Craig Guild’s Gwangi

Here is a series of photographs I took of my resin kit of Ray Harryhausen’s ‘Gwangi’, sculpted by Joe Laudati.

The model came in nine pieces, including a terrific base that includes bones and a skeleton of a smaller dinosaur. Due to the weight of the resin pieces, I found it necessary to pin it together.

After priming, and assembling the kit, I watched the film on DVD to get a fix on the colour of Gwangi, and what I found was that it was difficult to lock down on what the colour of Gwangi is. Her colour changes throughout the film from charcoal grey, blue and even a purple at one point.

I decided to go with the blue Gwangi appears to have in the stills I have from the film. After base coating her in a dark grey/blue, I had enormous fun working on the dry brushing to bring her hide to a lighter blue/grey. I even threw in shades of earth brown and punched in skin moles.

Joe Laudati has done a simply amazing job on the sculpture of this figure, and, in fact, his rendition is dead-on to the original Harryhausen model. I have just begun work on the Styracosaur that appears in ‘The Valley of Gwangi’ that was also sculpted by Joe Laudati, as a companion piece to this great kit.

If you are a dino-nut, or a Ray Harryhausen enthusiast, then do yourself an enormous favour, and pick up this piece at joelaudati.com. You won’t be disappointed.

Craig Guild