The Hellboy/BPRD comic book props of "Grim Tim"
- Thread starter The 48th Ronin
- Start date
Thank you very much, guys! 
It helps to share my pathology
It helps to share my pathology
Tim I just watched an interesting doc on iconography, a portion of which explains the sator square, a fascinating and deceptively complex little item.Thank you very much, guys!
It helps to share my pathology
Should be spooled to the right timestamp, but it’s at 12:10
VERY interesting. Thanks for the link.
Well, I wasn't *entirely* successful in capturing a decent pic of the whole collection all laid out together. The challenge was in getting enough light - but not TOO much light - on the pieces that I placed on a black background. I tried both my compact point and shoot digital camera and my cell phone - I think they both struggled a bit with the issue of contrast, and the results were some less-than-sharp pics. I think the phone fared a little better with the complete group, while the camera seemed to do a bit better with the closer individual group shots.
Anyway, here ya go...
And here are the pieces in the pouches from the pop-up images, as you go from left to right across the belt...
Lucky marzipan skull:
For this one, I picked up a large "sugar skull" bead ornament from a crafter on Etsy:
After I removed the hanger, some decorative beads from the bottom, and the large flower from the top, I had my base form:
I then pried the flower pieces out of the eye sockets and partially filled the sockets with Bondo, to transform them into shallow depressions. I also filled in the hole on the top of the skull, but left the hole in the bottom - I used that to insert a rod, to make the painting process easier. I primed it and based it out with flat white, and then hand painted the designs, much like the Mignola drawing. I then glued the eye flowers back on. Not exactly the same, but in the ballpark:
Cornelius Agrippa charm:
Even though I've done this piece twice already, I wanted to take a crack at this version, because it's *slightly* different - it's a little more angular and rather pointy on that one side. Plus, a couple of the small details also differ a bit. Like the pattern that I made for the Skelton Crew Studios Agrippa Charm, I also did this one by cutting shapes out of thin layers of Ren Shape with a jeweler's saw and then stacked them up until the whole form was assembled:
I molded it and poured the final piece in the low-temp. tin/bismuth alloy:
Saint Christopher medal:
I found this antique French medal that's somewhat similar to the drawing (in general proportions, and in the position of the figures):
I also picked up this medal - even though it doesn't match, I really liked the sculptural style:
Stone figure:
I had my friend sculpt this one as well, out of volcanic rock:
Roman Republic silver denarius:
I chose this particular replica to go with the image, because out of the examples that I acquired, this profile of Roma most closely resembled Mignola's drawing. I found no evidence of denarii without any numerals, letters, or other markings around the head. This example is a denarius of Marcus Tullius, circa 120 BC:
This example is a denarius of C. Serveilius, circa 136 BC:
And this example is a denarius of L. Saufeius, circa 152 BC:
So that makes 3 denarii, just like Pope Gregory VII used
Finger bone of Davy Crockett:
This is an honest-to-god, real human finger bone:
It took me a little while to overcome some initial squeamishness, and to even open the polybag that it came in to actually touch it. It's just strange to think that it was once part of a person... and even stranger still to consider that a part of them somehow ended up in my collection of odd stuff. It's just weird.
Anyway... I picked up some grommets and grommet setting tools from Buckleguy.com to create the tattered remnants of the inventory tag. I attached it to the finger with floral wire that I tinted with a couple different washes of oil paints thinned with turpenoid.
Eye of Horus/Eye of Ra:
I'm still not sure that I completely understand the difference between the Eye of Horus and the Eye of Ra. I realize that one refers to the sun, and the other the moon... but when I googled it, I found images that had this eye (the right?) labeled as BOTH Eye of Horus AND Eye of Ra. Same with the left eye. So my question is, "well... which IS it, really?"
I initially acquired a few replicas of some traditional ancient Egyptian pieces, but they obviously aren't exactly the same as the drawing:
So I went ahead and sculpted the Mignola version out of rigid polyurethane foam:
I sealed it with AcrylPro, which is actually tile adhesive - I learned from some colleagues that it's rather good for coating and sealing open cell foam. I then primed it and molded it.
I made a few castings in various colors of tinted resin, just to explore options - a couple of them then got multi-process paint jobs:
I realize that the coloring of the original art probably shouldn't be taken literally, but it did occur to me that the dark monochrome color could possibly be interpreted as the black basalt stone that was sometimes used in ancient Egypt. So I decided to go with that - this is black tinted resin that I lightly sanded with a few different grits of increasingly finer sanding sponges and then buffed with a rag. I gave it a very thin wash of yellow ochre oil paint in turpenoid, mixed with a bit of titanium white and just a touch of burnt umber:
Bottle of tears:
I found the description of the (clearly stone/clay) bottle filled with tears from a mysteriously weeping statue to be more compelling than a glass bottle filled with holy oil. Plus, I have no idea how to work with glass... and I doubt that I could have found anything similar in a replica.
I also sculpted this one out of rigid polyurethane foam. I first bought some small corks, and then scaled the size of the bottle to the dimensions of the cork that I chose to use. And since it had a cork, I figured that I should probably go ahead and make the bottle hollow... because I'm just that crazy. I cut the bottle in half, along one of the detail grooves, hollowed out the insides of the two halves, and then glued them back together.
