Mucking around with green stuff and the graft of construction

My new plan, and it sounds great to my ears,  is to only post when I have done something with miniatures other than buy them.

Three Saturdays ago (the 10th) I finally got up the guts to open the packet of green stuff putty I bought three years before that.

There was an unreasonable amount of anxiety about using it. Totally about making mistakes and wasting what seems like an expensive addition to the kit.

Thankfully, it turned out to be a lot of fun. I'd initially decided to cut the strips apart to prevent further curing. I had no intention of using it, which is obviously the fear and procrastination talking. I ended up with more cut off than I'd expected and decided to play with it all rather than waste it.

Observations and confirmations:
 -It is totally like playing with chewing gum!
-Where the blue and yellow meet in the packet does indeed harden. Exhibit A: all the yellow piecess in the photos are hardened chunks of putty.
-It's hard to mix the two colors thoroughly. That stuff is tough!
- the oil from my forehead and side of my nose does indeed stop green stuff sticking to tools and fingers.
- and speaking of fingers, you can see my prints all over.

I had decided to base all the painted Dragon Bait adventurers on lipped bases and wanted this to be a, if not easy, at least a straight forward way to get the measure of green stuff.

***

The following day, building on the putty momentum, I tidied and based and constructed a whole bunch of stuff.

Games Workshop's Skitarii. Two years ago I was in the middle of the deepest dislike for what the company was doing (miniatures, rules, practices, prices; you name it, I disliked it) and they produced these miniatures.

"Simon, how would you like radium rifle wielding, steampunk cyborgs from Mars?"
"Would I?!!"

Problem one:
The instruction booklet made Baby Editor cry. I don't want to see spelling mistakes, nor incorrect images in the instructions. This is the publication that will guide me through putting this product together. It shouldn't have obvious mistakes in it. I am tempted to send a marked up copy back to them with suggested corrections. I'd start with "give it to someone to read and follow" and go from there.

Problem Two:
Sod me if these aren't some of the fiddliest things I've ever put together. They're small, they're detailed. There are lots of pieces per miniature with lots of points of contact.  If the fine bits weren't breaking, the bigger bits weren't fitting and the glue was picking and choosing when it would work.

Lesson learned, I hate multi-part kits. The journey is tedious, the destination passable. The irritation is real. And I only have to construct another 50 odd of these beautiful little headaches.

This beastie was attached to the cover of the surprisingly enjoyable White Dwarf relaunch. Overturning my experience with the Skitarii, this was relatively simple to put together. Probably because it is huge, probably because there has been over two years of learning at the studio where it was designed. I was actually finding myself impressed with how all of the pieces overlapped and worked together to hide mould lines.

Rebased Eldar pirates and harlequins. I'm switching them to attractive lipped bases.

"Would you like to see my scale creep?" smirked the gnome.The Slaughter Priest shifted uneasily, thankful that bloodstains hide blushes.

These are both manufactured thirty five years apart by the same company. The gnome (sculpted by Michael Perry) is less than an inch from sole of boot to tip of hat. The Slaughter Priest is nearly 3 inches tall.  

More posts as I do more.