Ah, the smell of craft paint

The smell of craft paint always reminds me of school.  That evocative smell of cheap acrylic paint that we used in so many projects.

And that's what I'm using on the arena I'm painting up.  Well, not completely cheap paint but it all kind of has the same smell.  I'm painting roof and other large sections so there's a lot of wet paint at once, hence the aroma.  In the smaller amounts and in drybrushing you don't get that.

I was able to repair the piece that broke when I dropped it (sorry Froggy - you won't even notice) and a piece that broke when I was painting it (see previous note).  I had epoxy out to work on something else so I made it even stronger.  I really need to start using more epoxy in my builds where there's going to be butt joins and other weak areas.

So all the last pieces have their stonework painted and I've gotten a good start on the detail work.  There's always touchups but those are minor compared to the actual painting.

Whoops.  Forgot the final white highlights on the stonework because I don't put them on my own stuff.  I'll do that tomorrow before going back to the detail painting.

I'll be happy to finally get these pieces done and off to their rightful owner.  I have another 'project for trade' in the wings and that one will be more complicated since I'm still designing as I go.  I also think I need to cast a lot more bricks since I need a lot of a particular one that has one per mold.  Lovely.  I know I should make a mold so I can just cast those but after this project I don't know how much I'll need those in quantity.

Finally Mr. Rastl was very kind and did a project for me.  I now have new figure holders for those models that have the slotta base.  I was using binder clips but had issues with finding places to put them so the paint didn't touch anything.  Now I've got nice stable wood pieces with thick wire holding up alligator clips.  They're weighty enough to stand up nicely, the wire is flexible so I can reach everything on the piece, and the alligator clip should hold the figure securely without getting in the way.  I only had him make 4 of them because: a) I generally only paint at most 4 models at a time and b) the alligator clips came in packs of 4.  We've got enough material to make more if I need them but this should be plenty.

I used my epoxy wisely as I assembled the figure holders, filled in some gaps on the dragon turtle and fixed the terrain pieces.

What I didn't post yesterday because I didn't feel it was worth a post was that I got the heads attached to the Reptus figures.  I used CA (superglue) but didn't get as solid of a bond as I would like.  I re-glued the offending and now detached heads then used the epoxy from the final dragon turtle assemby to seal the seams.  I've done that with other figures and it works quite well.  I'll do the same thing when I attach the shields.  CA to get them in place, epoxy to make sure they stay there.

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