Sunday Painting - A Mini for LAF's Space Oddities Paint Club

I was pretty excited to see the next paint club on the Lead Adventurers Forum, but I have so many choices, or so I thought. When I started digging through my minis I realized that I really don't have that many science fiction minis and a good chunk of the ones I do have require a lot of assembly. This paint club is going to fill up fast so I didn't feel like I had the time to do anything complex. Then I stumbled across a Hasslefree mini that was a reject from my old "Shopping" diorama. This is HFA-049 McKenzie, and is she loaded for bear, two pistols, a combat knife and plenty of ammo. So here she is from start to finish with a missing chunk in the middle when I forgot to take pictures (pretty typical).

Straight from the ziplock

Prepping the base for some of my basing material

And there we go. I use matte mediurm to apply my ground cover. If I want to remove it I can just soak it in water and scrap it off.

Skin is almost done here, there's not a lot of it. I tried out the Scale75, Scalecolor  Flesh tones on McKenzie

Going with a basic a brown uniform, using Reaper MSPs

And now we have skipped way ahead. Here she is pretty close to being finished. That's the Reaper Jungle Moss Triad on her body armor and helmet. Reaper Khaki tried for almost everything that was a belt, strap or holster.

And here she is all finished off. I tried to give the base a Mars "feel".

McKenzie is a red head! I want to add some color and this seemed like my best option.  I also pulled some of the red up from the base on to the boots and pants to tie her into the base better.

For a quick paint job, I think about 5 hours, I'm pretty pleased with the results on this one. It reminds me that I need to make a Hasslefree order though! I do need to take some better finished shots when I get back to the house. My lights were giving off some odd shadows on the background and I really couldn't light her the way I wanted.

We have Lift Off! Orion into Orbit

Today everything cooperated and Orion atop the Delta IV was 7:05 Eastern Time. Yes, I slept through it.

4 hours 24 minutes launch to splashdown. A flawless maiden flight!

Orion launch Scrubbed for Today

The unmanned launch of the US Orion deep space vehicle has been scrubbed for today. Cranky valves and high winds at the Cape caused the delay. There is another launch window tomorrow (12/5) at 7:05am EST.

I realized this morning that this is the first time that a member of my family has not been directly involved with a NASA manned space project. My uncle worked on all prior manned NASA projects from Mercury through the Space Shuttles. My brother works at Ball, but he is currently engaged on the James Webb Space Telescope.

Tail End of the Train - C&N adds a Caboose

Bachmann makes a pretty generic caboose, unfortunately its an 8 wheel caboose and I really wanted a 4 wheel "bobber" caboose for the C&N to match the two that they had. At some point on eBay I stumbled on a 4 wheel setup and I bought 2. I have been a little reluctant to work with them as they seem to be a little fragile. I removed the regular trucks and mounted up the 4 wheel truck last night. Popped some wheels on there and I was done. I'm still not sure about the look so I'm going to go ahead and hold often converting my other caboose.

I had already airbrushed my chosen tru-color paint onto a bunch of freight cars including the cabooses. At this point I just added the two C&N logo decals and I was ready to go. I gave it a quick spray with the dullcoat and let it dry. I figured since I already had all my weathering stuff out I may as well work on weathering it up.

Its a little heavy and it looks patchy in the pictures but it looks okay when I hold it in my hand and give it the 2' test.

So the results of this evenings endeavors:

The base coat of paint was already on my intended victim

Added a decal to each side. The C&N didn't number their cabooses.

Applied the soot first, let it streak down the sides

Applied rust both with a prismacolor pencil and a rust effect paint

Applied the dirt, doesn't look this patchy or this heavy in person. I may have to go back over it and lighten the effect.

Little lighter on this side. Definitely need to get a brush in there and even the powder across the surface.

A Side Trip - Roxborough State Park

There are a huge number of tiny little state parks that dot the Colorado landscape. I think roughly 2/3rds of the State is dedicated to either State or Federal Parks. Fortunately we have a lot of room and not many people to fill it with! It was a lovely day and a bit of hooky from work was in order.

Coming into the park and looking south. While its an artsy shot, that's mostly because that's all I could get. It was about 11AM with a low winter sun. Unintentionally cool.

Classic look for the Morrison Sandstone formation that runs along the Front Range

The Dakota Formation another sandstone formation, this is on the east side of the park. The Morrison formation is behind me.

The beginning of a hogback

Baby Hogback, the rock on either side of the "spikes" is eroding away faster. Unfortunately I  won't be around when its finished.

Another shot of the Morrison formation, this time looking from the Dakota formation side

This is a side shot of the Dakota formation once we got up close. This is the same formation seen in the first Dakota Formation photo above.

Another look at the Morrison formation.

Still some snow at Noon in the shadow of the Dakota formation

Dakota formation on the north side of the park

Leaving the park, you can see the Dakota formation stretching into the distance towards Denver. As you get closer to Golden and Boulder you start to see these eroded down to hogbacks.

The Dakota formation Hogbacks between Boulder and Golden looking to the south.