“Prime Photon Bullets & Engage Throm Banks!” (Forgotten Heroes)

“Hi kids, Kremmen here. Remember last episode Carla, Dr Gitfinger and myself were in the clutches of a complete idiot, who was trying to replicate us using his alien “greenstuff”. The doctor and myself had been attached to bottle caps, and we watched in horror as Carla my little space nymph had been carried away to have terrible things done to her naughty bits!!

Will we (or they for that matter!) ever be the same again! Read on to find out…

OK week two of my “Forgotten Heroes” build, but have I finished the sculpting? As the good Captain said read on.

And we start with another “not very interesting” day, I felt as bit “grotty” today (No it’s not Covid, thank god!) so all I could manage was to add was the “under pinning’s” for both Carla and Gitfingers heads, Carla’s was just a small blob, plonked atop her neck, tapered at the chin, and a couple of tiny balls of putty added for her eyes (I’ll build up and around these hopefully), then to secure it in place I added a sausage of putty down the back of this and down her neck, her hair will cover this once I get round to adding it. Gitfinger’s head being long and tapered needed a suitable support, so I added a “carrot” shaped piece of putty across the top of his neck, now as he doesn’t have long hair (obviously) to support this I had to drop a little superglue onto the join.

I thought I’d have a go at Kremmen’s face today. So I started by covering the whole front of the head with a thin layer of putty (so I could stick and blend in the features easier), then set to work adding is prominent chin, this has to have his beard added over it so I had to bear this in mind and not go too overlarge, next his mouth was added a small ball of putty smoothed to shape took care of that, then a sausage was added for his long nose, and blended in at the sides, next his forehead was added with another ball of putty, and two dots were added to form his tiny eyes, all this was pushed, poked and smoothed till it looked about right, then I added two small balls of putty to the sides of his head, and poked indentations into the middle of them to form his ears (there’s a little bit more to it than that, but that’s the basic principle). He looks a little “Gnomish” at the moment, but I hope once his hair goes on he’ll look alright. I also added Gitfingers arms (I couldn’t face another face!), a ball of putty with the fingers cut in with a knife, then a small flap of putty wrapped up from the bottom of the first hand, and more fingers cut into this, formed his clasped hands, and two tapered sausages (or carrot shapes) put onto the side of his body then the elbows were gently pushed and teased into the middles of these and then they were joined at the shoulders and wrists.

Well as “Dave Stone” said in the comments last time it was time to stop procrastinating and get on with the faces of the other two. Now I’ve said before “Women are dificult!” and so it was with a fair measure of trepidation that I approached Carla’s face, but here went nothing! So I started with the area around her mouth and chin, smoothing on an upside-down triangle here, then I added her nose, then two balls were added under her eyes to form her prominent cheeks, and finally another blob was added to her forehead, all these were smoothed around her eyes, and after a lot (I do mean a lot!), of messing about I’d got this about as good as I was going to be able to. I also added a couple of blobs to the side of her head as ears, these will be mostly covered by her hair. Now I was lying in the bath last night, thinking about Carla, when I had an epiphany (Is that what you call it, now!), stop that you dirty lot! I’d been worried about the lips on her face, as they were going to have to be so small, then I thought if I poke a hole in her face and pop a ball of putty in they, it’ll secure it and make it easier to shape her lips! (This may not sound much but I was VERY impressed with this idea, and you know what it worked too. Next I turned my attention to Gitfinger, now he was a completely different prospect much more caricature’ish in nature, so with him I began by adding his chin, then laid his mouth overlapping this, and his nose atop this, his nostrils were added next and his tiny cheeks. I then build up the top of his head and added his large ears. This all seemed to go pretty smoothly, so I went on and added his hair around the back of his head, and a tiny bit over his ears, and another tiny bit of putty was stuck under his nose as his moustache, the hair texture was then tapped in these areas with a small knife blade. Lastly today (my, I was busy today, perhaps I need Dave to kick me up the arse more often!) I added the hair to Kremmen, starting with his beard that was just a sausage of putty run across his chin and smoothed away up the sides of his face, I then added the two small “spikes” he has coming up from this either side of his chin by pushing up tiny amounts at the sides. His actual hair I started by adding the “kiss curl” at the front, another tiny “carrot” shaped piece of putty applied and curled at the end took care of this. The rest of his hair was then added as small balls of putty, stuck on around his head, the blended together by tapping them with the point of a cocktail stick. Happily he looks more like Kremmen now, and less like a gnome (well to me anyway).

