More Keith Cosins Models
More Dracula Models

Bela Lugosi as
Dracula Bust

Tony McVey
Scale 1/4 vinyl bust
Painted by
Keith Cousins
"Cous3"


This is the McVey Bela Lugosi vinyl bust that was produced at the same time as the full figure version. Both this and the full figure version use the same mold, the likeness to Bela Lugosi can only be described as excellent.

 

After being given a coat of grey primer the first job was to work out how I wanted Bela to look in my head. I decided on a "fresh out of the dressing room look", plenty of white on the face with those dark rings around the eyes.

 

To start I applied light coats of a mix of 50-50 Matt Flesh and Matt White, here is where I found that a White primer would have been better. To cover the face and get the look I wanted and to also cover the grey primer took in the region of 10 to 12 light coats. However I find that the advantage of using so many light coats is that you are left with NO brush marks what so ever.

Once dried the eyes were touched in, white and ivory mix for the eye followed by a Black dot, onto this went a dot of blue, then black for the pupil finished off with a pin prick of White.
The lips gave me a bit of a problem, at first I painted them two shades lighter than the face but they looked too Orange. So after watching a few clips of Bela in action (B & W of course) I went for a more Pink/Burgundy/White mix, this as it turned out was just what I had pictured in my head at the start.

Now for my favorite bit, shading the face with pastels.

 I used a mixture of flesh colored pastels to shade and color the face, once I was happy with that, the face was sealed with a Matt spray sealant.

 It looked good but again not what I had in my head, so out came the pastels again and a heavy coating of White pastel powder was applied with a large brush to the entire face.

I then sealed the face again and added more White pastel to the cheeks, nose etc, now I was happy!

The hair and eyebrows were base coated Matt Black and drybrushed with Dark Grey just to break up the Black which otherwise would have looked too flat.

The shirt and bow tie and were base coated Matt White. I asked an older member of my family about the "dickie", the starched shirt front and found out that they used to have a Satin sheen to them (apparently my Granddad wore one occasionally).

So once the shading was finished on the White garments and for this I used Grey pastels, the dickie and collar were given a coat of Satin sealant.

The waist coat was painted a Khaki/White mix and the edges drybrushed with a lighter shade. Dark Red, drybrushed with a lighter shade was used for the ribbon to which the Gold medallion is attached.

The jacket lapels are Satin Black, the cloak and the rest of the jacket were painted Matt Black and the folds highlighted with dark grey.

 The base was given a base coat of Matt Black and then several coats of drybrushed Bronze were applied to give the metallic effect to the gargoyles and the surrounding area.

Overall a kit that I would highly recommend to any Bela fan and one that was a real pleasure to work with. My thanks to
Mark Atherton
(aka Wolfman Of Bolton)
who helped me track down this kit
......Cheers Mark!