AHPC X Day 82 - Twenty-Third Submission and Wednesday Workbench 11 March

Oh, poo! I just spotted that I'd saved this post to drafts rather than publishing it. Well, it's still Wednesday somewhere I guess.


My twenty-third submission got posted this afternoon. I'd finished painting them last night, leaving just the varnishing and tufting to do this morning. And here they are: [link]

On the workbench right now are some more pulp ladies:

I should be able to finish them tomorrow, leaving me free to start work on the last few Strontium Dog figures.

AHPC X Day 80 - Twenty-First Submission - Men in Floppy Hats

I suspected they wouldn't get posted until today and I was right - my twenty-first entry got published today: [link]

Ten each of King's Musketeers and Cardinal's Guard using 15mm figures from Blue Moon. All the figures were from the "Cardinal's Guard" packs (5 from the Mounted and Dismounted; 15 from the Dismounted. They only do one pack, Mounted and Dismounted, for the Musketeers which would leave the King's men somewhat outnumbered). I do have more figures to paint at some point for this project.

I completely finished the Mutant Army Generals today, including submitting the post which I expect will appear tomorrow. This evening I began work on this set of figures from Copplestone Castings:

These will probably take me a couple of days to finish as there are lots of details to paint and highlight.

AHPC X Day 35 - Eighth Submission

In between my minioning duties today I managed to make some time to varnish some figures, add tufts, take photos and draft my eighth and ninth submissions. The first of those got posted this evening: link

The other one should be posted tomorrow - I couldn't have them both go up today as they are island locations.

Tomorrow I'll be starting work on my next project - the remaining Strontium Dog figures.

Road-Sweeper Day Eight - The "Oblitterator"

Oh, come on! That name is a great pun!

Tsch! there's no pleasing some people.

Anyway, it's finally finished and what a fun time I've had doing it. Just to remind you oh how it looked before my fiendish brain and maniacal hands were set loose on it:

This morning I did the detail painting - and forgot to take photos before the next step. Then, after giving it a coat of Klear, I applied some dirty washes to represent the inevitable build-up of grime and oil/fuel leaks:

Then added some highlights on the rust and metals:

The next step was a bit more tricky - adding some writing (and some "kill" markings) using a 000 brush. That was followed by airbrushing a thinned mix of VMA Golden Brown over the vehicle to make it look dusty, going a bit heavier over the front and lower panels. I *might* have overdone it a bit, but it looks OK. It then got a coat of Vallejo polyurethane matt varnish and the lights and mirror then got touched up with brush-on gloss:

So, that's the Oblitterator, cleaning up the mean and dirty streets. It's definitely not a vehicle to mess with. To the front and rear it has flamethrowers and heavy slug guns (loaded with HE shells); there is also a rear-firing smoke discharger. The owner/driver doesn't care what anyone else thinks of him, as you might be able to tell from his hand painted message on the armour panel protecting the waste collection area - I didn't put a direct-on shot of the back as it contains rude words!


In other news, my Amazon and SnM Stuff orders were delivered today, and my Shesto order has been shipped.


So, what's next? I've still got two jobs on the list I posted at the start of my break - painting Cyber Scooby and Dux's prize figure. I might also do some work on the gems and beads I bought the other day. The gems (for dropped spikes) should be easy as they can just be sprayed on their backing sheet; the beads are more fiddly - I'll have to stick them down onto something first (after separating them from the sequins).

Road-Sweeper Day Seven

Plenty done on the road-sweeper today. I finished off the painting over the hairspray today and have done the chipping. Some of the painting was done by hand using VMA* paints as they were small areas or parts where I didn't want to risk getting the paint onto areas I'd already airbrushed.

Before chipping:

After chipping:

Tomorrow I'll do the detailing work, then add some dust, grime and extra rust then varnish it. I might add some graffiti if I can figure out a way of making it look washed out.


Test Cars

I haven't done any work on these today.I don't think there's much I can do with them until I get some flame masks.


