McGovern's Models Other Works

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OTHER WORKS

Building plastic models isn't the only my only area of interest. Here are some thumbnail galleries of other things I've done.

Make Up

1982 Werewolf I love doing makeups at Halloween, but somehow I don't always get good photos of them. Here are some of the better pictures. This is a werewolf, clearly based on the monster played by Oliver Reed in CURSE OF THE WEREWOLF (1961).	1990s_Ghoul I've done "Raoul D. Ghoul" a couple times. He's fun, an effective use of colors only to create the character. Well, that and a set of fangs I made from dental resin.
2008_Vampire Here's a vampire, more your nasty revenant type than a stately movie monster.	2009_Mummy This Mummy started as a prepackaged soft plastic skull appliance that I grafted onto a latex bald cap with liquid latex and paper towels. The costume was made from strips of dyed linen that I hot-glued onto a set of long johns that had been filled with crumpled newspaper.
2010_Ghost The next year I took it easy and did a simple greasepaint ghost. The costume was borrowed from our local community theater.	Sir Ronald Speaking of community theater, I have appeared in, and created several makeups for, productions by the Toledo Repertoire Theater. Here is Mr. Scott Dibling as Sir Ronald in the Rep's 2009 production of PASS THE BUTLER, by Eric Idle. The forehead wrinkles look badly drawn on here, but the angle of Scott's brow caught the stage lights so that nothing but the creases showed up. On stage, they looked fine.
Ronnie_Left Mr. Dibling was in his early fifties when we began rehearsal. In order to make him look like a British aristocrat in his 70s, I asked Scott to grow his hair, eyebrows, and a mustache. He complied, and the extra hair was grayed - the simplest way to convey age.	Ronnie_Full The rest of the aging process was a matter of carefully applying colors. Scott's portrayal of Ronnie was so effective, his own father didn't recognize him from the audience!
Johnathan Brewster This is Mr. Michael Searle as Johnathan Brewster, the principal psycho in the Rep's 2013 production of ARSENIC AND OLD LACE.	Johnathan Brewster_Left The part was originated by Boris Karloff in 1941 - he was even mentioned by name in the script. My job, then, was to turn Michael into a Karloff lookalike.
Johnathan Brewster_Right Fortunately, Michael has a great face for a makeup like this. It took about an hour to add some light highlights and shadows. The "plastic surgery" scars were patterned after the Frankenstein monster makeups worn by Karloff.	Johnathan Brewster_Full This photo was taken under the stage lights and gives an idea of Michael's appearance on stage - scary, but in a good way...
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN Here is Reed Reemsnyder as The Creature in The Rep's 2014 production of THE NEW MEL BROOKS MUSICAL YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN (yes, that's the official title). Crude as the makeup looked backstage, it looked great in the show.	Y F Creature_Right The script only specifies that The Creature have greenish skin and the "zipperneck". I sculpted the neck appliance in clay on a piece of flat glass. Beneath the glass was a paper template I made to fit Reed's neck, which determined the size of the appliance. The latex copies were painted with plastic model acrylics.
Y F Creature_Left This was a tough makeup job, and Reed was a champ through the whole process. Step one was to take a cast of his forehead. On that I sculpted the master for the Creature's forehead appliance in clay. A casting of the sculpture yielded a mold from which I made the latex appliances.	Y F Creature_On Stage Here, The Creature has just gotten off the table. As I had a day job at the time, I gave up trying to keep Reed green throughout every performance.
Y F Creature_Audience The Creature escapes at the end of Act 1, running up through the house, menacing the audience. At the end of the show, Reed startled audiences with his really fine singing voice. It has been a genuine pleasure to work with all these actors and apply their makeups.	Young Frankenstein_2022 In October of 2022, the Oregon Community Theatre asked me to make up Reed Reemsnyder as "The Creature" once again for their production of THE NEW MEL BROOKS MUSICAL YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN. Fortunately, I had saved the molds for making the Creature's head piece and "zipperneck". As he had been eight years earlier, Reed was a patient and long-suffering actor.
Young Frankenstein_2022 I was able to build on the experience I'd gained from doing this makeup before. For one thing I didn't obsess over the joins between the latex appliances and Reed's face, because they simply weren't very apparent to the theater audience.	Young Frankenstein_2022 During the Toledo Rep's production in 2014, I was working and couldn't stay to touch up the green makeup. Being retired allowed me to stay through each performance of this show. Also, I had a better makeup area and more time to solve the problem of keeping Reed green. The warm colors of the stage lights made the rest of the cast look healthy but turned The Creature gray. My solution to the problem was to use green hairspray!
Young Frankenstein_2022 I was also asked to make up Josh Wagner the Hermit. I covered his eyelids with purple greasepaint to suggest his blindness and stuck mortician's wax warts on him. I started his headpiece and the costumer finished it - but good.	Young Frankenstein_2022 Then Brian Horman, the actor who played Dracula, asked me to make him look more like a vampire. I only had a few minutes to apply the make up. We didn't have a wig for him, so I cheated by painting his widow's peak with white cake makeup. Since he was only onstage as Dracula for a few moments, the quick work was enough.

