PURCHASED:
070711

BEGUN:
070715

COMPLETE:
080725.09

CONSTRUCTION LOG



070711
'Whoever speaketh of Cthulhu shall remember that he but seemeth dead, he sleeps, and yet he does not sleep, he has died and yet he is not dead, asleep and dead though he is, he shall rise again'. -HPL


070805.18
Don't remember when it was, but I threw Mighty Cthu in the wash with Ed and Stego, a few weeks ago must be.  Haven't looked at him since -too scared.


080101.20
I wasn’t going to do this guy at all, but with Iria and Ed out of the way.., I did some minor slicing which then went to shredded-paper stuffing which led to gluing which even went on to creating a base!

I did the two body parts first, then both legs to the body, the arms are next. The model should have leveled feet and stand by itself, but this is not so. This led to a pain in the ass, the parts tried and the pressure of laying down became too much in some spots at some points. The wings baffled me for the longest time. As the pieces dwindled, the wing construction sorted itself out. The vinyl does not want to fit properly, so only tiny portions of each wing can be done at a time. They will take me a few more days to get fully self attached.

The head was also a mystery, even with the model photo -- which is inaccurate for the front tentacles. After much puzzling, the left ventricle pod became apparent,then the right, at which point the fore tentacle went on fine. I don't think it's entirely correct, but I'll know better when I put the head on the body. I need to create a mawl of some sort. His mouth does gape wide open it turns out.

The wings are very big and heavy -possibly heavier than the entire body -with stuffing! I will need to insert braces into the assembly so that they do not fold over and sag. I took parts of a broken pencil and use them as leg braces. I think that will be successful over time. However the wings require something stronger, thinner and flat. I have some broken files that may work, otherwise I’ll need to come up with something else. Broken knife blades would work well too. That's an ideal ballpark to shoot for.

As stated previously, it came of necessity. I pulled the box of Marblex out (still nice and moist from China 05 worked way back when) and used most of it. For the most part, I just lumped it out into two big mounds and set cthulhu's feet in it, I then built up from there. As it is so wide, heavy and likely to crack, I took a styrene too, cut in four and inserted the pieces lengthwise through the blob to give it some stability. I then blended over them for total obscurity. I was next going to do some rock texturing, so I went to my landscape materials

A couple of months ago, a bamboo plant I had died, but I kept all the little rocks from the pot. I was only going to use a few, but I covered the entire base with them and dead plants, lichen and dirt. It now looks very sea-like and suits cthulhu well. I shouldn't need to paint it at all, but we'll see. A simple gloss finish could be enough to give it that look it needs.

I don't know if HPL ever gave cthulhu a color scheme, but I think I will need to source some octopi for the painting references. The last Pirates of Caribbean movie will be an excellent starting place for that too...

The only other thing to do is glue his fingers to the body. The maw may take some time and thinking though. The wing braces will need to be found. The base will need a couple of weeks to fully harden before anything can be done with it. I should consider glueing it to a sub base. I'm almost out of masonite slabs, so those are likely out of the question unless I can acquire more. Maybe I'll find some wood paneling that would work equally as well. I'd like to keep the base as it is, but considering the cracking so far, the weight and bulk of the model, a solid and reliable superstructure to the whole is essentially required.


080103.22
The wings are glued. They will need plenty of work along the seam gaps which are moderate to heavy. The head is cured and the maw may not need as much work as I first thought. The feet are stuck into the clay base. I expected to pull him free of that for painting. The entire piece is now lying on its side to help the bottom dry. It will easily be February before it is fully cured. I'll be leaving it alone until then.


080104.22
The clay is still wet so that I was able to easily drag my fingernail through itmarking off the bottom


080113.12
I got some brass rods yesterday to help with his wings. The rods don't quite go too far up the wing, but hopefully enough to keep them tall. The thing I didn't count on was that all the newspaper in the body blocked the rods into the legs. The dremel, when I've got it replaced, will solve this issue. At that point I will glue the wings on immediately and putty.

I spent some time putting up all the seams. I did a dash of texturing by poking and streaking the putty as it dried, but I doubt that will be adequate, but good for now. Not much else to do until the whole thing is together. At that point, it should go quickly into the airbrush pile with the huge amount of other models.

080114.12
His left index finger got knocked off the other day. I've tried dozens of times to get it back on. I may have just succeeded. If so, I'll have to double up the glue in the morning. There have been all sorts of problems with the fingers getting knocked off.

.14
Done and put aside.


080218.00
My last mention seems to be on January 13. Over the last couple days I got the new dremel and drilled the back open for the wing rods. This took some time, but it worked as expected. I dumped several tubes of gel and regular CA into the wing seam and brass. The connection is very stable. It took a full day for the gel CA to dry!

I also realize that I will need rods for the legs too. I stole the brass rod from the AMK. and slice that up. One-piece for each leg. The marblex drilled nicely.

The weak point will be the upper legs. But if he droops over time, it will be forward and be okay. I'm also worried about his upper wings. But those should also droop forward and appear more menacing.


080617.00
Well, the wings slowly fell backward over the last couple months.  The legs stayed fine.

I heated and set the left wing forward. However it has sagged more and is not menacing in any definable way.

It looks very much like I will have to perform surgery. Both wings need a long incision or cross cut to implant as thin and stury a piece of metal in there as I can.  The very upper wings will be fine, but that mid section needs help.  The right wing was set up better and it shows as it is in much better shape than the left, which was done first.

It is otherwise sitting in the airbrush pile.  I should do some color tests on the photos I just took.


080727.11
Did all the surgery over a few days with no problems.  I snapped a fore finger off while brushing, but all was good otherwise.  I gave Cthulhu to a co-worker the other day in celebration of the birth of a child.  What better gift could one get?

I was going for cephalopod colors, but they were too bright so i course-corrected for seaworthiness. Blue helped =, but the green went too Godzilla. So he wound up this dead brown purple blue mottle with some yellow for touches.  Purple is the only color Lovecraft ever mentioned specifically and it works well.  I have to re-balance the photos to remove the casting.


080915.22
A few weeks ago I gave Cthu away as a gift.  Well, just a ay or so later, his left wing began drooping.  I tried reheating it, but it got worse.  I am now faced with giving him an acetone bath to kill the glue.  Undo his wing, rig it with wire, re-glue it and then give him an entire new paint job.  There is no way I will be able to match what is there now fo rjust part of the wing, so I am faced with doing it all again.