AMT/Ertl Vinyl Rancor

I started this kit by heating and trimming all of the over pours of vinyl, then filling the legs with pre-mixed drywall plaster for weight. The parts all fit very well, with a judicious application of a hot hair dryer and a mix of thin and thick gap-filling superglue. Seams were dealt with using Deluxe Perfect Plastic Putty and a wet finger. Before adding the head, I cut out the eyes (eww!) and replaced them with 7mm glass ones from glasseyes.com, in Wales. I then filled the head with expanding foam for stability and glued it in place as per the previous description.

With the building part finished, I primed the entire model with Tamiya Fine White Primer from a spray bomb. Love this stuff! The colours are Tamiya acrylics thinned with Tamiya thinner, and applied using my Iwata HP-C airbrush. I used XF-55 Deck Tan as the underside colour, followed by XF-57 Buff for the overall body colour, then used XF-52 Flat Earth and XF-58 Olive Green for the pattern on the body and to add some break-up of the overall tan look. The mouth was hand brushed in reds and purples using Vallejo transparent colours and inks. The teeth, claws and toenails were hand brushed Polly Scale Dirty White. I gloss coated the entire kit, and then added a wash of reddish brown to the teeth and nails. His iron bracelet was painted Tamiya XF-84 Dark Iron, with some Tamiya weathering system Rust colours added after the dull cote. The chain dangling from the bracelet was treated with Blacken-it, to give it that old crusty-rusty-dusty look. Green snot was added at the end for a splash (!) of colour. (ick!)

The Gammoran guard was hand brushed in shades of green and brown and added to the hungry cave beasty. The base is a simple wooden tray from Michaels, filled with pre-mixed drywall plaster, painted in desert shades and covered in model railroad ballast. Before the plaster set completely, I pressed the Rancor into it, to give it the appearance of some weight.
Enjoy the pictures!

5 additional images. Click to enlarge.