Mike Blanchard | McGovern's Models

MIKE BLANCHARD

Owner of The CORE comic book store in Cedar Falls, Iowa, Mike has a collection that boggles my mind. Over the last couple years, he has regularly let me dip into his model collection, building an ever expanding number of kits.

Fred Flypogger

Flip Out This is an original issue 1965 kit.	Flip Out, Left Each Fred Flypogger kit came with a mouse (for Stan "Mouse" Miller, the designer). I customized this mouse with baggies and a surf board.	Flip Out, Mouse The mouse's baggies were sculpted with Aves Apoxie Sculpt and the surf board was cut from thin sheet styrene.
Flip Out, Right The Fred Flypoggers were mounted on identical wood plaques. The kit base details were extended over the tops of the plaques with various materials.	Flip Out, Shark I detailed the shark's mouth by hollowing it out. The interior was modeled with Aves. Tiny bits of styrene represent teeth.	Flip Out, Back I've always said that artists oils are best for rendering flesh colors - even for a goofy character like Flip Out. An Iwata Revolution CR airbrush helped me to create the illusion of light shining through the wave.
Flip Out, Starfish I carefully mixed a batch of 5-minute epoxy to avoid getting air bubbles trapped in the clear cement. A toothpick was used to apply the epoxy to the starfish's eyes to represent corneas.	Flip Out, Fly Each Flypogger kit comes with a fly, which is always a challenge to mount. I used stretched clear sprue for the job.	Flip Out, Box Art Angle Mike picked out the color scheme for Fred's cutoffs and surf board. Stan Miller's box art provided inspiration for Flip Out's look. Anything else I painted as realistically as I could.
Speed Shift This is the 2000 reissue by Revell-Monogram of Fred Flypogger as Speed Shift. I'm not ordinarily a car modeler, so this project allowed me to practice my gloss painting skills.	Speed Shift, Left Rear As with the other models, Fred indicated his preferences, then let me loose to detail them as I saw fit.	Speed Shift, Close Up Fred likes his monsters' eyes well blood-vesseled and the teeth good and grimy. I painted the ubiquitous fly with interference blue paint for the shiny effect flies have.
Speed Shift, Mouse It's not a Flypogger without a mouse!	Speed Shift, Right I applied sandpaper to the base to create the appearance of asphalt. The dividing line was painted to make it appear that Speed Shift wasn't staying in his lane. White glue formed the blobs of tar on the road.	Speed Shift, Front These are photos of Speed Shift before I shipped the model to Mike. It was heavily damage in transit. Although I was able to repair Speed Shift, it doesn't look quite the same today.
Super Fuzz Super Fuzz was another reissue kit, released in 2000 by Revell/Monogram. This was the first model Mike commissioned me to build for him.	Super Fuzz, Right The model was originally issued by Monogram in 1965, one of a series of the three Flypogger models designed by Stanley "Mouse" Miller, Jr.	Super Fuzz, Right Rear Mike was very specific about his preferences for the model. He wanted the machine gun flash, ejected shells, and a cotton dust/smoke cloud being thrown up by the car. I also drilled the holes in the cooling jacket and replaced the handcuff chain with real metal links.
Super Fuzz, Left Rear The lettering for "FUZZ" was hand-painted with Testors oil-based paint. This was my first use of Alclad II chrome paint. I was amazed at how well it worked on the very first try.	Super Fuzz, Right Profile Here you can see the machine gun in all its glory. I added the wrist band because I broke the joint late in the build. The band was the easiest fix, plus it supports the joint against further breakage. The flight path for the fly was made from a piece of clear rod that was originally part of a floral arrangement card holder.	Super Fuzz, Left Mike wanted a free-standing nameplate; he also requested body hair on Super Fuzz, which I made from steel wool and theatrical crepe hair. He left the extra details of the base up to me.
Super Fuzz, Front One of the first things Mike and I decided on was a flashing LED inside the dome atop Super Fuzz's helmet. The light, battery pack, and switch all came from Policecarmodels.com, an excellent resource for small lighting effects like this.