Purchases

I placed a couple of orders last night:

SnM Stuff - some 60ml bottles of Vallejo polyurethane varnish (gloss, satin and matt) plus a spare nozzle for my Neo airbrush. It was a couple of hours later that I remembered a couple of things I should have ordered at the same time - including some stencils from Anarchy Models

Shesto - some Createx paints (including an iridescent colour)

LE Diecast - some vinyl flame masks

Amazon - transfer tape for applying the masks


I also made another trip to Toys R Us this morning (no mistakes on the buses this time!). The Hotwheels singles pegs were nearly empty and there were no cars there I wanted. I tried the Sainsburys just across the road - none there either. Got the bus back to turnpike Lane and another down to Harringay - nothing in Sainsburys, but I did find a couple in Poundland:

The only new one - a Mastretta MXR

The Mastretta takes my count to 24 new car models; a big fat zero left on my allowance. Yikes - I can only buy repeats now!

On the subject of my purchases, I found something out about the Enforcer I bought the other day. It appears that I have managed to get hold of a "Treasure Hunt" car. For every release of cars to distributors and retailers, Mattel do a limited edition run (about 25,000) of a particular model which get randomly added to the wholesale boxes - these are indicated by circle flame logos on the car and on the backing card of the packet.

They also add another limited edition type into each release - the "Super Treasure Hunt", which are a variant paint scheme of another car in that release. The variant scheme is a transparent colour applied over (presumably highly polished) bare metal rather than over primer, and usually with addition decals. they also have the rubber "real rider" tires rather than the normal plastic ones.

Both can be worth more than the retail price to collectors if they are "mint in box". As I've opened the packing (and made a right mess of the card backing) I won't be able to make any money of this one, so I can strip and mod it as planned.

Road-Sweeper Day Six

Where did I leave you yesterday? Oh, yes. That's right. I was going to buy some hairspray so that I could do a comparison test of the hairspray and salt chipping methods. So, that's what I did first thing this morning. It seems that all my shopping trips so far this week have involved getting soaked by the rain...

"Hah! She went to the shops - I'll bet she bought a metric tonne of cars!"

Hah! You'd be wrong. I didn't buy any cars today! Okay, I'll admit - I did look, but there weren't any of the ones I was after, so that's why I didn't buy any.

Anyhoos, once I got back I set to work on the trial vehicle. The left side got two light coats of hairspray, leaving it to dry for ten minutes or so after each. Then the right side was subjected to the salt. First, a little water was applied by brush to areas of the surface to be chipped; salt was then shaken over the water; after a few seconds the excess salt was removed by gently tapping the vehicle. I then left the vehicle for 2 hours to give the remaining salt time to set into a crust.

I probably used too much water and at this scale I should have used just table salt rather than mixing it with a little rock salt.

After a couple of hours, I airbrushed both sides with black paint (to show up the contrast when I do the chipping):

I'm not sure what happened on the left side - I'm guessing some sort of reaction between the hairspray and the paint.

I then let it sit for a while before doing the chipping. This involves adding a little water to the areas you want to treat, then "chipping" or rubbing the paint with a stiff-bristled brush. I started on the salt side, then did the hairspray side. Here are the results:

Conclusions:
1. Both techniques work well
2. For the salt method, I need to use less water, table salt only and be very selective about where I place it
3. The hairspray method is much quicker, less messy and allows better control of the chipping.

Given my conclusions, I decided to go with the hairspray method for the road-sweeper. I gave it two light coats, then left it to dry for a couple of hours. I then started airbrushing panels and stuff in different colours. I didn't get them all done as my airbrush seemed to be getting clogged. I'm not too surprised as it has been a while since I gave it a thorough cleaning.

So, I've spent the last hour or so stripping it, cleaning it (cotton buds, nylon brushes and two 8-minute blasts in the hydro-sonic bath), lubricating the parts and reassembling it. It works really well now. I've just started work on the other airbrush as it is probably just as bad.




Test Cars

I sprayed them with their second transparent colours this morning - Sunrise Yellow and Turquoise. The colour gradients don't show up very well in the photos, but look quite good in non-digital form. Admittedly, the "yellow" would have looked better with an orange second layer.

I think with the Createx paints that I'd be best off using the Revolution rather than the Neo - the larger needle size should help ensure a better flow and avoid some of the "splats" that you see on the blue.

I suppose I really should order some vinyl flame masks so that I can finish the test properly. And the transparent orange and opaque red Createx paints. Maybe some other Createx paints as well - I quite fancy seeing how the iridescent ones come out.

