One and a Half Mole Men

[Jim Bertges]

Here's one I just finished up for a client. He had an old Horizon Mole Man which he wanted restored and he was looking for the old resin base that featured another Mole Person emerging from the ground. He never found that base, so everything else you see in these pics besides the full Mole Person figure was created by me.

This is the full figure Mole Man.

And this is the Half Mole Man I cobbled together from an old action figure, a resin cast head (which I made from the other figure), hands sculpted from Super Sculpy and parts of my wife's old Tinkerbell pajamas.


I'm looking forward to all your comments.

[RICKH]

Jim you did a fantastic job.  How did you make the base?  Also, what did you use on the fabric to make it sculpture-like?

[Moonshadow]

That's a really cool piece! I love the second Mole man coming out of a hole in the ground. Your sculpture compares well to the model.

[empty13]

kewell

[Mord]

" One and a half Mole men".....isn't that the new Charlie Sheen show?

[michblk]

That's a great build you did on that kit!

BK

[The Creeper]

That is really awesome!!!!  Great job!!!

[Wolfman]

Love it! I have the same thing, only with the Billiken figure.

JP

[ChrisW]

Nice job Jim!

[SeptimusPretorius]

Jim, this is fantastic!

  S.P.

[Unknown Primate]

You never cease to amaze me, Jim!

[Jim Bertges]

Thanks everyone for all the great comments I'm so glad you like this piece. And now for some "behind the scenes" answers.

Jim you did a fantastic job.  How did you make the base?  Also, what did you use on the fabric to make it sculpture-like?

The base was cut from a piece of fiberboard that I glued pieces of Florist's green foam to. I sealed the foam with a thick matte medium, but I could have just as easily used Gesso or thinned white glue.

I marked places for the figures to go and covered the whole thing with spackling compound. Eventually I had to make the "hole" deeper to accommodate the half figure.

Here you can see the half figure undressed and in his place before the spackle was applied. I needed to figure out how his arms would be positioned before I dressed him.

Once his arms were set in place, he was dressed with pieces of fabric from my wife's old Tinkerbell pajamas and the cloth was covered with a fabric stiffener from Aleen's. Again, I could have just used diluted white glue, but I had the fabric stiffener on hand. After that I sprayed the spackled base with brown and transparent Coral from spray cans, glued down Vermiculite (stuff used in potting soil) to simulate the underground surface in the movie and added some hand made mushrooms. Of course once the figures were locked in place I built up more Vermiculite around them so they look like they are in soft soil and used localized washes to add color.

There you have it. Thanks again for looking and the wonderful comments.

[RICKH]

Jim, thanks for the info and the pics! Again, a fantastic job.

[lappys22]

Jim Great work!

[Scatter]

Dude, you are a magician!!