Col. Steve Austin...the Twelve Dollar and Forty Nine Cent Man

Back when I posted about this cool site, Plastic Model Building Mania, I also showed a picture of the great Six Million Dollar Man model that he'd built. I even mention in the post that I was going to go on Ebay and look for my own Steve Austin kit, as I apparently gotten the 70's model kit bug...again!
Well...I went biddin' and won, not one, but two...or actually one and most of a second one. I won the very Six Million Dollar Man kit I was looking for..."Jaws of Doom" and most of the "Evil Rider" kit in one auction. I got'em today and I'm posting the great box art and the instruction sheet for "Jaws of Doom".


You can actually print out the instruction sheet on legal size paper and proudly display it in your home or office.

(front and back)

(inside)

I'll show pics of the finished model when it's done.

...when I'm not building other models...ahem.

Super Fuzz!

I'm not trying to make this blog about models, but they seem to have popped up in importance recently and I have picked up the glue again. I guess fixin' up that Deal's Wheels "Van" put a kick start back in my fascination with the hobby. I didn't really have, or could afford, the time to work on models the past couple of years. I can't stand to let things sit on a shelf for long, that's why I put this Fred Flypogger kit together finally...
Designed by Stanley Mouse (Miller) back in '64, this was another kit that rode the wave of hot rod monster kits in the early 60's. Ed "Big Daddy" Roth and Mouse were contemporaries, so they shared ideas and while Roth was working for Revell on Rat Fink stuff, Mouse was working at Monogram on Fred Flypogger stuff.
The three kits at Monogram were, Flip Out, Speed Shift, and Super Fuzz.



These haven't been available since '64, from what I can tell, and only a couple of years ago did Monogram crack open the vault and re release Super Fuzz. You could'a found them on Ebay as resin recasts, but even at that, they'd be $50-$75!! Even this reissue is hard to find!
I put this one together in about a few days, spread out over a few weeks. I based the color schemes on Mouse's original art from the box...

(click pics for super detail)

The whole thing was glued together with Testors' styrene cement...the clear watery type. This type of cement is perfect for detail. You join the pieces, brush a drop onto the seams, and let the watery cement run the length of the seam via capillary action. Makes for a great bond.
You had two ways to seat him...way down in the seat...or up high to show his feet and officer uniform.

I primed it with cheap flat black primer, wet sanded the car body, then painted the blue color with a floral paint called Design Master.
These paints are acetone/acrylic based and are great for styrene kits. They come in all kinds of shades. I used them on the "Van" as well. I see a lot of people moving toward the acrylic based paints now. I can't seem to get the "rattle can" hobby car paints to smooth out as much as I want. I wet sanded the final coat, ran a tack rag over it, then sprayed a couple of layers of a clear gloss called Acrylic Clear Coat (Gloss) by Plaid.
Everything else besides the car body, was finished with ordinary acrylic craft paint in a dry brush technique. If I wanted deeper shadows, I would run a brownish/black wash in the creases.
I painted the light on top red instead of blue because there was plenty of blue in the over all scheme, and the red police light was synonymous with the motif as well. The light was a drop of red resin tint mixed with the clear coat and brushed into the dome.
The classic fly that came with the kit, I suspended on a length of music wire and positioned out in front as if Fred's chasing it.
The cuffed hand in back is supposed to be reaching out of the clouds of smoke, but I felt that the smoke was too shallow to allow for a whole person. I made it look as if the hand had been severed a while ago, had gone green, and was flapping in the breeze.
The tires in the kit are molded hollow...no inside shape...just the axle tab and the interior of the front. I glued each tire onto a sheet of styrene, trimmed them out with manicure scissors, and sanded the edges smooth. Looks a lot better I think.
The clear drool came with the kit, but I blended it out onto the lips using Krylon's Triple Thick Crystal Clear Glaze. It's like the heavy thick spray, but it comes in a bottle so you can just mop it on. Perfect for eyes and teeth, etc.


I mounted the whole kit on a piece of 7" X 7" wood plaque with 5 minute epoxy.


