Gillman Bust

There is something very rewarding and exciting about building a model which isn’t a representation of something else. The Gillman is such a model. It’s an original design and as such I didn’t feel the need to make it look any particular way. Although I did do a traditional green, “Creature” look, I was still free to play.

The Gillman is a vinyl kit I picked up on eBay. I actually thought it was a bust of The Creature from the Black Lagoon and was surprised when I got it. Never assume....

This was my first vinyl kit. I used boiling water to soften the vinyl before trimming it to fit. Once it fit properly, I used CA to connect the top and bottom. Using a tip gleamed from a David Fisher video, I filled the hollow with expanding foam. I guess vinyl will soften and sag over time, filling it with foam, plaster or newspaper keeps it in shape. The foam was easy enough to use, once I got the proportions correct and mixed it adequately. That took more doing than I'd like to admit.

I primed the bust with my usual primer and then stared at the kit for about a month, maybe two. Then I waited for my new airbrush, which took for-freakin’ ever. I knew the new brush would be able to give me a very fine line.

Why did I need a fine line for a basically all green model? Well, smart-ass, it’s more than just green. There are four different shades of green in the skin. I used a “noodling” technique where you lay several colors down in thin squiggly lines which look like noodles. This makes the skin tone look more realistic by giving it depth. The fine line also helped me paint the highlights and shadows. I

Once it was basically painted, I used a glaze to give it deeper shadows. A glaze is to a wash what jam is to syrup on your pancakes. It does the same thing, but is much thicker and is applied differently. (What a metaphor!). To make a glaze I mixed some Liquitex Burnt Umber Acrylic with some Liquitex Acrylic Matte Gel Medium, which I’ve had kicking around my workbench for I don’t know how many years (I forgot why I bought it in the first place - this is my first glaze). Anyway, the mixture was thicker than mayonnaise. I then spread the thick brown muck on the model with a heavy brush. Using a clean paper towel, I wiped away the excess, leaving the thick brown color in the many crevices. It worked great, darkened the model overall and tied it all it.

I did a little dry-brushing to highlight and brighten it up here and there and zapped it again with a bit of light yellow/green from my fine line Sotar 20/20 airbrush in the necessary places, like the eyebrows and other raised places.

I wanted the paint the base to look like marble, but I don’t know how and my feeble attempts only make we want to disembowel myself with a piece of sprue. In the end, I went with a dumb gray with dark gray shadows in the crevices and a dry brush. The red in the Wang symbol (the artist who sculpted the piece) broke up the gray a bit. It looks okay, but it’s hardly inspired. I have to learn how to paint marble and other textures soon. David Fisher, you listening?

After the base was done I protected the model with Testor’s Dullcoat.

For the final touch, I made the eyes black and then painted them with gloss coat to make them shine.

This is the first model I’ve made that my mother asked to have displayed at her house. I don’t quite know what to make of this. Maybe she has a fish fetish, I dunno. This is quite a different model from the ones I usually make insofar as it looks kinda lame from a distance, but cooler the closer you get to it. It’s my first bust, and one of my favorite pieces. It sits on my mantelpiece, much to the thrill of my wife.