Parcels, parcels everywhere!

Hello guys,

as the title suggests, postman sure made my day on Wednesday! I managed to get not one, but two packets. Now, the photos are from that time and in the mean while, I have managed to make some steps forward (and even backwards!) that I didn't took photos of. So, essentially I am bringing you old news.

I've been part of the new S.D.Z.A euphoria on facebook lately. I have to admit game doesn't really fit my ideas of a game, but - as it is so diverse - following stuff that is being posted on facebook offers a nice inspiration. I only really like the dinosaur part of it and I am sorry my Lost lands project from the last year never really took off in a form of a game. Anyways, there was a nice prize draw set up by Wargames terrain workshop. They were looking for ideas of dinosaurs to be made into a miniature and I chipped in with a suggestion. I was quite surprised to win it (yay!) and as a prize I got their first commercially available dinosaur - a styracosaurus. There he is, in all his glory:

He is a large beast and the head is just stunning. It really is. Just look at all the tiny details:

I think the least I can do when given something free is to do something with it right away, so I started assembling it. It has been a while since I was working with resin (limited to assembling FOW vehicles) so I managed to do the following:
- glue the head on the body
- break the spikes trying to get them off the sprue (blunt knives don't work!)
- start drilling holes in the head so I can resculpt the horns
- break the head right off
Now, while this is all my fault, I am trying to look at the bright side - by sculpting the horns at least I'll give my "touch" to the miniature as I had no idea what could I add to it when I first got it. Also, I think that by drilling holes in the head and attaching a wire, horns will be a lot less fiddly. I really hate to see stuff breaking off after a model is painted (FOW vehicles machine guns being a good example!).

It will take me some time, but I'll be adding horns two at a time and I will most certainly play a dino hunt scenario at one point! :D

Another thing I got was Oyumaru from Hong Kong. Or, if you prefer it rebranded, an insta mould. They are available on Ebay in various colours and boring as I am I went with the clear ones. I wish I'd pick up purple!
Oyumaru is a piece of something (this is not a professional term for it) that you put into a hot water and it gets soft. Then you press it on a thing you want to get copies of, wait for it to harden again and you fill it with a putty. It's a press mould so one side is blank, but by giving it some practice, 3D stuff could be cast.

The stuff is easily cut, reusable, put together again....you name it. I am currently using it to cast canteens for my soldiers. One thing I noticed is that Empress Americans either carry a camel back or they run around thirsty.

Talking about Empress Americans, below are some of them that should be ready to be painted soon.
I will talk about them in more detail when they are done, but here is a GPMG team (had barrel reworked). They only need their canteens attached, sand put on their bases and they will be ready for painting. The assistant gunner was originally holding an M4 in his hands, but it got substituted for a link of rounds now. Adding a gun would involve a lot of cutting and as his primary job is to feed the machine gun, it makes more sense for him to be doing something with the ammo.

Lastly, I received my rifles last week. 45 of them, to be exact. There is an ordinary "red dot" version, a scoped version and a version with an UGL.

I started putting a fire team together right away and I can tell you one thing. If it seems simple - it is not. Neither it is any fun. It still is hobby and it brings a warm feeling when I get it done. I am a bit daunted by painting them, but once painted I am sure I'll be satisfied.




First of 4 fire teams below. All those need are canteens and helmet straps on three of them. One thing I dislike about them is the abundant use of helmet cameras. It's a needless clutter to me, but I suppose we live in a digital age now, so I didn't bother cutting them off.

The second team is in the making. This one almost made me cry as the guns kept falling off. I can report their hands are now done and they even got heads attached!

And this is it, more or less. I should streamline my work and REALLY just work on the moderns as I am all over the place and I can't resist the feeling nothing gets done. I am not sure about posting once a week just yet, but it spares me the trouble of finding a filler post every  now and then. Plus, I really don't like putting photos on my computer for some reason :D.

Thanks for looking,
Mathyoo