By the way, all these pics were taken with my new Nikon Coolpix 5400 Penny got me for Christmas...no more grainy tiny Mavica images! The images are at 300 dpi. I reduce them for bloggin' to 200 dpi. This thing takes insane detail. Each pic was orginally 5 meg!

The next kit is another car model a friend (Eric) gave me for my birthday about 2 years ago, and I'm finally getting my research material together to finish it...

Jo-Han's Chrysler Turbine car...


Over the next few months, I plan to put the kit together and take pics as I go, documenting the steps. See next post for the starters...

Blog Like Flint

I'm diggin' the heck out'a Detroitsuperfly...and so should you! Check out this post on Our Man Flint soundtrack...directly from his LP and not the crappy re-issue.


"hell yeah.."

Mad Monkey Holiday

After seeing Jackson's King Kong (which is amazing, by the way), I got in the mood to watch some of my old tapes pertaining to the simian breed. I've been transferring my old VHS tapes to DVD for quite a while now and chose to double up movies on some discs, if the theme permitted.
Last night I transferred Time of the Apes and Konga. I recorded Time of the Apes a long time ago...back in the late 80's actually..about the same time I copied my Spectreman dubs.


Time of the Apes was made by Tsubarya Productions (who's major claim to fame is the
Ultraman franchise and the creator of the original Godzilla suit) in about the mid 70's. The english language version was brought over by Sandy Frank about the same time he was importing Gamera movies. In Japan the original title was Army of the Apes, which is cooler sounding, but no matter what title..it's a Planet of the Apes rip off aimed at kids. It's about a couple of kids that happen to know someone that works at the cryogenics lab down the street.
They go there for a visit, fiddle fart around, and an earthquake threatens to destroy the lab. The lab friend and the two kids jump into a couple of handy cryogenics chambers as the place is coming down. They are instantly frozen and buried in the debris. Someone digs them out and they wake up in...that's right...the Time of the Apes!









The make up is not on the same level as John Chambers work for the Ape series, but it's definitely the highlight of the show. The mouths don't move at all, and the general sculpting of the appliances are weird. They did go 'ol Chambers one better, though. You might not be able to tell the difference between the gorilla, apes, or orangutans, but the mandrill baboons are pretty obvious...complete with blue stripes!





Their leader is some tall Japanese guy wearing a Rett Butler pimp costume and being chauffeured around in, what looks like, a Buick Skylark.






Some crap happens and there's something about a UFO and they end up back in their time.
Wonderful.
If it sounds like doo doo and your wondering why I would even bother to transfer
this to a DVD....well...you just don't know me very well,then.




The other feature was Konga...Britain's answer to King Kong.


Michael Gough....recently known for playing Alfred in the crappier Batman movies, stars as a scientist that crashed landed in the jungle and was adopted by natives. He discovers the different types of man eating plants and studies their flesh eating enzyme properties.

He brings back a chimp he calls Konga and plans to use in his experiments. He grows the man eating plants in his greenhouse and feeds them beef. Some of his peers are threatening his experiments and some are on the same track, but having more success. He takes care of them by injecting Konga with his serum, which has him grow to gorilla proportions, and sending him to kill.











This theme smacks of Murders in the Rue Morgue, where the lead kills his enemies with a trained ape.
While this is going on, Gough is flirting with one of the hotty blonde students in his science class. His female assistant, a red head, is getting jealous and warns him of such behavior. Of course, being a mad scientist, he doesn't listen to reason and continues.

The lab assistant gets really mad...'cause she's a red head, and injects Konga with a Super Size version of the serum.
He grows as big as a house, body slams her, then goes after Gough who's in the greenhouse trying to make it with the blonde student. Konga "tears the roof off'a the mother sucka'", the student get's her arm trapped in a maneating plant (that's FOAMING at the mouth!!) and Gough is grabbed by the giant monkey.
They both end up next to Big Ben...not on top..
and get shot down by the army. The monkey dies and returns to his normal size.
The gorilla suit was provided by George Barrows who usually wears his own suit, but the production convinced him to just rent it to them. This ape suit is pretty well know and has been seen all through the 50's and 60's in shows like: Beverly Hillbillies, The Lucy Show, Addams Family,etc...and is most well known for being the monster suit for the '53 classic,
Robot Monster. As a matter of fact, my copy of Konga aired while I was sculpting on a Robot Monster model kit for Janus Models.

