Your Dog Is Aliiive!

The second of our Halloween models is the main focus of Tim Burton's beautifully animated sci-fi-horror movie Frankenweenie, none other than Victor Frankenstein's energetic four-legged best friend, Sparky. I really enjoyed working on this model, Tim Burton's uniquely cute and creepy style is so much fun to play around with and world's apart from the usual Disney style models. For his pose I chose his cute and dopey sitting stance as I think this captures his character really well, but due to his thin and long body parts the amount of times I found myself gluing pieces back onto this model, I almost called the post ''...don't worry I can fix that''.

Despite the movie being in black and white, Sparky is portrayed as having an off white coloured coat so for the clean variant I used Valejo game colour Bone White, which was perfect for his main colour. I then used dead white for his eyes and black to colour all of his scars and details. To finish I dry brushed some white over the ridges on his tail and ears which brought out the texture a lot more. Since Sparky is a movie star I wanted to create the theme of horror movie posters for the photos which I think worked out beautifully, the black and white mixed with the eerie green really creates that creepy appearance and I love the way these photos turned out.

Although modeling in his scars was probably my favourite overall part, I usually try to place the ornamental patterns as symmetrically as possible, so fitting them around his scars was definitely the most challenging thing about this model. To paint him I used Arteza Pearl White for his body and Space grey for his scars and details. For the ornamental patterns I used Valejo game silver which gave the patterns a really metallic shine and also serves to separate them from his scars. I wanted to create a theme of electricity for the ornamental photos since that's what brings Sparky to life, so I made a lightning strike with some fairy lights for the backdrop. 

For the final variant this month I swapped out the usual Patchwork colour scheme and created a Sugar Skull variant in honour of the upcoming Day of the Dead festival. For the photos I put together a colourful alter to display the models with some flowers candles and candies. To paint him I again firstly covered his main body with 2 coats of Arteza space grey. Once he was dry I then painted over his patterns with 2 coats of Valejo Dead White and then finally a top coat of Arteza Pearl White for the metallic finish. Shiny! I then painted his head with Valejo Bone White which I highlighted with Dead White, I then painted his head patterns with a mix of Arteza metallic's. Finally I used space grey for his face details and scars. I think this turned out to be my favourite variant so far the sugar skull aesthetic looks beautiful in the photos and I'm really happy with how these came out.

I really enjoyed trying out a new variant for the FDM models this month so I think that's something I'll be doing more of in future for special occasions.

I loved Frankenweenie, its a really awesome example of stop motion animation, the thing that really struck me about the whole film was how life-like Sparky's movements are, despite the fact he doesn't talk it really gives him personality and makes the character feel real. The choice of black and white for the movies aesthetic really adds that old school horror movie feel which I really enjoyed as well, its different and also a little bit heart-wrenching as all good Disney movies are.

Any ideas for future FDM variants you would like to see? Leave a comment below! and don't forget to follow @poisonappleprints on Instagram for more photos and updates! 

As always, thanks for subscribing! See you in the next post!

Harley