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Jungle God:

An Old Trophy Head Kit
Gets a New Look with Glass Eyes and a Hindu Carving Display Board

This project took four years to complete. 


Confused about a term used in this article?  Go to the model builder's dictionary.
   

Now, if I could see you right now, I would know by your reaction to the statement how much modeling you had done personally.  If you thought I literally worked on this thing for four years you are probably new to the hobby.  Seasoned vets know that what this means is I got the kit in 2004 or so, worked on it and started over a few times, then I found the base/backboard and got excited again, and finally finished it up.  That was easily a 4 year process.
   
The kit is an old piece from Mike Trcic (not misspelled folks).  It is about a foot tall and 8 inches wide with a horn that sticks forward off the face about half a foot.  It came in two pieces, with the lower half of the jaw cut in two and the tongue molded in place.  It was an odd cut that presented some problems, but other wise the kit was very clean and easy to work with. 

Here you see the kit primed, and as I alluded to, I started and stopped this kit a few times, not quite sure what I wanted out of it.  It came with a mounting plate, but it was not inspiring and switched gears to other kits along the way while I tried to figure out my strategy on building it.

   
The first step of the paint job, after hiding the seams on the mouth, was to put in a layer of pink.  I used Lifetone's Light Flesh color, followed by a heavy coating of Createx Transparent flesh to give it the color I wanted.  I am always amazed when I watch a documentary and see some big dark animal like a Hippo or Croc, open up its mouth to reveal a high toned, delectate pink inside.  That was the look I was going for, but you can also see where I treated the interior of the beak and nose with Lifetone's Bronze Flesh.  This was all done with my Iwata HP-B at 10 PSI.

   

I set in some glass eyes and covered them with Parma model masking solution, but we will get to those later. 

Right now, we are looking at the base coat, which consists of four colors.  The horns were done with Freak Flex Bleached Bone Tan; the lower jaw, eye sockets and areas inside the frill were done with FW Inks' Raw Sienna while the rest of the face was done with Yellow Ochre from Lifetone.  Finally around the base of the horn, I used FW Inks Raw Umber.

   
Next, I laid in Createx Black on some of the more prominent scutes (knobs on the frill).  Then I hit the beak and edges of the frill, including the base of the horns with transparent Light Brown and then hit the areas covered in Raw Sienna with Light Brown as well.  The end result is an orangy tone that retains a little of the brown and a little of the yellow underneath.

   

Okay . . . now on to the horns.  In the picture below left, you can see that I am applying Lifetone transparent Amber Oxide with a brush.  I paint the whole thing with it and then spray on more transparent Light Brown.  I let that sit a little, and then with a clean dry cloth, I pull the paint off the horn, leaving a worn appearance (below right).  After that, I dry brush a little Americana Buttermilk craft paint onto the horns and seal the whole thing with Testors' Dulcote.
   
The final stage of the painting was a bit of a trick.  I had already found the headboard at T J Maxx and I had even thought of the name Jungle God in conjunction with this.  I had in mind that this would be a bit interpretive therefore--something like a treasure or a jewel . . . but how to get that look?

I mixed up a concoction of FW Ink's Sap Green and Createx Pearlized White and thinned it out a little with water to create a glaze which I applied with an airbrush.  It allowed some of the yellow to come through and held a strange sort of sheen.  I sealed it with Dulcote and then applied a dark blue oil wash in the crevices and removed it with a towel before it changed the paint color.

   

For the kit, there was just one more step--removing the Parma mask from the eyeballs with a hobby knife.  I had set in a nice reptile green eye (can't remember where I got it but I think it is a snake eye), hoping to get a good match with the final skintone and . . .voila!  Not bad, eh? 

   
All that remained was mounting the head to the backboard, which was done with a big ol' bolt.  The final product is impressive--16 inches tall and wide.

If you like it, it is up on Ebay . . . unless someone snatches it up from you.  You can check it out here.  Starting price is $200 . . . good luck. 

   
   

 

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