Aug

Painting the Pinhead (Hellraiser) model kit

Thankfully the Pinhead kit doesn’t have anywhere near as many parts as the Freddy Krueger kit…

pinhead model kit contents

NOTE: you can click all the photo’s on this page to see larger versions.

First job is to assemble the model, secure it to a base and then undercoat it.

pinhead model kit - assembled and uncoated.

OK, now to block in the basic colours. These are also undercoats and will be painted over several times…

pinhead model kit - basic colours

Ech! But fear not! The blue will serve as an undercoat for the much thinner black coats that go on top of it. This creates a series of layers with various parts showing through other layers and prevents each part of the model just having one single colour slapped over it.

pinhead model kit - second layer on the clothing

There, now doesn’t that look better? It’s not just a solid black, or a solid blue, it shows varying colours throughout the whole garment. You’ll see it better in later photos. Trust me. I’m a doctor!

Next I painted thin red lines across the head for the scar tissue and painted in the chest pieces.

pinhead - with scar tissue painted

The red is a bit too bright but that’s ok as his head will now be getting a few coats of white to give him that pale look. A lot of people paint Pinhead with a blue skin colour, he’s pale white. It’s because the Hellraiser movies used a lot of blue lighting that people think his skin tone is blue. I did add a blue rim around his eyes which I saw in a few photos…

pinhead - with pale face

pinhead - the scar tissue has faded nicely now

With his teeth and eyes painted in, it’s time to focus on the box. Having done a bit of research (and just as well I did) I found that the box is supposedly made from wood, and isn’t purely metal and mechanical (like I initially thought) so it was given a basic, thin, dark undercoat:

pinhead - the box, with thin undercoat

Now, the box also has two black and gold sides, and four brown (wood) and gold sides, so time to undercoat the cube again, ready for the gold:

pinhead - the cube undercoated and ready for the gold paint

The side to the right of the photo (above) is black, the other sides are brown. Time to get the gold paint out and gently dry-brush each side to keep the gold on the raised parts of the cube, leaving the brown/black untouched in the indentations:

pinhead - the cube. Lovely!

The black side, that was on the right in the previous photo, is on the left in the photo above.

OK, that’s the fun parts done, now for the incredibly tedious jobs…

pinhead - he has pins... lots of...

Now, he isn’t called ‘Pinhead’ for nothing. His head, believe it or not, has 136 pins in it. And, as shown above, the average pin is too long to use ‘as is’, so now I have to sit and clip 136 pins to size. My initial idea was to superglue the pins to his head. Unfortunately cutting the pins effectively gives them a chisel edge which doesn’t attach well. Plan B - was to carefully make a small hole at each intersection (of the head markings) and jam the pin in to said hole then superglue it. Fail! Superglue is far too stringy for that. I want to keep it neat and don’t want blobs of glue showing up. Eventually I had to use a pointed sculpting tool to hand drill 136 holes for the pins to go in. So, in the end, each pin is jammed in to place and no glue was needed. I just hope the pins stay jammed in place!

The final result:

pinhead - the big finale!

pinhead - 136 pins... 136!

pinhead - I changed the chest pieces to white in the end.

I hope you enjoyed this quick look at model painting. Don’t forget to check out my Freddy Krueger model kit too.

Coming next? Judge Dredd… a model I’ve had stashed under my bed for years and completely forgout about until just last week.

UPDATE: I have (finally!) built a nice wooden base for the Pinhead model and have him mounted on the wall.

The Pinhead model mounted on the wall

The base is made from a 3ft long piece of framing which was cut with a mitre saw at 45′ angles. This effectively gives you a picture frame with only three sides in place, the four side being open. A flat piece of hardboard is also used for the platform. The three sides, and the platform, are stained with a nice dark brown. When dry the movie logo was painted on the front using silver acrylic paint then the three sided frame was screwed to the wall using a small angle bracked on each inner side. The model is then mounted to the platform, and put in place.