Happy Halloween!

I never have to think long and hard for my annual Halloween sets. The list is a mile long and growing. I am thrilled that I actually had the time this year to make this particular set, the main doll being the Cenobite from “Hellraiser.”

I sort of wanted this one to be more about the supernatural killers, but I can’t help lumping Captain Spaulding from “House of 1000 Corpses” in here. These ones are so much fun to paint. Maybe next year I’ll get around to painting an all-female killer cast…or even one featuring children! The possibilities are endless!

Happy Halloween!

New Updates

I’d been looking at some older sets I’ve done years ago and haven’t had a chance to do it again and was hit with a sense of nostalgia. Some of those sets were painted in a corner of the dining table, or at my parents’ house when I visited with my little bulldog Bo snoozing at my feet. Those had been simpler, pleasant times and I decided to have a go at it again, and also to see if my skillz have improved over the years.

The first of the revivals was of course, “Small Wonder,” a very strange little sitcom about a man who secretly built himself a Roomba/Rosie Jetson the Maid  in the form of a little girl.

Vicki the robot “slept” in a little cupboard in the boy’s room and her existence was solely to clean up after the Lawson family as well as complicating their lives when caught doing un-little girl like things such as lifting up the couch so she could hoover under it. Harriet the neighbor was often seen eavesdropping and making inappropriate advances on little Jamie Lawson so that he can now rightfully #metoo on all conceivable social platforms. A show like this would never ever exist in today’s society so maybe that’s why I still love it so much.

These next updates were long in coming. I was never entirely happy with the first versions. The Mighty Boosh is a difficult one to configure because of the enormous cast, and also two of my favorites were basically a moon and a head with tentacles. But I figured it out.

This smaller version features Howard Moon and Vince Noir from season one, with Old Gregg with his Bailey’s and watercolor, Naboo the Shaman and Bollo the ape.

This deluxe version also features Howard and Vince but in different togs, Bollo, Old Gregg, Naboo, Tony Harrison, and, since there was still room for one more, the Moon, who is my favorite character on the show after Tony Harrison.

Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Beetlejuice

Every year around this time I would have to screen “Beetlejuice.” Unlike most, I actually watched the Beetlejuice cartoon series first and found Beetlejuice and his relationship with Lydia kind of cute, albeit in that teen-girl-hanging-out-with-a-slightly-inappropriate-uncle sort of way in the animated series. But I get it. I had an older male baby-sitter, who, in retrospect, was really just a high school senior at the time, but he had a full beard and a luscious mullet and was slightly larger than average so I had always figured him to be in his 40s and he would often ride off into the sunset with my newly acquired dirt bike, vowing never to return, but then he would, armed with homemade cassette tapes of his drum solo. Looking back, he is really awesome and I was lucky to have him instead of someone from The Baby-sitters Club who would be all up in my business with coloring books and solving my 8-year-old problems for me. No thanks.

Anyway, I have done a Beetlejuice set a long time ago and always meant to update it, perhaps with Lydia in her red wedding gown. It didn’t happen this time, which means there’s always the next. I did do something fun with the Maitlands, though, and added Miss Argentina into the mix.

At this go, I have almost the right shade of green wool to make Beetlejuice’s hair, although it did have to be dirtied up slightly.

Making Lydia’s hair was fun although I would have preferred to make that enormous wide brimmed hat.

This version of Adam and Barbara Maitland made them seem a lot less vanilla and a lot more fun to paint!

Mad Max 2 Road Warrior

There’s something so Yin and Yang about double sets, or in this case, Good and Evil. It took a while for this set to materialize, but that’s only because I went a bit overboard with the details (so what else is new?).

This set features the second of the Mad Max trilogy: Road Warrior.

The “Good” set features Max himself, Gyro Captain, Warrior Woman, Feral Kid, and Max’s dog.

The second “Evil” set is all about: Lord Hummungus, Wez, Bearclaw Mohawk, Bad Cop, and Toadie.

“I’m just here for the gasoline.”

A Portrait Set

Everything about this portrait set is adorable. From the very handsome couple to their little doggies.

When the subject of an Easter egg surprise was broached, I more or less squealed and immediately made the mini objects.