Road-Sweeper Day Five

I did manage to get some work done today on the road-sweeper and the test cars.

Road-Sweeper

After breakfast this morning, I airbrushed the vehicle with a mix of VMA Light Rust and VMA Hull Red (roughly 3:1). I then set it aside for a few hours, to allow the paint to dry and cure. At lunchtime I dry-brushed heavily over the rust colour with VMC Natural Steel. Earlier this evening I airbrushed a protective coat of Klear over the whole vehicle. This will provide the basecoat for the "chipping".

Pics taken pre-Klear:

Rust spray:

Dry-brushed:

I was intending to use the salt method for the chipping, rather than the hairspray method, but now I'm unsure. I've decided to do a test to compare the two methods. Naturally, I don't want to do that on this model, so I've drilled out the rivets on one of the many diecasts in my collection. I also tapped the rivet posts to take 2mm screws.

The holder attached to the vehicle is one of a batch I made up the other day. I'd seen them used by someone on YouTube and realised they would be much handier than the blue-tac-on-top-of-dropper-bottle I have been using. It consists of a 20cm length of 4.5mm styrene rod glued into an electrical connector with epoxy. The blade of the connector has had its hole enlarged to take 2mm screws, then bent at an angle.

Close-up pic

I'll do the comparison test tomorrow - I don't have any hairspray, so I'll need to buy some.


Test Cars

Having let the pearlescent gold coat dry and cure overnight, I added the first transparent coats this morning. These were Brite Yellow and Caribbean Blue.

The Brite Yellow gives a very nice brass/burnished gold look.

The Caribbean Blue didn't seem to want to cover the gold very well at first. And then I noticed that I had the pressure set much higher than yesterday. D'oh! When I turned the pressure down it seemed to work much better. I'm pretty sure the blue will work better over silver than it does over gold (they didn't have the silver in stock yesterday).


As I had a bit of dead-time this morning, I decided to see what Hotwheels the Sainsburys in Tottenham had. The only problem was, that when I got there it wasn't a Sainsburys any more - it's now a DIY store. Thinking my trip had been wasted, I headed back towards the bus stop to go home. While I was waiting for the lights to change so I could cross a side road, I happened to look left and what did I see? The new Sainsburys! I popped in and had a look, found the relevant aisle and found one car that I was after. I also did some household shopping while I was there.

The "Enforcer":

That takes my count to 23 new car models; 1 left on my allowance.

"Hang on, what's that on the left of the top pic?"

Drat! You've caught me out.

Yes, another Flashfire 5 Pack. There were actually two on the shelves, but I restrained myself and just bought one. These will be kept as they are rather than used for custom paint jobs. Well, the hotrod might get used for the "wastelands" project, but the other 4 will stay as they are.

That's all for now folks!

Can't See The Wood For The

Trees.

I got exactly as far as I'd expected with the trees today - they've been dunked in 35-ish % PVA and left hanging to drip and dry. They're pretty much dry now, but I won't do anything with them until tomorrow night.

What fell off the trees as they came out of the pack.

Dunked, dripping and drying

Drippage

I'll probably give them a second dunking tomorrow night, just to be sure.

In the meantime, I've decided to do a vehicle conversion job. A couple of months ago, Dannoc jokingly suggested that I should do a roadsweeper with flamers. That did inspire me to take a shufty on the interweb to see if I could find one - I did, and it's been sat on the shelf for a while now. It's a Siku diecast but is 1:50 scale so too big for my Car Wars project.

Anyway, this afternoon I decided to start the process by disassembling the vehicle and putting the metal parts to soak in paint stripper.

This going to be a "proper" fantasy post-apocalyptic vehicle - all scrap metal armour, mesh screens and ludicrous weapons. Given the size and scale of the vehicle, I'm thinking that 40K Ork weapons might do the trick. I'll pop to the store on Tottenham Court Road after work to see what they have. The image I have in my head is two weapons firing forward and two weapons firing to the rear, maybe with something on top.

I also need to find a suitable driver figure, and maybe a teddy bear to stick on the front.

Of course, I've already got an appropriate name in mind for the vehicle...