“Voorhees’ a Jolly Good Fellow!” (Monster May’hem)

So when I left you last time work was still underway on my “Jason (Friday the 13^th) Voorhees “chibi” figure (see last post). Well I’m glad to say that he is now finished, but I’m getting ahead of myself here. Though the original film was a “quick cash in” on the success of “Halloween” and “Michael Myers”, Jason started out as more the victim than the demented “slasher” he is today, it was actually his mother who was the murderer. The franchise has gone on to spawn eight sequels, a cross over with “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and a re-boot, making it one of the most successful horror franchises in film history. But enough trivia, I needed to get my “Jason” finished and when last we saw him he looked like this. 👉

I really needed to get some arms on him, so first job was to drill two small holes into his shoulders (and one in the top of his body for his head), then two pieces of florists wire were cut to length and bend to the desired shapes before being pushed and glued in place. Next he needed his trademark (it probably is to be honest!) machete, after a bit of thought I decided that the best way to make this was using a coffee stirrer as I’d done something similar a while back to make a missing sword for one of my pirates and had been pleased with the result. I first marked the curved tip on a stirrer and cut this shape into the end, then cutting it too long began to sand down the width in stages checking it against the model till it looked about right, it does taper back towards the handle slightly though it might be hard to see in the photos. I then “painted it in superglue and once dry sanded it again adding the” edge” to the blade, this was to try and cover the “grain” in the wood once painted. I then cut away a small amount of the top and bottom of the rear to form the handle and carefully superglued it in place.

I left this overnight to make sure it was good and set before I started adding his hands. This was done by adding blobs of putty to the ends of the wire and then gently rolling the ends around before “cutting” in fingers with my small knife. The thumbs were added separately with tiny sausages of putty and more sausages were run around the wrists to form the “cuffs” on his gloves. I also added the straps on his mask today, this was just two more sausages of putty, a short one over his head and a longer one around the back of his head, these were then flattened and a after a “hole” was pushed in at the end of each strap along with the point where the straps meet round back tiny balls of putty were popped into these holes and flattened slightly as the rivets.

That just left building up his jacket sleeves, but before that I cut down the wire from under his head and glued his head in place and filled around his neck. Then back to his sleeves and tow sausages of putty were pushed on over the wire of his arms and after blending the joints I added the creases again with my pointed colour shaper and pointed probe. The latter was also used to add the tears and rents in the material, and I called him done.

Well done that is apart from the painting of course, so that came next (would have been clever if I done it before I sculpted him eh?) Anyway he was based up on a two pence piece as usual, then after a coat of matt black I dry-brushed his machete, with chainmail then added streaks of chestnut and to simulate a bit of rust. His jacket I then undercoated in dark grey then dry-brushed it in a mix of dark grey and mid grey, then finally I highlighted with more mid grey. His shirt I wanted bluer so more dark grey was mixed with some royal blue this time and the shirt was undercoated in this, then highlighted with (you guessed it!) more dark grey this time mixed with some blue grey. Trousers next these were first undercoated with…. Dark grey! (well would you ever!) This time mixed with a little black to darken it further, then highlighted with even more dark grey (perhaps this is why he’s so miserable and “stabby” all the while, he should brighten up his wardrobe colours! 🥳). His shoes and gloves should have been black, but to just try and add a tiny bit of colour I did these in chocolate brown highlighted with leather brown. The flesh on his head I decided to do in a blotchy khaki colour (this is from one of the “middle” films when it wasn’t “healthy pink” but hadn’t quite gone “black”) so an undercoat of thin khaki went on first, then “jagged” lines were added in black, and finally the resultant “khaki splodes” were highlighted with more khaki with a little European flesh added. His mask was then painted coffee and highlighted with cream, and I touched up the holes in it with some more black, that was also used on the straps, highlighted with pink! (No, dark grey). I did however use pink burgundy on the exposed wound on his jaw and the slice on his head, this was over dark red, but under bright red, I also added a couple of exposed teeth in cream here too. Chainmail was used on the mask studs. And finally a little bright red (or Bright Red for the Tomato  god! As I might call it from now on to be in with the cool kids!😉) was used to add the “flashes on his mask and a little bit of you know what to his knife blade.

From here on it was pretty much the old story, Quickshade “Strongtone” basing and matt varnish. And that’s it my second (or third depending how you look at it) entry for Monster May(hem), thankfully Keith in his infinite wisdom has allowed Jason to take part, and I thank him for that. I thought I’d dig out my “Screen Queen” Elvira for the last photo to give a bit of scale (he is a big lad, 39mm to the top of his head). I hope to get one more figure painted before the end of the month, so till next time….

Stay safe, and away from the lake! Cheers Roger.