THE GENEROSITY OF STRANGERS

 Yesterday my daughter came up to see me with a rather large pile of goodies for me, nothing too unusual about that, as my children always get me great gifts, but in this instance my daughter was just the delivery person for this particular pile. Where my daughter currently works, a regular visitor nicknamed Squirrel, while chatting with him at one point, she showed him what I did with models, and also got onto my current health condition, and how all my children were worried last year. Over following weeks Squirrel would pop in, with models he had dug out of storage to send up to me, There are sealed in the box kits from many decades, part built kits, vinyl figures from Star Wars and Star Trek, basically a modellers paradise, all given and wanting nothing in return, just it would be nice to see them built and painted, here's a picture

Since this began, he followed the business facebook page, and I friend requested him, so I can thank him personally, I've also passed a message through my daughter, that if there is any or all the kits he wants back once I've built and paint them, as that's only fair as he purchased the kits in the first place. I will have fun building and painting them all that's for sure ! LOL

Also I've managed to level up again in the game of life, don't know how I manage it, personally I feel like I'm stuck on level 18, until I get it right ! LOL My family got me some great gifts, as always, and that should keep me busy also as you can see below

All these distractions aren't helping paint Orks, so I really need to knuckle down on that, as Wudu, has already painted almost as many as I aim to do in total ! LOL do check out the yearly competition between Wudu and IRO the true Orktober guys, that's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

I PREDICT A RIOT

 One of the really cool things  I found in the series Andor, was the use of lots of different types of Imperial troops, not just Stormtroopers, and wanting to replicate with my own armies, I found these great Riot Troopers on Ebay with a seller I've used before bertd70 , unfortunately all his listings have currently disappeared, hopefully he's just repopulating, but will keep an eye on it. Now the Riot Troops appeared in both season 1 and 2 of Andor, and were used as pawns on one occasion to start a riot, by being shot by an Imperial Marksmen. The models are resin 3D prints, that come as a single piece with separate  heads so you can customise quite a bit just with a head movement. The other cool part is the shields actually have gaps for the clear part of the shield to be put in with acetate.

For the painting, I highlighted the black cloth one way, and tried highlighting the armour with white contrast paint, then dulled back down with black wash, I quite like the effect, and will keep experimenting with this.

I've also found a couple of models from model kits, a Imperial Officer, and a R2 astromech, which came in a TIE fighter and X-Wing kits. Painting was straight forward. I'm going to use the astromech on the droid parts stall hence not being on a base.

Size wise they are pretty close to Legion models, and as humans come in all shapes and sizes, I'm happy with it, plus trying out the GW dark greens was a good experiment.

This month I'm hoping to paint my sons Orks for Orktober, so hopefully you may see them later in the month, and possibly some more star Wars stuff, or something else, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

THERE ARE THOSE WHO BELIEVE THAT LIFE HERE BEGAN OUT THERE !

 This was the opening line of the original Battlestar Galactica, and a fitting way to open this post, as I start with the completed original Vyper, from the original series, a long time ago I showed the painting of half of this model as a quick guide, but never fully finished it as I lost parts of the landing gear hatches, well recently I found one of the two missing bits, and decided to make the last missing bit.

As you can see above there is one hatch made of greenstuff, I took a mould off the one I had, and swapped the side of the hinges with some plasticard. I also tied together all the painting and got this.

While on this role, I found the transfers for my MK II Vyper and finished off the weathering completing the last of my Vypers.

While in the mood to complete as many of these models as I could I've also painted up the new version of the Galactica itself, one bit I was never sure on was the weird ridges that cover 80 % of the model, I recently found out the designer based it off of a range of vases he liked, personally after painting them all, they are a pain ! LOL All the armour plating  needed a mottled look as well, which I achieved with three layers of paint and a glaze, happy with the end result.

In the series one of the pods is unused as it had been converted into a museum, now the kit comes with transfers for this, but ere a little too flimsy, so I added the transfers to some acetate, which I then glued into place.

Now I only have the original Galactica, and a Cylon fighter left to do to complete this set, but that may wait for another time, don't forget you still have three more days to finish any scenery projects you have going for the challenge, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

RAPTOR

 As I teased a lot of ships last time, I thought it only proper to bring another one to the blog in quick order, today is the Raptor from the reimagined series of Battlestar Galactica, this was a totally new ship, some say it was a replacement of the shuttle from the original series, but that actually appeared in the series. The Raptor's role was recon, and transport and appeared all the way through the series. The model was produced by Moebius in 1/32 scale. This model had a bit of an accident when we moved house, and the landing gear got broke, and one of the antennae on the nose got lost, so I had to replace it and fix them (seems to be a recurring theme these days ! LOL) 

Painting and weathering were pretty straight forward, but I did the weathering after putting the transfers on, to blend them in better. Here is a shot of the interior with the dash transfers.

Here's a reference shot in case you've never seen this ship

Hoping to get some more done before the end of the challenge if I can, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave  

MK VII VYPER

 Change of pace today a display model rather than a gaming piece, but being a vehicle still counts for the challenge. Now I know not everyone liked the reimagined Battlestar Galactica, and prefer the original, where as I happily watch both, and more models is always good in my book ! LOL So today is my fully finished MK VII Vyper, it even has all the transfers on, and weathering done as well, and even painted up the inside of the base to make it stand out more.

I had started this at the beginning of the challenge until my room got moved into storage, now starting to pull things out, I can hopefully get them finished, here's the models moved up so far.

As I find the transfer sheets you will probably see more of these in detail as I get them completed, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave

PROCEED WITH CAUTION

 Todays post is a little bitter sweet, my Lambda class Imperial shuttle arrived on the 3rd of September. Now this was 6 weeks after ordering, that I can cope with as obviously it takes a while to print, unfortunately my model has several problems with it, first one of the wings arrived broken, not too much of a problem, as all the bits were there. Also one of the body halves was miscast and had huge chunks missing, but was repairable, here is a shot of what I had to work with.

The biggest problem was all the missing parts, all the wing cannons were missing, so was the tail gun, a small top plate, and the lower ramp.

As you can see I've already built or started a lot of these parts, as I tried contacting the seller, and have been completely ignored, this wasn't a cheap model at £150, I'm just glad I didn't go for the Legion scale version at £450, as it would have been an even bigger waste of money ! This isn't the first model I've got from this seller, the Y-Wing came from them, that one at least had all the parts, even they were missing some of the pipes on the main body. It's a shame as they had a lot of models I would have got, this is the seller to avoid popcultureprintinguk

Right after that negativity back to the model, as I was going to have the ramp open I painted the internal area like so, the white bits in the top are plasticard U bar as the fittings were also missing !

Once put together you can't see any of it ! LOL I also painted the crew cab, as I wanted to put a dark smoke screen on the model.

Unfortunately the screen didn't work, so this is now hidden behind the resin screen ! LOL While I'm finishing the wing guns, and the ramp I have got the whole model basecoated, and a layer of contrast paint on it, I think it's going to take a while to finish painting it, hopefully I can get it done before the end of the challenge, as it takes a toll on my hands very quickly with the weight. 

That's all for today, so until next time, stay safe, and have fun !

Cheers Dave