Scott Copeland’s General Ursus

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Here’s my Planet of the Apes Ursus Bust, I picked up this big (12″ tall!) bust from our mutual friend Mark Warthling a while back. It wasn’t one of his kits, but an older one from his closet, and he didn’t know much about it. It had “Jim Towler-2001” engraved on the bottom. Apparently the talented Mr Towler, who nailed this sculpt, made bust of most of the original major POTA ape characters in small numbers. This is the only one I’ve ever seen in person before or since.

Despite its age, the casting was really nice and didn’t require much prep work other than a good cleaning. I smoothed out two small seams with some Apoxy, a little sanding later and it was ready for primer. I primered the whole bust with 3 light coats of Duplicolor Sandable Auto Primer, wetsanding between coats till I had smoothed the vinyl surface to a leather-like texture, especially on the crest of the helmet.

I used mostly Vallejo Model Air acrylic paints for his face and armor. I used the “Ultra Black” primer as a pre-shade and layered light coats of “Sombre Gray” for the skin on his face, lightning it with some paler grays to give his face some depth. I airbrushed his hair with “Burnt Umber” darkened with black, then drybrushed it with various browns till it had a nice gorilla-ly look to it. The armor plates were misted with Vallejo Metallics “Steel” lightened with a little “Chain Mail Steel”. The leather helmet and armor were airbrushed with “Black” then barely misted with some blue & purple to add some highlights. Last were the eyes, done with thinned acrylics and a detail brush, it took me three tries to get them to where I was satisfied with them.

Finally, I sealed his face, hair and armor plates with Dullcoat, masked those with tape & Silly Putty, then applied a few light coats of Krylon “Matte Clear” over the whole thing. Despite its name, “Matte Clear” is noticeably shinier than Dullcoat, and when the mask came off it gave the leather parts a nice realistic sheen that contrast with Ursus himself.

I was really happy with how the bust finished out, and it was a big hit at WonderFest with POTA fans!

Scott Copeland