The Thing's Dr. Copper

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kevtk135
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The Thing's Dr. Copper

#1 Post by kevtk135 »

Copper was a physician stationed at American Antarctic research station, U.S. Outpost 31. The character appears in the 1982 film The Thing and was portrayed by the late Richard Dysart. His fate is also briefly touched upon in the 1991 comic series The Thing From Another World.

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The kit is another addition to The Thing collection of bust kits by Gillman Productions. As with the others, it is in 1/4 scale and the casting is very nice. There is only the slightest seam line across the hair and a bubble on one tooth. The scene depicts just after the Norris Thing's stomach munches off his arms.

After the usual prep for resin, it gets a prime and then I start with the skin. And begin with my normal coat of pink.
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Continuing on when the pink is dry, it's gets it's base coat of flesh. Then a little Citadel Reikland Flesh shade thru the a/b to reinforce the skin shadows. If you try this technique, make sure to leave some of the pink showing...
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While that was drying I turned my attention to the base. It is basically a big hunk of resin with the Norris Thing's stomach teeth. Wow that was a large description... I've been watching the videos of pro miniaturist Eric Swinson, and in his critique videos, he's often said don't let the painted base rival the figure itself. So I've been trying to make my bases a little plainer.
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The next items on the agenda are his hair, the shirt, and the ... blood. The hair was fairly easy, as it just a salt and pepper look. Now off the top of my head I pictured more salt, but in looking at the images, I was wrong. So a little more dark colors went into the head. The shirt is a maroon red shirt, with a beige-white undershirt. V's Cavalry Brown suit the bill. I added a little beige to some of it to create a highlight.

The blood was next. My feeling in re: to this is that less is more. But this a pretty gruesome scene. So the stumps have to be bloody, but I left enuff flesh where you could still see it, plus a bit of the bone. I also put a little so some of the arm got it, but used a purple wash to indicate bruising (not that bruising would happen that fat. Finally, I mixed a water down blood color and with the a/b created some spatter - a little on the arms some on the shirt - which the red color of that tones down the gore, and then a few dots of it hit his face. A finally spatter on the base and I was done. Thanks for looking.
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barad_dur
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#2 Post by barad_dur »

Nice work - great blood spatter effect!
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#3 Post by bucketfoot-al »

Horrible scene! Man that movie gave me nightmares!!! :shocked2:

As Joe said ... nice ... effect ... :thud
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#4 Post by tay666 »

Coming along great!
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#5 Post by Squidy53 »

Geez, hand round the bucket Kev. That said, your usual excellent paint up. Thanks for the process; I always pick up little nuggets from them.

In a useless piece of movie trivia, the arms were made of Jell-O and gelatin blood tubes and dental wax bones. Watching the sequence you can see 'Copper' pulls away too quickly and an arm severs above the bite.
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#6 Post by kevtk135 »

Thanks guys appreciate the kind words!

Squidy53 wrote: November 1st, 2025, 3:02 am Geez, hand round the bucket Kev. That said, your usual excellent paint up. Thanks for the process; I always pick up little nuggets from them.

In a useless piece of movie trivia, the arms were made of Jell-O and gelatin blood tubes and dental wax bones. Watching the sequence you can see 'Copper' pulls away too quickly and an arm severs above the bite.
Love trivia and behind the scenes stuff as well. For the end of the scene, after Copper gets separated from his arms, they brought in a double arm amputee to play Copper waving whats left of the arms before he falls over. Cool stuff!
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#7 Post by Squidy53 »

kevtk135 wrote: November 1st, 2025, 2:07 pm Love trivia and behind the scenes stuff as well. For the end of the scene, after Copper gets separated from his arms, they brought in a double arm amputee to play Copper waving whats left of the arms before he falls over. Cool stuff!
Yeah, cool indeed! and though you can see the stand-in is wearing a mask, this turn of events is so crazy you don't care. Of course, what follows is even more stupendous! I love that scene. I couldn't agree more with Palmer when he says, "You've gotta be f***in' kidding me!" and he, at that stage was a thing!

I remember back in the day I skipped out on my mother's second (or third, I don't know) wedding reception to go and see 'The Thing'. I was alone in the cinema, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As I'm sure you know Kev it sent Rob Bottin into hospital but after more than 40 years 'The Thing' is still the high-water mark for practical makeup effects.
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#8 Post by kevtk135 »

Squidy53 wrote: November 1st, 2025, 9:46 pm
kevtk135 wrote: November 1st, 2025, 2:07 pm Love trivia and behind the scenes stuff as well. For the end of the scene, after Copper gets separated from his arms, they brought in a double arm amputee to play Copper waving whats left of the arms before he falls over. Cool stuff!
Yeah, cool indeed! and though you can see the stand-in is wearing a mask, this turn of events is so crazy you don't care. Of course, what follows is even more stupendous! I love that scene. I couldn't agree more with Palmer when he says, "You've gotta be f***in' kidding me!" and he, at that stage was a thing!

I remember back in the day I skipped out on my mother's second (or third, I don't know) wedding reception to go and see 'The Thing'. I was alone in the cinema, and I couldn't believe what I was seeing. As I'm sure you know Kev it sent Rob Bottin into hospital but after more than 40 years 'The Thing' is still the high-water mark for practical makeup effects.
Agreed. I really wish practical would make a comeback. But now I feel Holly wood needs to concentrate on getting writers that can write a story fans care about.
But anyway for the past year or so "Reactions" have been a thing on YouTube. These "youngsters watch a film that they swear they've never seen before. And you basically watch them watch it. I love watching them react to the Thing! Haha.
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#9 Post by Squidy53 »

Yeah, I've watched a number of these too. Another good reaction film is 'Aliens.' I love their "They did this without computers, right?"
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#10 Post by llricmc »

I love it! And rendered without computer aid as well.
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#11 Post by kevtk135 »

llricmc wrote: November 11th, 2025, 2:31 am I love it! And rendered without computer aid as well.
Thanks!
Nope, just me and my lil airbrush... ;)
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#12 Post by Squidy53 »

kevtk135 wrote: November 2nd, 2025, 2:21 pm I really wish practical would make a comeback.
To some degree I think they are. 'Predator: Badlands', 'Alien: Romulus', 'Nosferatu' and the latest 'Frankenstein' leaned on practical sets and prosthetics a lot. Director Robert Eggers said in 'Nosferatu' they "try to do all the big crazy stuff that would normally be done with CG practically" in this film. The same applies to 'Frankenstein'. If you haven't, check out the "Anatomy Lesson" making-of doco on Netflix to see the extraordinary lengths del Toro went to to make it real.
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#13 Post by Glusniffer »

All kinds of cool! :smokin:
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#14 Post by kevtk135 »

Thanks!!
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Re: The Thing's Dr. Copper

#15 Post by Stormheart »

:like
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