54mm Samurai arms and display base work

Serious air guitar

Well despite the Xmas silly season being well underway and a late night party that became a early morning party good progress was made.  This is my last weekend as the next two are out with holiday activities so definitely into the business end of getting this figure done.

Putty work

Repaint done

Both arms were glued on (using two part epoxy glue) and the gaps puttied up.  It’s a bit odd after a few months of seeing the figure without any arms.  He suddenly looks a lot squatter.  After 24 hours the putty was undercoated and again left overnight to dry.  I was a bit worried about trying to blend the new sections back in with the rest of the figure but it worked out to be easier than expected.  I think this was because both sides of the arms where the putty was were in the lighter sections and the highlighting up was easier than the shading.  I found that the first two coats of paint over the undercoat had to be thicker than normal but after than the blends were as normal.  Also I made sure when I was blending in the new section that I blended over some of the existing painted section as well.  This overlap would help hide the new paint work, as you will never get a paint mixture exactly the same as the first time you did it.

New wall

On the base I painted up the wall section much like my test piece from earlier.  On the test piece I also started trying out some oil paint blends and washes to see if that improved things much.  It did a bit, but I also want to do a little bit of pigment work too while I have the chance as the test piece and the real piece are very close.  I’m pretty much sold on always doing test piece for terrain bases going forward.

Many trials, lots of error

On the cobblestones still no luck.  Many attempts but all don’t really seem to work with the rest of the piece.  I’m currently trialling a very light dirt/mortar colour with the rocks being the same range of greys that make up the wall.  Hopefully next week I’ll get this sorted out.  Also I need to complete the naginata.