MANT

(from Matinee - 1993)

Manufacturer: Resin Relics

Sculptor:  Unknown

Material:  Resin

Scale: 1/6

In the film Matinee, John Goodman plays Lawrence Woolsey, a film writer/producer/ director, circa 1962, that makes “B” grade sci-fi films and travels the country promoting them. The movie Woolsey is promoting is his newest sci-fi thriller, “Mant!”  He’s half man, half ant, all terror!! 

Woolsey uses cheap exploitation tricks to get people in the doors. It’s an obvious homage to the great budget filmmakers of that time; such as Roger Corman, Sam Arkoff, William Castle and Dave Friedman.  So if you grew up with the great “B”s of the 50s and 60s, then you’ll really enjoy this film. It was directed by Joe Dante and it is chock full of little nods to classic monster stuff of the era.

This kit is a sculpt of the atomic mutant from the film within the film. It came in about 10 solid resin parts. The castings were very clean with no pinholes or seam problems so the build up was very easy. I scraped off a few areas of flash, cleaned up a few spots and it was ready for a wash and prime. The hardest part of the kit was the separate name plate. There was no obvious place to put it on the base so I added it as a projection to the front. I puttied and sculpted the area to look like it was all one piece.

The paint scheme was strictly personal preference. In the film, since it was set in the early 60s and was meant to be low budget, it was shot in black and white – as all good atomic bug movies are. Therefore it’s up to the modeler to decide what to do. What color do you think a mutated half man/half ant would be?

I rendered the entire kit in acrylic paints with airbrush and hand painted details. The base has several different layers of washes and dry brushing.