This is the
McVey Bela Lugosi vinyl bust that was produced at the
same time as the full figure version. Both this and the
full figure version use the same mold, the likeness to
Bela Lugosi can only be described as excellent.
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After
being given a coat of grey primer the first job
was to work out how I wanted Bela to look in my
head. I decided on a "fresh out of the
dressing room look", plenty of white on the
face with those dark rings around the eyes.
To start
I applied light coats of a mix of 50-50 Matt
Flesh and Matt White, here is where I found that
a White primer would have been better. To cover
the face and get the look I wanted and to also
cover the grey primer took in the region of 10
to 12 light coats. However I find that the
advantage of using so many light coats is that
you are left with NO brush marks what so ever.
Once dried the eyes were
touched in, white and ivory mix for the eye
followed by a Black dot, onto this went a
dot of blue, then black for the pupil finished
off with a pin prick of White.
The lips gave me a bit of
a problem, at first I painted them two shades
lighter than the face but they looked too
Orange. So after watching a few clips of Bela in
action (B & W of course) I went for a more
Pink/Burgundy/White mix, this as it turned out
was just what I had pictured in my head at the
start.
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Now for my
favorite bit, shading the face with pastels.
I used a mixture of flesh colored pastels to
shade and color the face, once I was happy with
that, the face was sealed with a Matt spray
sealant.
It looked good but again not what I had in
my head, so out came the pastels again and a heavy
coating of White pastel powder was applied with a
large brush to the entire face.
I then sealed the face again and added more White
pastel to the cheeks, nose etc, now I was happy!
The hair and eyebrows were base coated Matt Black
and drybrushed with Dark Grey just to break up the
Black which otherwise would have looked too flat. |
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The
shirt and bow tie and were base coated Matt White.
I asked an older member of my family about the
"dickie", the starched shirt front and
found out that they used to have a Satin sheen
to them (apparently my Granddad wore one
occasionally).
So once the shading was finished on the
White garments and for this I used Grey
pastels, the dickie and collar were given a coat
of Satin sealant.
The waist coat was painted a Khaki/White
mix and the edges drybrushed with a lighter
shade. Dark Red, drybrushed with a lighter
shade was used for the ribbon to which the
Gold medallion is attached.
The
jacket lapels are Satin Black, the cloak and the
rest of the jacket were painted Matt Black and
the folds highlighted with dark grey.
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The
base was given a base coat of Matt Black and then
several coats of drybrushed Bronze were applied to give
the metallic effect to the gargoyles and the surrounding
area.
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Overall a
kit that I would highly recommend to any Bela fan
and one that was a real pleasure to work
with. My thanks to
Mark Atherton
(aka Wolfman Of Bolton)
who helped me track down this kit
......Cheers Mark! |
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