This also got sealed with AcrylPro, and then primed:
It also ended up with a multi-process paint job, as I tried to dial in the color. The last step was a very thin wash of oil paints in turpenoid, which I also used to dirty down the cork a bit. I also went in with a thin pin wash of titanium white, to create the look of encrusted salt that had leached out of the tears through the bottle. For the remains of the lanyard, I used some .5mm round leather lace:
Anyway, here ya go...
And here are the pieces in the pouches from the pop-up images, as you go from left to right across the belt...
Lucky marzipan skull:
For this one, I picked up a large "sugar skull" bead ornament from a crafter on Etsy:
After I removed the hanger, some decorative beads from the bottom, and the large flower from the top, I had my base form:
I then pried the flower pieces out of the eye sockets and partially filled the sockets with Bondo, to transform them into shallow depressions. I also filled in the hole on the top of the skull, but left the hole in the bottom - I used that to insert a rod, to make the painting process easier. I primed it and based it out with flat white, and then hand painted the designs, much like the Mignola drawing. I then glued the eye flowers back on. Not exactly the same, but in the ballpark:
Cornelius Agrippa charm:
Even though I've done this piece twice already, I wanted to take a crack at this version, because it's *slightly* different - it's a little more angular and rather pointy on that one side. Plus, a couple of the small details also differ a bit. Like the pattern that I made for the Skelton Crew Studios Agrippa Charm, I also did this one by cutting shapes out of thin layers of Ren Shape with a jeweler's saw and then stacked them up until the whole form was assembled:
I molded it and poured the final piece in the low-temp. tin/bismuth alloy:
Saint Christopher medal:
I found this antique French medal that's somewhat similar to the drawing (in general proportions, and in the position of the figures):
I also picked up this medal - even though it doesn't match, I really liked the sculptural style:
Stone figure:
I had my friend sculpt this one as well, out of volcanic rock:
Roman Republic silver denarius:
I chose this particular replica to go with the image, because out of the examples that I acquired, this profile of Roma most closely resembled Mignola's drawing. I found no evidence of denarii without any numerals, letters, or other markings around the head. This example is a denarius of Marcus Tullius, circa 120 BC:
This example is a denarius of C. Serveilius, circa 136 BC:
And this example is a denarius of L. Saufeius, circa 152 BC:
So that makes 3 denarii, just like Pope Gregory VII used
Finger bone of Davy Crockett:
This is an honest-to-god, real human finger bone:
It took me a little while to overcome some initial squeamishness, and to even open the polybag that it came in to actually touch it. It's just strange to think that it was once part of a person... and even stranger still to consider that a part of them somehow ended up in my collection of odd stuff. It's just weird.
Anyway... I picked up some grommets and grommet setting tools from Buckleguy.com to create the tattered remnants of the inventory tag. I attached it to the finger with floral wire that I tinted with a couple different washes of oil paints thinned with turpenoid.
Eye of Horus/Eye of Ra:
I'm still not sure that I completely understand the difference between the Eye of Horus and the Eye of Ra. I realize that one refers to the sun, and the other the moon... but when I googled it, I found images that had this eye (the right?) labeled as BOTH Eye of Horus AND Eye of Ra. Same with the left eye. So my question is, "well... which IS it, really?"
I initially acquired a few replicas of some traditional ancient Egyptian pieces, but they obviously aren't exactly the same as the drawing:
So I went ahead and sculpted the Mignola version out of rigid polyurethane foam:
I sealed it with AcrylPro, which is actually tile adhesive - I learned from some colleagues that it's rather good for coating and sealing open cell foam. I then primed it and molded it.
I made a few castings in various colors of tinted resin, just to explore options - a couple of them then got multi-process paint jobs:
I realize that the coloring of the original art probably shouldn't be taken literally, but it did occur to me that the dark monochrome color could possibly be interpreted as the black basalt stone that was sometimes used in ancient Egypt. So I decided to go with that - this is black tinted resin that I lightly sanded with a few different grits of increasingly finer sanding sponges and then buffed with a rag. I gave it a very thin wash of yellow ochre oil paint in turpenoid, mixed with a bit of titanium white and just a touch of burnt umber:
Bottle of tears:
I found the description of the (clearly stone/clay) bottle filled with tears from a mysteriously weeping statue to be more compelling than a glass bottle filled with holy oil. Plus, I have no idea how to work with glass... and I doubt that I could have found anything similar in a replica.
I also sculpted this one out of rigid polyurethane foam. I first bought some small corks, and then scaled the size of the bottle to the dimensions of the cork that I chose to use. And since it had a cork, I figured that I should probably go ahead and make the bottle hollow... because I'm just that crazy. I cut the bottle in half, along one of the detail grooves, hollowed out the insides of the two halves, and then glued them back together.
This also got sealed with AcrylPro, and then primed:
It also ended up with a multi-process paint job, as I tried to dial in the color. The last step was a very thin wash of oil paints in turpenoid, which I also used to dirty down the cork a bit. I also went in with a thin pin wash of titanium white, to create the look of encrusted salt that had leached out of the tears through the bottle. For the remains of the lanyard, I used some .5mm round leather lace:
