Mars Rover Air Bags

 This is definitely in the "And now for something completely different" file comes the Australian Scale Solutions model kit of the Mars Rover airbags. Scale Solutions was very prolific with their kits in the early 2000s, but *IIRC* the Australian Post Office raised international mailing rates a lot. He complained that it would ruin his shop, and it didn't take long for him to stop posting his kits on sci-fi boards. 

This is a simple 1:40th scale kit in 4 parts of VERY hard tan resin. 

Around each set of airbags is this definite seam that needed to be ground away.

The kit even comes with a few rubber bands which is called for in the instructions. This kit has to be 10+ years old and I was surprised the bands weren't deteriorated.

Once super-glued and epoxied together together - including an aluminum tube for the stand - I glued the 4th side on. The fit was loose and all the seams needed some Aves to fill the gaps. 

All images showed this white tan airbags. Some images showed a gray strapping around the bags. I mixed up some white tan paint and then some light gray for the straps. They looked too dark. After adding some "Mars dirt" to the bags from bouncing, I gave it a mist coat of the white tan. That seemed to even everything out. I added a small Mars base and I was done. Thanks for looking.

Aradia Medusa

 Adding to my collection of Medusa's this time is from Aradia Miniatures. This was part of the Dante Inferno collection.  The figure is approximately 75mm and comes in 8 or 9 parts of well done gray resin.

My love/hate relationship with Aradia miniatures strikes again with this kit. It's obvious (to me - maybe not) that these kits are 3D modeled on computer, printed and then cast.  Being that they are 3D designed, the tolerances are very tight. The Main problem comes as there are no instructions as to assembly order. You only have a drawn diagram on the box.  You start building and then 2/3s the way thru you find out that the assembled sub assemblies don't fit together.

My mistake came somewhere between gluing the soldier to his base and putting Medusa's wings on her body. The folding up wing wouldn't fit with the way the spear was sitting. I had to bend the soldiers sear ( a copper tube) and justified it with it got bent during the fight. Yeah that's it...

Evidently, I'm guessing that I needed to put her wings on, and then glued her tail which wrapped around his back, THEN glue the whole thing to the base, rather than one figure at a time.

With all the building done this once again called out to be to make some OSL in the form of some fire from below. I think it came out slightly better than my last try.  Thanks for looking.