SIZE: 26" TALL AND 30" LONG

This is a custom diorama that I had planned 3 years ago. If you are old school and love this type of stuff or even a young sc-fi fantasy fanatic, you may know of this or even watched this movie that came out in 1968. I've always loved the Planet of the Apes movies and recreating one of the most iconic scenes in movie history came to mind. So, I had set out on finding a large enough Statue of Liberty to use as a base figure. I searched the web and couldn't find any souvenirs big enough. In 2009, I finally found what I was looking for in the form of the Liberty torch and the upper chest and head of the Statue of Liberty(2 separate pieces) at a used toy store. They were playsets from the first X-men movie the torch and the head part. I was very excited as I had forgotten about these from when the movie was released. This would be perfect and it would be perfect for Marvel Universe scale. I later found a 3.75" WWE Mr. Kennedy that was screaming. I thought it would make a great, MAD AT THE WORLD, Taylor figure. The female Nova figure was made using a MU Ms. Marvel. The horse was one of those playset Scheich animals. I got the info for making a realistic beach scene from my stepfather, who is a master model maker having turned a large room in his basement into a model train wonderland.

RECIPE:
I. I had to add a lot of height to get Liberty the size that I needed, including sculpting an arm and adding to the chest. The arm was extended by using a Pringles chips can wrapped with tape and plaster wrap. Liberty's chest was extended using wire mesh, cardboard and tape and then covered with the plaster wrap. I made the Independence Day tablet out of cardboard and tape. The rocks are lava rocks painted with a sulfur tone and they are removeable. Liberty was attached to the bottom of a chest drawer that was to be thrown away. When I saw this, I busted up[the drawers and knew this would be the perfect size I needed. I attached the Liberty to a cutoff 5" section of the wood with tape and plaster wrap. The flame frame was made using wire mesh, cardboard and tape. Some of the spikes on Liberty's crown were modified using bent wire mesh. All was primed and given a weathered, worn, sulfuric and oily damaged paint job.

II. The beach part was from the 25" section of the remaining wooden drawer. I outlined the area I wanted the water to be with a Sharpie. I painted the base a dark blue to look like the ocean with oil spillage being black. I added some rocks and painted those up in a sulfuric red and black oily tone. I then spread a mixture of Elmer's glue and Windex all over the areas I wanted to be sand. I covered that with craft sand of different sizes. After that dried(hurried along with the heat gun) I outlined the area I wanted to be wet sand. I then scattered some glue beads and used a heat gun to melt them and using a craft stick I spread the glue around for the ocean. I mixed up some string gel and white paint and made the waves and clearcoated the ocean in a high gloss. The sand was painted using different tones to look like dry and wet sand and it was sealed. Altogether the base is 30" long.

III. The Talyor figure was made using a 3.75" WWE Mr. Kennedy figure. I sculpted the hair and the feet. The loincloth was made using a vinyl.
The Nova figure was made using a Marvel Universe Ms. Marvel figure. I sculpted her feet and her garmet was made using vinyl.
The horse was made using a Scheich animal. I sculpted the saddle and added wire for the bridle. Taylor has a rifle(not pictured or seen rather, it's there just on the side of the horse), it was made from cardboard and Sculpey.

PHOTOS:
The first cover photo was to represent the ending scene with Taylor kneeling on the beaach.

The second photo is of Taylor and Nova standing by the horse.

Third photo is a close up of the Statue of Liberty.

The 4th photo, I was going for a silouhette type background shot of a bird's eye view looking down the beach. My phone camera provided that since it takes horrible photos anyways and it turned out decent for what I was wanting. I wish I were able to put up more photos. They will be available later on after the contest in my other photo gallery.

I included a small snapshop from the original movie in the upper left corner of the last photo for reference. If it's too small, you can search for it under Planet of the Apes ending scene or Statue of Liberty scene.

*A special thanks to a friend(named later) for providing the enchanced background graphics and POA logo for me. I was wanting to give it a movie poster or DVD cover feel to the scene. I think he aced that as always.

Thank you for your time if you read all of this and one other thing...

"take your stinkin' paws off me you DAMN DIRTY APE!!!!"