The View From The Mountain

Back in 2003, they released Freddy Vs. Jason, which paired up Freddy from the Nightmare on Elm Street film with the machete-wielding star of the Friday the Thirteenth films, Jason. At the same time, Andrea Miniatures had released this great 1/32 scale figure of Freddy. I was tempted to build a diorama of these two Horror movie icons meeting. I created a Jason figure from a 1/32 scale blank. His clothes and mask were sculpted from Apopxie putty. Jason's machete was cut from a styrene sheet. I built the Freddy figure straight out of the box. He comes with this great, atmospheric stand that has a grate, girders and even a chain. I put both Freddy and Jason on a watery, dream-like base. The arms sticking out of the "water" (it was actually Flex-Paste) were extra parts from the blank figure box. May you all have a Happy Halloween!

I have this model kit of the Klingon D-7 battlecruiser in 1/1000 scale. It's a small kit, without any surface detail, and so although it had already been built an painted, I decided to rework it. I added styrene sheet on the main body and created impulse engines and a rear torpedo bay with spare parts that I had on hand. When I painted it, I used a two-tone green color, and the styrene sheets really stand out. I tried to make the repaint of this look more like the ship has been out in space (and in several battles) for a while. It sits on a nice stand. I always loved this Klingon ship design, which gave the ship a nice predator vibe.

When The Man in the High Castle first premiered on the Amazon streaming service, it was a hard show to watch. Don’t get me wrong, TMITHC was superbly done, with great scripts and marvelous acting that created the dire, dread-filled feeling of living in a world where the Axis powers won the Second World War. It was hard seeing an America that had been crushed and demoralized and was now occupied by the Nazi Reich on the east coast, and the Japanese Empire on the west coast. The Neutral Zone offered some freedom, but being lawless, the NZ didn’t really have much in the way of hope. Yet despite this down-beat scenario, I kept watching the show because it was just very well-done overall. And I was also a major fan of series star Alexa Davalos, who plays Juliana Crain. But there was something else that intrigued me, a scene at the very end of the first season which changed the tone of the series completely--much in the same way how the first season of Game of Thrones had no magic, save ...

I saw this model at a Chiller Horror convention many years ago and I just had to have it. It's The Invasion of the Saucer Men, from Mad Lab models, based on the 1950s film. I was never really a big fan of the Saucer Men movie, it's just that I bought this model because I thought it was so cool. It even comes with a mini-poster of the movie, and the base is a movie theater lobby. The kit was made of solid resin, and I had a lot of fun with it. It was cool re-creating a 1950s' style theater lobby floor. Sadly, this piece is no longer being made, so I consider myself really lucky to have it.