My Only Christmas Post

I don't get that crazy about Christmas. I give people things all year around, so this one time a year thing, is a little silly. I like giving people things all the time, so making a big deal about sharing and good will toward men just ONCE a year perplexes me.
To prove that I'm that giving, I'm gonna give you some free gift tags to download. Attach these tags to your friend's packages and watch them smile.

Bloody Rags!

What a post title for the holidays, eh?
It's in reference to a link my Buddy Bob sent me to this site of cool monster mags! Believe it or not, I have quite a few of these including the hideous Terror Tales, Witches Tales, etc.


This magazine series scared the hell out of me when I was a kid. When we went to Tom Thumb grocery, these bleeding rags would moan to me from the enormous news stand. I would look at Mad and Cracked...but I was secretly glancing at issues of Tales of Voodoo and Weird for the "intestines and cleavage parade"!





Wow..this chick's got fat blood!!

Johnny Cool!!

Oh m'Gawd! The crazy mutha at Record Brother has posted a soundtrack of one of my favorite 60's gangster/rat pack/noir flicks...JOHNNY COOL! I'm insane over this flick. I have a crappy copy on VHS from TV, so if anybody knows of a good copy they can loan me...or sell..or whatever..lemme know.

Glows In the Dark!

This site has catalogued all of the classic Aurora monster models, the instruction sheets, and their re-issues!
GLOWS IN THE DARK

It's Jerry Time!

Here's an awesome and invented blog!! Sad and funny!
IT'S JERRY TIME

Who Is that Mask Man?

My buddy Eliot, who is an avid mask collector, just revamped his site and geared it toward the founder of the monster mask art form...Don Post, Sr.

On this site, THE RUBBER ROOM Eliot has grouped together a thorough collection of photos of Don Post, the masks themselves, the ads, and the people that, in the 60's, established masks as a reflection of Americana.
Click on the pics to enlarge and be sure to click on the adjoining articles and rare printings from their time.

Plastik

Recently I've been hitting the old model shelf and digging stuff out of storage. I hate stuff sitting around not getting done. I'm working on Stanely Mouse's Super Fuzz right now and should have that post up soon. In a past post Sept. 3rd, I mentioned that I'd show more pics of old kits that I've built for other people, so...for now, here's a Weird-Oh kit...Huey's Hut Rod...

I wish I had taken more pics.


While searching for paint stripping tips (for a future model I'll be working on...Mr. Gasser) and for more reference of Super Fuzz, I came across this guy's awesome site filled with his models. I don't know his name, but he's got some choice kits built and photographed...like..

Steve Austin...the Six Million Dollar Man! His work on this, makes me wanna go look one up on Ebay! What a great kit!! You can expose Steve's bionic arm and leg!!



His Aurora Jekyl and Hyde is particulary gruesome. Kewl.
Check out his site.

This guys' site has tons of models, as well...mostly cars...and the pics are top notch!


Check out Canney's Garage!

Freddie the Blog

I have this on my window ledge, looking down on me. They made a whole set of these bendys from The New Zoo Revue back in the day. Freddie was my favorite on the show.

I think I found this in a bag of crap at a thrift store a few years ago.

I have the episode on "drugs", which is a scream...and I've seen the outtakes where the actors playing Freddie and Charlie were cussing at each other. They refer to each other's sexual preference and then they throw down.
No...really. I saw it.

Paper Craft...It's an Affliction

I did another mini cereal box. Click on it, save, print, trim, fold, and glue. This one is a little larger than the last one...and a lot better designed.
Put this on your desk and actually fill it with Frankneberry. Tell'em it's the new airline size...like they give you on planes. Mess with people's heads.

I should move on and start doing my own designs...like robots and stuff.

Infant of Paper Craft!

I had to do this.
I copped this jpeg from over at BUBBLEGUM FINK and made it into a small paper craft item. I cleaned it up, gave it a border, etc. Click on it, print it out, trim it, fold, and glue into place.
You too could have a tiny box of Super Suger Crisp your desk at work!!