On the downhill straight now, but two of my figures were still “arm less” so time to address that, so out came the hobby drill and holes were drilled into Kremmen and Carla’s shoulders. Carla then had two bent pieces of florists wire pushed and glued into her holes (ooer!), the other ends resting on her hips in her trademark pose. Now Kremmen is often drawn in a similar pose, but I didn’t really want two figures posed the same, he is also seen with his arms folded, but again, this was a bit…hmmm. But how to pose him, I the end I decided on his right arms bent up and his left out to the side, I could add a gun to his right (but he hardly ever holds a gun) of just have him making a fist No picture of this as it’s not very interesting now is it!).

So today it was time to add the hands to the ends of the bits of wire all four were done the same way basically so I’ll cover them together, a small blob of putty (slightly smaller for Carla) placed onto the ends of the wire, then smoothed and shaped into a basic “mitten” shape, the fingers were then cut in by placing three indentations (between the fingers), the thumbs were tiny sausages placed and blended in at the top of the hands. I also added Gitfingers glasses lenses, first I ran a tiny sausage of putty across the top of his nose to form the joint (bridge?), then taking two small balls of putty on either side of this I shaped these into squares and cut away as much excess as I could from the back.

Well rather than a “Farewell to arms” it was “hello!”. as I started adding a little “flesh” to my figures wire appendages, I started with Kremmen, adding a ball of putty to the upper halves of his arms then smoothing it round and adding a little muscle there, Carla was done in much the same way, but I did her whole arms, made them thinner, added some ripples in the material and after adding two tiny sausages around the wrists blended these back into the sleeves to form the cuffs. I also took two small “carrots” of putty and added the arms to Gitfingers glasses, and lastly I ran a tiny sausage of putty across the top of Gitfingers head, once secured around the edges, I cut and smoothed out the middle of this forming a pair of eyebrows.

With Gitfinger virtually finished (just the soles of his shoes to do), I just worked on Carla and Kremmen. Kremmen needed his epaulettes, and these were just a couple of tapered sausages (Imagine a straightened out croissant), which were stuck on his shoulders and smoothed around at the top of his arms. Carla’s hair came next, now I was just adding the rear section here (hence her receding hairline in the photo), as I’ll add the front and sides separately.so a sausage of putty was stuck on the back of her head, smoothed down to her waist, and then I cut in the central parting at the top, and a few “curls” at the bottom. Now normally I would use a knife blade to “cut-in” the hair, but as she is a cartoon character, and is just drawn with an expanse of white, for her hair, I decided to just add some waves with my colour shaper instead.

“And now the end is near, and so I face the final sculpting…” That just left the “Gauntlet” bit of Kremmen’s gloves to add, which were simply small sausages of putty run around just below his elbows and then dragged down towards his hands, a bit of smoothing and they were done. Carla’s frontal hair was next, so a small sausage if putty was stuck to her forehead smoothed back around the sides blended in to the rear section and the prating cut-in with my small knife blade again, and they were done. All that was left now was to wait till the next day then pull the excess wire out of the caps, cut it off as close to the feet as I could and add the soles of their shoes, on Kremmen and Gitfinger this just meant sticking a blob of putty to the base of their feet and spreading it out to the edges, with a ridge gut into Gitfingers to from the heel of his boots. Carla’s were similar but a much thicker sole was added to hers, and the rear section of this was formed into her high heels. One day more and I was able to stick them onto flattened blobs of putty to form bases.

That’s it for part three folks, and wasn’t it a great part, so much better than part two! Tune in next time to see if I can get some colour on them before Lord Winstanley pulls the plug on June, and we may never see it again!!            

So till next time! Stay safe and Cheers Roger.