Painting: Jedi Interceptor (Micro Machines)

So today's entry features the first of my Micro Machines Star Wars model re-paints. Yes, I am planning on doing more.

Before I get to that exciting bit, a little about the Micro Machines toys/models. Some of them are quite nice. I think that their TIE fighters are well done, and I don't plan on touching a brush to them. The same goes for the Droid Trifighter, a craft I was unfamiliar with until buying the pack that has one. I will likely leave the X-wings alone, except for the two duplicates I ended up with (both are Episode 7 versions). But the ones in my collection that cry out for a paint job are the ARC-170 and the Jedi Interceptors. I think the paint sprayers at the factory must have been mis-aligned on the one I painted as the spot that was supposed to colour the R2 unit's head looked like it was sliding off over its shoulder and running onto the craft.

One other thing to mention, a person might notice the stands I made for these Micro Machines miniatures. In the 90s, Star Wars Micros came with clear plastic stands, as did Star Trek and other sci-fi models. The ones sold in stores now do not include stands, which is just as well considering the old ones had a tendency to turn yellow with prolonged exposure to air. The ones I made are just 1 1/4" squares, about 3/8" thick with a machine bolt through the center (countersunk on the bottom). The machine bolt is just the right thickness to screw into the stand holes of the Micro Machines (yes, the holes are still included though the stands are not). Then, of course, I painted them black. I will likely paint lines for fire arcs as well.

So without any further stalling, here are the pictures of my work. Since I have to of the ships, I included the as yet unpainted one as a 'before' example.

Repaint on the right!

I dry-brushed some black smudges for battle-wear or something. Dark grey for the guns and some silver highlights here and there. Was planning on using some grey as well, but I forgot about it.

Kept the thrusters black, but dry-brushed some silver on them. The R2 unit was a little tough to get looking right, but still looks better than before.

Maybe can't tell in the image, but there's some kind of conduit visible that looks good in silver with the dark grey gun above it and the kind of dark blue around it.

Front view. A bit of a bend in the plastic so one of the wings looks out of line at the front. Wanted to highlight the TIE fighter-like window on the front of the cockpit. This window is not painted in on the original, which kinda makes it look weird.

All in all, a fun project. Turned out better than expected. As all of my model painting has been so far, I used craft acrylics with an finishing clear coat of Pledge with Future Shine. Itching to do some more, but can't make up my mind about which one to do next!

Siege the Day!

We were cleaning up for for Lawrence's upcoming birthday party. After vacuuming the floor, Lawrence wanted to play the castle game. Well, a nice, clean and uncluttered floor makes getting out the Siege! game so much easier. And a nice, thickish carpet makes for great slowing terrain, meaning errant shots don't roll too far away from the play area.

So we set it up, I did the fiddly castle-building while Lawrence set up the trees - his favourite part, next to shooting the siege weapons. We don't play the full rules, he gets tired of them too quickly, so we just set up some dudes and start firing.

The enemy siege works from the tower.

Some of the plastic soldiers were snapped off of their bases the last time they battled - the fight was unsupervised, I only saw the aftermath. I think the two sides must have resorted to the use of feet. Thus we can't fully staff the castle complement and invading army. In fact, some mercenaries were spotted...

The view from the invaders' side. Note time-travelling mercenary (centre).

I'm liking the catapults more for long range firing each time I pull this out. There's one on the right of the above image. I  seem to be more successful with them than with the cannon or the ballista, which are more deadly up close. But I seldom get so close. Of course, because of their coolness factor, I seldom get to use the cannon or ballista. There is a measure of control with the catapults: they have little adjustable bumpers to restrict how far back the flinging arm can go, so you can use that to set the general range and you ad least won't overshoot the target so often. The cannon only has one firing power: super hard. It does have a height adjustment, but that rarely seems to make a difference over the shots. I do like the ballista, which again allows more control over the power of the shot and so seems to allow the shooter to be more accurate. 

We never do figure out a winner. Lawrence has a hard time hitting any of my guys unless he is up close and then his guys start to respawn after a certain loss threshold is reached. 

Anyway, this game is bit nostalgic since I basically played the same thing with my brothers. We would divide dominoes and army men to build up our armies, then flick a marble at each other's forces. I remember seeing this game in the Sears Christmas catalogue or something and wanting it in order to upgrade the way we played at home.

Always fun though. Who doesn't want to to use catapults and cannons to fling marbles at an "exploding" castle.