The Joker on Throne

The Joker on Throne
Horizon, 1997
Base and accessories scratchbuilt.

Actually my wife picked this one up for me without my knowledge - she knew I'd love this model even though it was vinyl.  Hey, where else are you going to get a model of the Joker to go with your Aurora Batman? The scale is fine, same as the old Auroras.  I really dig the throne, and the pose. It's also just a great Joker, sculpted by a Steve Wang and my hat's off to him. He's one talented dude.

I put the chair together first, so when I built the Joker I'd be able to position his arms and legs to fit.  I packed the hollow throne with plastic, took care to stiffen the hollow legs of the throne, then a dark brown drybrush over black followed by a thin gloss clear gave it the old carved wood look I wanted. The worn leather is golden brown. As I put the Joker together, I shifted his posture around a little, raised the gun and had him lean on his arm. These are little touches you won't notice unless you see the box art or another model (there's one on the Gremlins site). I mixed my own purple for his outfit. The stripes on his pants are molded onto the outfit, they're easy to paint. The gun is supplied as a soft metal piece, I filed it down to a smooth surface and used german silver over black.

I made the base out of sculpty. I started with a design on graph paper, then rolled some out into thin slabs like cookie dough and cut the pieces.  Then I did some carving with the Dremel and glued them together with fast drying epoxy.  I painted the sides to match the wood grain on his chair, and the floor is textured to look like a green rug. This sculpty stuff is easy to work with, but when baked is still a little fragile.  In this case it needs bracing or eventually it'll sag in the middle, so I just took a bottle cap and glued it underneath.  I cruised the dollar stores and found a cheap table to scale, and built the hat and the picture frame.  I painted the picture of Harlequin, the Joker's main squeeze, it adds that "homey" and whimsical touch to the model.

At any rate, I do love the way this whole scene turned out. The Joker is my favorite villain out of all the folks who have pestered Batman over the years. Now I have him on my shelf.

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