thought about mounting him to a film canister but that seemed too obvious...so why not the film itself? Of course film isn't really this large so something had to be created from scratch. Starting with a standard piece of 35mm film negative, measurements were taken and multiplied by 4 to get a size that seemed about right. On a piece of cardstock a facimile was drawn and cut out so that the length and curvature could be mocked up (pic 1).
With the general dimensions determined, a piece of 1/8" clear acrylic was trimmed to size and covered in low tack masking tape. The sprocket holes were measured and marked in pencil and small holes were drilled in the corners of each hole with a larger hole drilled in the center of each cutout. Using a srollsaw, each sprocket hole was then roughly cut (pic 2). Once all the holes were cut out the tape was removed bit by bit as each hole was squared up. A simple flat diamond file made this process reasonably fast (pic 3).
Once all the holes were cut and squared it was time to start bending the plastic. All that was required here was a heavy duty heat gun, some sort of form to help control the bent shape (a roller stand was used in this case), and a leather work glove to protect my hand from the hot plastic (pic 4). The proper term for this process is thermoforming. Keeping the cardstock template as a guide, heat was slowly applied and the piece was formed over the roller. Working slowly and moving back and forth from one bent area to another the base gradually took shape (pics 5,6). After the contours were pretty much set the ends of the plastic were cut off to simulate torn film. The images would later be applied and trimmed to match the edge so that the first film cel looks to have been torn just below the title.
The "magic" of the process comes with the application of the graphics. Film has a shiny top surface with a matte underside. With this in mind I decided to do all the graphics on the bottom side of the plastic. First I made eight masks the size of individual film cels from clear adhesive shelf covering. Using the sprocket holes as guides I carefully aligned each mask and peeled off the backing, laying down the mask as I went (pic 7). These masks were set by eye rather than measuring since the bend of the plastic would tend to stretch and compress the plastic in areas, throwing the alignment with the holes off in places if I didn't make adjustments. Once all the masks were in place and any air bubbles had been worked out that might have allowed paint to wick underneath, Floquil Engine Black was airbrushed over all the exposed surface (pic 8).
Images were captured on the computer from the first Mummy film and sized for the project. These were then printed onto decal film as a reverse image so that white could then be applied over that. I could have chosen to spray white paint over the decals but I wanted them somewhat transparent. Fortunately I bought an Alps printer some years ago for decal-making since it is capable of printing many unique layers including white. These decals were applied to the bottom side of the base as each mask was removed (pic 9). Care had to be taken to work out all the air from beneath the decals since the "wrong" side would be final viewed image.
I've always liked the Universal monster films for the '30s and '40s but have never incorporated them into my modeling hobby. Unlike most of the modelers my age, I never built any of the classic Aurora monsters as a kid. I was consumed with model cars and spaceships with the occasional airplane or ship thrown in for good measure. As a result, when my modeling tastes turned toward figure kits, I never felt the nostalgia that others felt for those old monsters. I did, however, find the Horizon vinyl figures to my liking and eventually acquired four of the best classic monster kits in their line--and there they sat in the ever-growing pile of kits, awaiting their turn. Finally, a couple of weeks before Halloween '07, I decided to take a page out of a friend's modeling book and build one of these kits for the coming holiday.
