Little Joe II Finale

As a recap the decaling went fair.  The good point about them was they were thin and went on easily. The bad point about them is that they were thin, and if I slid too much off the backing paper, it wanted to curl on itself.  If you look at the marks in rows, all the rows were one decal. I learned to late in the game to cut them up to prevent the loss of the decal.
Anyway Having messed up a few, it was time to get out the masking tape and paint them on - 

Again things came out fair. Despite being careful, some of them could have been done better -

After  a few satin clear coats I was calling this one done. It's been years since I built a launch vehicle and in some places it shows. All in all I'm happy with it, and my next one will be a little better. Thanks for looking. 

Lily, Dino Huntress

This kit was part of a Kickstarter I saw on FB by Sunshine Figures. The themes seemed to come in 2s and 3s. The were Fantasy (think GoT), Prehistoric, Steampunk and Witches.  Being a big dinosaur fan, I chose two of the Dinosaur Huntresses, Lily and Izzy (Izzy we'll see down the road). 
The kit came in 2 parts the head/body and the arm. The base was 6 parts. The rock base, 2 spears, and 3 prehistoric skulls. The kit was apparently sculpting on the computer and 3D printed. I must congratulate the producers as no grow lines can be see on the figure, and only the faintest evidence of it can be seen when drybrushing the rock.

  
One thing noticed here between the knife and arm is that there must have been a little flash. I understand that the person charged with cleaning it up may have had 100s to do at a time, but in getting through it it seems the they get in there and quickly take it off. In my case it left little holes in the resin where this flas was removed. IMHO I wish they would just leave it, the modeler would take more care in removing it than someone who was doing numerous ones at one sitting. 
Another negative in mine was that there seemed to be a casting problem with the knife. There were bubbles along the edges and it seemed the tip was obliterated by a bubble. Here, the person cleaning it, hastily put some epoxy putty on it. This required some clean up time. With the amount of bubbles, the easiest thing to do would have been to cut the resin one off and add one made of sheet styrene. I decided to "mess" it up more with my dremel and make it look like a stone knife with the jagged edge. Extra work averted.

Starting with my new favorite tan primer, the skin got a coat of V. Barbarian Brown, The hair with German Camo Brown Black - the eyes also got that color. I used Calvary Brown (which is a dark red) but instantly new that was too red for a cave girl.

Getting involved and painting away without pics, I used two of the "Chameleon" colors for the headress, and added a leopard type design for the bra. The irises were done in a dark green, and Iraqi Sand for the sclera. Down the road I will highlight this with Ivory. 
The base was also painted black and then drybrushed with two consecutively lighter grays.

Moving along I painted the spears my usual method for wood on the handles and black and then gray for the stone blades. The skulls were base coated in Army Painted skeleton white, and then washed with V. Brown wash. 
With that I called it done. Thanks for looking.

Hellboy Finale

Hellboy is now complete. I fixed up the coloring on his head and now I'm happy with it. Thanks for looking.

Little Joe II part 2

In an undocumented session I applied the Vallejo Metallics Aluminum, and then added stripes of "Steel" according to the directions. I coated it with V's Metallics Varnish and left it for a day to cure. 
The next day, it was time for the decals. There are lots of them and nearly all are black squares, and rectangles.  The good points of the decals is that they are thin and go on with any problems. The bad point is they are thin and want to curl up on itself and if you have to move it more than a mm, it will rip.  I lost the very first decal I applied because of that. I'll mask and paint that one on later - I continued - 

  
The other problem I had is keeping straight where I was on the rocket. I lost another decal by applying it to the wrong quadrant, and then trying to move it. Not having built a rocket in a long time, it was the most stressful time I had at the hobby bench in seemingly forever. About half was through I learned that it's better to cut and apply all the black marking separately, rather than risking headaches of more ruined decals.

You'll notice the Aluminum color on the ship.

I ruined a 3rd decal applying the "United States" wording down the side of the rocket. It ripped in half and then folded over on itself.  There was a second set of the words. But these were a smaller text size. No matter, I didn't have any other choice. 
After the appeared to dry I applied the Micro Sol, to have them sink into the panel lines and radiator covers. Taking a look one of the decals ripped while conforming to the radiators - Dang it, I'll have to paint that.  I saw they all weren't nestled in and applied another coat where needed.  This is when I decided to call it a day. 
Check back to see the finale (hopefully). Thanks for looking.
 

Hell Boy

This is an approx 1/3rd scale kit I obtained from Mark Warthling. It comes in 9 parts - the head/body, the stone arm, 2 sets of horns (long and short - I chose the short), a base and two name plates. The arm, base and one of the name plates are in translucent resin in case you want to light the kit. 
Once again it was a case of me jumping into things before taking the start image, but you'll see the clear resin along the way. 

I started with a tan primer, glued the horns in and then painted the face red. 

