Thursday 7 June 2012

A retro trip into 20mm

A couple of you might remember a reasonably recent conversation on GWP that resulted in my obtaining a retro Matchbox LRDG kit in exchange for a donation to that most deserving charity Help for Heroes.

The kit arrived in good order and in between stupid working hours and trying to buy a house I managed to put it together.  I was personally impressed that I managed to make this ten thousand per cent more neatly than last time (about 25 years ago).  It was rather fiddly.  I am sure that back when I last had a go at this kit I didn't have half the kit that I have now such as sharp side cutters or LED lighting but I think that the main difference was having a decent polystyrene cement with that little fine pipe applicator thingy. 

There were lots of fiddly bits which snapped and ended up causing me no age of bother fixing, however I caught sight of the sprue which gave the copyright on these moulds as being 1979, the plastic was almost so brittle as to have been the first off the production line!  However, I'd love to see another manufacturer that could prove that they could produce such good castings over 30 years ago!

Here's the product before it went out for undercoating.  It rained during drying, damage caused has yet to be assessed.  However hopefully it'll turn out ok.  The biggest challenge yet is working out what colours to use.  Could any of you fine chaps reccomend which Vallejo colours to be used as base colours please?

Wednesday 6 June 2012

Project Pandora - Part One

I realise that I haven't posted on here for ages, I've barely had any time for painting as work has been mentally busy and we're trying to buy a house so the odds of getting any painting time or having any money for miniatures are pretty low for at least the next couple of months.  That said, the week before last I did actually finish the Corporation miniatures from Project Pandora.  I have to say that I didn't particularly enjoy painting these and it shows in the paint job.  I have to agree with those that have written about how difficult these guys can be to put together.  Would it be too hard to etch in a letter on each arm to show how they pair up?

I need to make a start on the Veer Myn which are lovely looking miniatures, I just can't make up my mind as to how to attack them!