Billiken’s Cyclops from ‘The 7th Voyage of Sinbad’
This is the story of how I rejuvenated my 1984 model of one of my favourite Ray Harryhausen monsters.
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1984 |
2013 |
The restoration process
This is my original paint job, which I was pretty proud of back in 1984. The head, jaw, arms and legs were posable which meant the join lines were very visible. This feature was always unpleasing to my eye.
The original acrylic paint was removed by spraying the entire model with Isopropyl alcohol and scrubbing with an old toothbrush. This process took quite few hours more than I anticipated and resulted in exposing many, tiny air bubble holes, particularly on his arms, which would have to be filled.
Before any filling of the joints was started I decided to put some hair on his legs. This was done by scratching each individual hair into the vinyl, using a panel scribing tool. After many hours a very pleasing result was achieved, but I don’t think I’ll be doing it again in any hurry!
Some manicuring was necessary to make his fingernails more representative of the movie original. This was done using a motor tool set to a fairly slow speed and fitted with a very fine, round dental burr (thanks Alice).
In this and the next two shots his head, jaw, arms and legs have all been glued in position and filled with Milliput epoxy putty. Note also the new Milliput horn tip and dental work.
Some extra warts were added to his back using small drops of CA glue.
The filled joints around his neck and jaw were given a coat of liquid filler to make sure that there were no gaps left. You can also see in this shot the tiny holes on his arms have been filled using Milliput.
After studying the movie for hours the new paint job was applied and he is finished.
He now stands proudly in the bookshelves right next to my ‘Clash of the Titans’ gorgon, Medusa.
STATIC CAPITAL 
Looks awesome Chris ! Huge improvement on the 1984 job
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Hi Chris, what a great revival, often happens to me with some of my models that I keep in my cabinet, as time passes I realize some details over the years with lack some finishing observance best …
Cyclops did you rejuvenate Congratulations!
Ben
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Very nice work, very informative, thanks for sharing
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