ZOMBIE HIT MEN

ZOMBIE HIT MEN In the mid 1990s, Doug Crill dreamed up a story about an immortal mad doctor who created four indestructible zombies. Doug asked me to draw the comic; I also edited his script into the comic book format. Dave Kleeberger scanned and colored the line art, turning it into image files we could send to the printer. Our books were distributed by Diamond Comics Distributors and sold world-wide.	ZHM 1_Cover The cover for ZOMBIE HIT MEN #1 set up our story. The immortal Dr. Ballou's wife, Lenore, is dying of some incurable malady. The doctor must keep her in stasis until he can find an unborn child into which he can "body jump" Lenore's spirit. As it turns out, the child he finds is the daughter of Angelo Dianelli, a small-time crime boss in Glass City, Ohio.
ZHM 1_Page 16 Madame Rose, a powerful voodoo queen, is one of Dr. Ballou's many minions. She and her daughter Sylvia play on Dianelli's desperate battle with a gangland rival, Eddie Mattoni. They bargain Dianelli's embryonic child for the aid of the Zombie Hit Men in stopping Mattoni.	ZHM 1_Page 5 Glass City police detective Steve McCarthy is drawn into the ghastly business as he investigates a drive-by shooting of Dianelli's men by those of Mattoni.
ZHM 1_Page 20 The final page of ZMH #1 introduces the zombies. Doug, Dave, and I all worked on the script; it's difficult for us to tell who contributed what. We are truly a three-legged stool.	ZHM 2_Cover This cover tells the reader exactly what the relationship is between Dr. Ballou and Angelo Dianelli. I placed Mme. Rose's daughter, Sylvia, next to Dianelli to show what her relationship is to him as well.
ZHM 2_Page 21 Dr. Ballou signs a "Covenant in Blood" with Dianelli that exchanges the use of the Zombie Hit Men for Dianelli's soon-to-be-born daughter. Dianelli's first assignment for the Zombies is to have them kill Eddie Mattoni. Lt. McCarthy is an unfortunate witness to the massacre.	ZHM 2_Page 23 His enemy defeated, Dianelli tries to weasel out of the Covenant, but Dr. Ballou holds firm (also Mattoni's head).
ZHM 2_Back Cover The backs of the first two books gave a capsule description of our premise. I drew the front covers, Doug and Dave did the back. As I said, we've made pretty much equal contributions to ZOMBIE HIT MEN.	ZHM 3_Cover If you're familiar with the celebrities of Toledo, Ohio in the 1990s, you may spot some familiar faces on the cover. Dave really outdid himself with computer embellishments for this one.
ZHM 3_Page 7 Ballou must honor the Covenant in Blood on pain of death at the hands of the Zombie Hit Men. He tries to circumvent the agreement by using Lt. McCarthy as a pawn, courtesy of the "exploding head gag" - one of Doug's wildest ideas! The next step is forcible hypnosis that implants Ballou's evil directions into McCarthy's brain.	ZHM 3_Inside Cover I styled the inside cover pages after the "splash page" of the 1960s-era Superman comics with which I grew up. This one seems to show that Dr. Ballou's plans are all working out. But there's always a hitch somewhere...
ZHM 3_Back Cover By the time we got to book #3, Doug, Dave, and I had made appearances at various comics shows and Halloween attractions. We picked up a few celebrity endorsements along the way and these appeared on the back of book three. We wrapped up the original story line with that one and, not having found a publisher to lighten the load of creating the comics, we put the project to rest. Until...	CD Cover Art Mock Up In 2015, about 20 years after we first started working on the comic books, Doug and Dave came to me with a large number of songs and music they'd composed for ZOMBIE HIT MEN: THE MUSICAL. What was lacking was a script, which was where I came in. As of this writing, we're nearly finished with the book and songs for the musical. The plan is to package the CDs with the comics for the current generation of zombie fans. Stay tuned, kiddies...!

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