  
Reddened the face, and painted the hair black - 

When it came to the arm, I looked around and it was no where to be found. I contacted Mark, and for a little fee he was able to get me another. How can something that big go missing? I have no idea... Here you can see the translucent hand. Anyway, in the background you may be able to see I added a darker brown shadow to parts of the jacket.

What I did to highlight the black hair was to use a little blue in it. All shirt references showed it was black, so I mixed a little blue into that to compliment the hair. You can also see the translucent base and the arm with primer. I also painted the zipper steel, and the little emblem on the pull the new Molotow Chrome. That stuff is amazing.

Next was tackling the Dark brown leather collar and straps. You can see in the background the arm got it's coat of red - 

While I thought of it, I painted in the eyes. Hellboy had yellow sclera, with a light brown iris, and then the black pupil. With the squint the model has I just left of the iris color...

Check back for the finale.Thanks for looking.

Little Joe II

After doing a number of figures, I figure it's time again for another nice rocket. This one is the 1:144 scale resin kit of Little Joe II by New Ware Models. A number of dealers sell New ware kits, but I've never had a problem buying directly from Tomas in the Czech Republic.

From a website: 

Little Joe II was an American rocket used from 1963–66 for five unmanned tests of the Apollo spacecraft launch escape system (LES), and to verify the performance of the command module parachute recovery system in abort mode. It was named after a similar design from  Project Mercury. Launched from Whit sands Missile Rangein New Mexico, it was the smallest of four launch rockets used in the Apollo Program.

This is another nice kit from New Ware. The main part is the rocket itself, with a number of parts for the engine part, fins, a fret of PE and two pages of decals.It may be hard to tell but there is quite a resin plug at the bottom of the rocket. See below for how I take care of it.

The building starts with 4 main engines and lots of smaller ones sitting on a piece of PE - 

Nearly all of New Ware's parts come with a big block of resin.  I used to use the regular ball type Dremel bits. But I found that it was quite easy to slip with those. Then I found this one that had the flat top. After sawing off the majority of the block, I can then go in with the flat top and grind out the extra material almost right to the part itself.  For a lot of my rockets where it's difficult to get it perfect flat across a one or two inch surface, this flat top will allow me to dig out the center, and I only need to be careful around a cm or so of material where the gluing edge will be. 

 The engines are on, as are the vanes - all quite easy. Below the rocket are the attitude adjustment jets. There was only 1 on each block that was intact. But because I only needed 4 I could canibalize the others to make up complete ones.

 I wasn't looking fwd to folding the tower struts, but this one went quite painlessly.

Here the tower is complete with the engines of the escape rocket applied. I did lose one to the carpet monster, but there were extras. All the pieces are primed and the call out for the attitude adjustment jets said they should be steel color, which is what I did.  Check back for the final assembly, painting and decaling. Thanks for looking.

Mother of Dragons

In the mood for another bust, I had Daenerys Targareon (sp?) sitting on the shelf for some time. Produced in white resin, she came in two parts - the bust/base, and a strand of hair.   Cleanup was minimal, and any seam marks hidden was easily spotted and eliminated after a spray of primer. 

I started out with a base coat of Rose Beige for her skin -

 Her hair is almost white, so I base coated that with a coat of Beige to start. A highlight of Rose Beige + Light Skin tone.

Thinking I found the costume that was sculpted, it looked like a blue, and the cape was blue on the outside and I light tan on the inside.

Moving on I highlighted the hair with Ivory, added the dark brown eye brows, painted the eyeballs the same color and then painted the base a Basalt Gray. Her lips got a coat of Cavalry Brown, which is really a dark red brown color.  I also speckled the base with a lighter gray for interest, and used V's Burnt Iron Metallics for the emblem.

The inside of the cape got a beige highlight. I didn't want her cape and dress to be the same color, so I painted over the blue with a turquoise color from Army Painter.  On the screen grab, there is a design that looks like lots of little arrowheads. The sculpt doesn't have that, but only ridged stripes. I added another layer of turquoise to them, and then over painted the stripes with a Pearlescent paint to create a little added dimension. Also her green eyes were painted in.  You can't really tell but the strand of hair was also added.  There was a gap, but some Aves filled the gap with nor problems. I sculpted the Aves to match the existing hair.

I added a 3rd highlight of white to the top most part of the hair stands, and after looking it up, painted the dragon on the emblem a red color.  Her bottom lip was painted Rose to brighten it. Then I tried something new, I used Vs Metallic Varnish to the lips and eyes. It went on a little thicker than the others and made the eyes look deeper. She was ready for her final matte coat. 

After a day, I looked at the bust and there was something wrong. she looked ... sweaty. I must have  sprayed her with satin instead of matte. There was also something else with the skin tone. It was still too dark. I mixed Light skin tone with Ivory and gave a highlight to only the upper areas.  That looked better. Then I made sure I sprayed a matte coat to seal it all in.  Thanks for looking.