Man Vampire 2 – Fewture

The kit version is disappointingly crude compared to the original sculpture by the japanese master Nirasawa and my casting was a bit rough. I cleaned it up as best I could; filing off the chain that hangs behind the wing and replacing it with a real one. The other chains are included but the saw is an addition of mine. I also filed off the embossed “dripping blood” around the knee so I could copy the more subtle water stains.

It’s a difficult piece to display as it overlaps its plinth. I opted to mount the whole thing vertically on a simple wooden slab with a base. I painted this ahead of time and covered it with cling-film while I painted the figure. I had a lot of trouble attaching the left shoulder/wing section. I used too thick a section of milliput and it refused to cure but I eventually I scraped it off and replaced it in sections.

This was an opportunity for me to really experiment with the airbrush. I tried to copy Nirasawa’s wonderful burnt ochre skin tones but I couldn’t quite get the same effect. His version also has a tuft of hair on his cranium which is moulded on in the kit version. I filed it off, intending to replace it with real hair but I failed to get it to behave satisfactorily. May have another try later on.

Unfortunately I have no SBS pictures but I found these pictures of the unbuilt kit on a Japanese website. My version, altough an original, was much less cleanly cast.