Rats, I'm so distracted sometimes, I forgot I meant to post WHY I got motivated to work on these guys. Was at a bible study and we were in Genesis and one of the participants noted that altho God created all the animals, fish, birds etc by speaking, man He sculpted from dust, and woman he sculpted from Adam's rib. This reminded me of my neglected little men, the little sculpts, and I decided I had to make some progress on them. So here we are, with the 54mm plastics back on the work bench. It's time they got some attention, even if it is not the hands of God himself. So...
Here it all 'tis, sitting under a bright IKEA table lamp which seems to wash out the daylight in the room and deepen the shadows. The water and glue are mixed in two ratios - "a bit goopy" and "thinner than that" [I hope you can follow the technical terminology at this dizzying height of the craft]. I will use the thicker mix for particularly rough or raised parts of the model, and the thinner for slighter ones, especially if I want to preserve details like on a face.
Below is a touch-up mix for a second coat - I put a few drops of Elmers and water on the tray. It was a bit thin so more drops of glue went in. You can spread the mix on the tray with a brush and add glue / water to opposite ends which is easy to track and work with quickly as you apply it.
The mix can be dabbed on thick [below] to hide areas where a mold line or rough spot is pronounced...
...it can be brushed on thick, especially over areas like swords that need extra strength [you can see where the Duplo I used for primer flaked off - but the glue mix seems to have smoothed it all out, so "successful intervention"]
Below, a few highlights of rough spots that I put glue onto attempting to smooth them out a bit. These shooters are particularly messy with mold lines.
These leader types have obvious spots that were trimmed post-priming. Hoping the glue process smooths them so they are not noticeable later, particularly during dipping.
Pooling - hard to prevent unless you lay the figures down at funny angles, but it is obvious and annoying. It will NOT look right on the fig! So you will have to work to prevent it.
Still do to:
- paint Brits and French exchange officer.
- paint the pathans.
End state - 20 pathan foot, 10 British foot and 2 mounted, 1 French foot.
A few thoughts for OHSW:
Pathan swordsmen - brawlers?
Pathan snipers
Pathans - muskets mostly
low force morale [looking for easy pickings]
British - rifles, high force morale
Looking forward to this in the near future...
Some sound advice here.
ReplyDeleteI also downloaded a new set of skirmish rules called 'Fistful of Lead'; again playing card driven and quite reasonably priced.
Have you seen 'The Men who Would be Kings' by the way?
Hey Darren, heard of both, but not familiar with them, sorry. I find it takes a while and a bunch of playtesting to get to appreciate any good set of rules. I think JL said that OHSW took him 8 years to produce, and I've played it about 8 times, and am just starting to get into the nuances of it. So, seems like a good way to spend some time.
DeleteDoes the glue work to smooth out rough spots? I had not thought to try that before - it seems like it should though. I'll have to give it a go.
ReplyDeleteI have the same AiP camels and riders - and found the riders in my lot at least have some of the worst injection sites (a literal divot and I ended up using green stuff to fill it).
Hey John, I think the thicker dabbing of the glue does that somewhat. The thicker it is the more it smooths out. The thinner it is the better it molds to the sculpt. I have some Testors putty I plan to try on the divots that still annoy me.
DeleteI have to admit, I am still not satisfied with my ratio of effort to result with the plastics. I either need to upgrade to hard plastic, or do a lot less for the soft plastics, as I'm uncertain how much it really helps, anyway. seems like much of the effort spent to clean up a soft plastic figure results in additional unsightly messes. Perhaps I'll just stick to trimming injection sites, etc, and letting the rest go.
Hard for me tho, I'm a bit of a perfectionist.
I quite agree on the ratio of effort to result and I waffle on on how much to clean up. I can usually get away with it until I get the camera out or wear the magnifying goggles. The Zvezda figures (albeit 1/35) were an eye-opener for me about what could be in a world of hard plastics. It's just too easy to mess up soft figures - especially AiP - with a half-way sharp hobby blade.
DeleteThanks for the comment, John. I didn't realize that the Zvezda figs are hard plastic - are they are true hard as Tamiya or just hard-er than the AIP? I am really like this scale as I age and would love to have more variety of forces.
ReplyDeleteTo answer your question more thorougly [I will edit post also] the smoothing effect DOES WORK! I found that the blobbing of the glue - or dabbing perhaps - onto the rough spots or certain mold lines does noticably diminish them and sometimes eliminate them. I am thinking that this MIGHT mean that I can return to pre-coating some of these rough spots before priming.
One note would be that the glue needs to be thicker - almost 100% glue, just a bit of water, to get the right pooling / dabbing effect. Hard to explain, but this isn't Picasso level work, you'll see!
Excellent and inspirational project!
ReplyDeleteThanks Dean - not quite at your level yet, but working on it!
ReplyDelete