New Aquistions

I felt that my .3 airbrush was fine for some of my smaller models and minis. But for my larger kits it just wasn't cutting it. So I went and picked up the .5 Iwata CR. I've yet to try it, but have a project on my bench where it will come in handy.

The next package at my mailbox was Filmy Girls' Pearl.  From their website:

The Frost Giant (part 2)

As I'm painting a 3rd highlight I say to myself "If he's a Frost Giant, why is he so tanned?" So I broke out new colors and am calling the figure done with this rendition - - 

The base is next. Thanks for looking.

Blood Rage's Frost Giant

The Frost Giant is one of a set of about a gazillion figures from the Blood Rage game's Kickstarter (see thew Acquisitions link  below for the story). Starting off with a primer, I once again fell into the trap of looking and not finding seams - 

You may have seen this before, as he was 1/3 of set that I recently published in a New Acquisitions post. From here, and the fact that he was from a Viking Game (singing the lyrics to Led Zep's Immigrant Song in my head right now) and decided since he's from the Land of Ice and Snow, he has to give an appearance of cold. So what I did was add a little blue to the colors I used. 

Here he is as of last night. Getting back to the seams - once I started painting the figure - yep, I started to see them. Sigh. I took off what I could, but I have to admit I left a few. Looking at the other Giants, this one was the worst for seams. The rest should cause less headaches. 
Anyway, the hair and rock are finished, but the skin only has a base coat on it. I took the next two pic before giving it a shot of Dull Cote and calling it a night. Thanks for looking.

Paleocraft's Dunkleosteus Build

Still taking a break from my "machines', the next critter on my bench is Paleocraft's Dunkleosteus. From their site: 

Approx.1/20 scale, (15.5 inches in length). 6 piece cast, body, lower jaw and pectoral fins separate. Included is a resin coral reef styled base as well as an oval pine base for display. The model comes unpainted easy to assemble with a minimum amount of preparatory cleanup before being ready to paint.

Dunkleosteus is an extinct placoderm fish that lived until the Late Devonian period about 380-360 million years ago.  The largest grew to approximately 33ft and was the top predator in the seas at that time. 

The kit: This is another one my my stash of kits that was purchased long ago and put in the pile. As the description says it comes in 6 pieces and includes a wooden base.

Translating a Japanese Paint Guide Solved

Well, that was quick. I posted my question on the SSM forum, and in a matter of hours I had my answer:

White numbers in black boxes are Gunze Mr. Color Lacquers:
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/stuff_eng_colorcharts_mrcolor_map.htm

Black numbers in white boxes are the aqueous acrylics:
http://www.ipmsstockholm.org/colorcharts/stuff_eng_colorcharts_gunze_map.htm

Simple as that. Now transposing the Gunze colors to my Vallejo was a bit more difficult. For one, Vallejo had an excellent online guide that matched their paint up with 5 or 6 others including the Federal Standard ~ gone.  
Luckily I had it printed out and was just a matter of remembering where I put it.
Some colors ended up being easy - White is white and silver is silver. But some were a little more difficult, including the Gunze color number not being in either the Model Color (VMC) or Air Color (VAC) chart.  So I had to convert the Gunze code to FS code and then see if the FS code matched with VMC or VAC. After an hour of which should have taken 5 minutes, I had success. The big plus was that I had all the colors I need! Thanks for looking.

Translating a Japanese Paint Guide

Anyone?

Bartholomew Finished

WOW - he's been sitting around since October?  See HERE for the first part.
This was a little bust I picked up from John Dennett at his MoonDevil Studios table at the last JerseyFest.

All of John's busts has a story that he has created behind it. He also plans to release these stories sometime in the future.

But this is a story of Bartholomew, a ventriloquist dummy that seems to have a mind of his own. It's been a while so I don't remember all the details. But safe to say the viewer is in for a surprise when the dummy falls and it's face cracks!

Thanks for looking.