F/A 18E Super Hornet

I'm rather busy with my second child right now, so, just to keep the blog alive, I'll keep posting photos of older models.

Today : a Super Hornet armed to the teeth. Such a manly symbol!

Errrh -nope. Look at the pilot's name:

This is a woman's plane. Not only Cmdr Sara Joyner  was among the very first female fighter pilots, but she became the US Navy' first female squadron leader, and was then promoted in 2010 to head a whole Carrier Air Wing.

And don't get me wrong, my interest for Cmdr Joyner is not one for a hot-chick-piloting-a-deadly-machine, it is one for a fine and highly professional person, who has achieved something that was more or less unthinkable when she was a kid.
As such, I hope Joyner will be an inspiring exemple for my daughter, whichever career (or carrier?) she will embrace.

In the narrow field of women fighter pilots, and as a Frenchman, I naturally also thought of Caroline Aigle, but her destiny is way too sad to be told to a child. Even in her death did she achieved something unreachable to a man.

Caroline Aigle 1974-2007

Interlude

'Grabbed these on an internet sale last year for a fraction of their retail price.
As a result the ensuing assembly was totally unstressful, and was thus an agreeable breeze.
The result is not perfect, but still presentable.

Stug III Ausf G:

ISU 122 (Berlin 1945):

Details

Summer has come upon Toulouse, with its intense sun which makes for good photos.
This was the perfect excuse to take the Canon and models out for a late afternoon photo shoot on the balcony.

Finished!

Just a very long weekend, and I was able to finish off the beast.
It was hard time, since we're expecting the birth to happen anytime soon, closely followed by a new house with lots of works to be done. The weeks to come are going to be rather interesting.

Horns and claws and concretions

It's been a long time... lots of other things to do.

Anyway, back to our slo-mo dragon, and today we are looking at claws and -you've read the title.
These had already been painted in a light grey tone, but it was unsuitable for the bizarre concretion that are scattered over the dragon's skin.

A touch of black helped make a clear delimitation:

Then for some light green ('gretchin green') to link the black colour with the light grey. The result is far from pretty, but it's all part of the plan.

Now the whole thing is covered with a higly diluted layer of crème colour ('ushabti bone'), which, when dry, is enriched with the other tones underneath.

Here the dilution of paint is key, but it won't work properly on the concretions. These are given a 'dry brush', which could be described as the opposite of the dilution technique.

I'm not finished with these horns and claws and concretions, but it was hard time I post something on this blog. Hopefully it won't be long before the next bit.

Lazy post

This runner obviously won his race.

The "Police line" is really easy to make: just type the text with a word processor,  print it, and then colour it with a highlighter. It's quite useful on bases.

zombies

Just to keep you waiting: three zombies.

The obvious problem with a "monster box" such as Zombicide is that you're bound to get paint dozens of identical figures. This is not a big problem with, say, napoleonic armies, with uniformed-clad soldiers marching in line, but it becomes one for zombie hordes composed of erratic individuals.

What we see in this photograph is that the base can become a good differentiator between identical figures. Torn bits of coffee stirrers, a washed-out newspaper, or coke can can make a big difference.
The newspaper and soda can are ideas directly taken from this French blog - you may print page 55 of the pdf document: it is covered with scaled newspapers, "caution" signs, McDonald's ads, US dollar banknotes, etc. all things useful to depict an apocalyptic pavement.

a study in red

I haven't been working a lot on the dragon lately.

A long, risky and uninspiring task : painting crème-coloured stripes all over the skin...
(on the shoulders and arms, I paint them so as to imitate muscle fibres)

Then, cover the whole thing in red.

As a result, the dragon turns a fiery red, with nice, discreet highlights. So discreet in fact that they hardly appear on the photo.

The red colour is a wild creature, quite hard to tame. This is a method, though not my favourite.

Wings

Hello folks, and back to our dragon.

Now for the wings, and more specifically the junction line between them and the finger bones.
The different steps won't really stand out in the photos, which led me to do this little diagram:

1 & 2 - green / yellow gradation:

3 - dark brown layer:

4 - dark green layer...

5 ...blended:

Zombicide

OK, I'm quite slow at painting this dragon. But I also paint other things...

Enter 'Zombicide', by a French-staffed American company not-so-subtly named 'Guillotine Games'.
OK, zombies are all the rage these time, and thus deserve to be declared lame anytime soon. Nevertheless this game is quite decent: last Christmas, I even introduced it to non-gamers, non-hobbyists from my family, and everybody, men and women alike, quite enjoyed the game.

After that pleasing success I decided to paint the whole game box, and that means a lot of figures:

Now I'm almost done. Sure this work has slowed the warpfire dragon, but, you see, huge models will require months to get completed, and to keep up a steady pace, the cave-age hobbyist that I am needs the motivational satisfaction of seeing a completed model from time to time.

...and highly disposable zombies offer a a decent result for a quick paint.

More on this in later posts...

Painting...

Once we've applied basic colours with the airbrush, it's time to revert to classic brushes.

Now the whole thing is beginning to look actually look like a dragon and long-ruined temple:

Airbrush time!

From time to time I get to take my old airbrush out of the closet.

Here we go for the black coating:

And then for base colours:

For now, my aim is to gradually turn these colours to some yellowish shade for the wing membrane, and some kaleidoscope of greens for the body. But to be fair, I doubt that it is a good idea, and if it is, and doubt I can implement it properly.

The thing is, these dragon models are a welcome change from the usual science-fiction thingies and other historical warplane kits, so I indulge in some experimentation, not always for the better.

Next stop: I don’t know, for reasons of my mother-in-law staying at home this week. Not the most appropriate time to display my toys.
In the meantime, I should watch out for the mightiest creature in this flat, who can be seen below attempting to stomp the warpfire dragon (again).

Assembly Completed

Here it is, fully assembled.
...and barely fitting into my brand-new foldable studio (obviously the gigantic Carmine Dragon won't fit at all).

This first picture clearly shows the plastic and resin parts. Plastic = wings and torso, resin = everything else.

Here the dead tree can be seen in its "balancing the figure" role.

Now for the painting phase.

Taking Pictures

Taking photo of your minis is always a problem. The light is never how it should be, and getting the camera's settings just right is quite a burden. The internet is full of do-it-yourself-cardboard-box-photo-studios, but I simply can't store a gigantic, empty box in my apartment.

But today the solution has arrived in the form of a very flat parcel, which unfolds to make a tiny photo studio, hence its name: Foldio. It is lightened by a strip of LED powered by a simple 9-volt battery.

This little wonder was launched not so long ago thanks to a Kickstarter campaign. It is made by California-based Orange Monkey, even though the product itself is produced in Korea (the parcel arrived directly from the country of the quiet morning).

Honestly, I have been quite amazed by the quality of its material and assembly, but above all by its ingenuity. The thing has really been carefully thought through and through. The guys from Orange Monkey repeatedly stated so during their Kickstarter campaign, but the real thing really is "quality".

 Now what about the photos?
Well my first guinea pig will be a spectre. That's a 1999 Warhammer figure that my old friend Frédéric  (yes, older than 1999) gave me (again).

Here it is, photographed "the old way" (veteran hobbyists may notice the "hawk turquoise" with which the mini was painted):

And here is the Foldio treatment, a shot taken in my kitchen, long after dark:

You be the judge.