Float Mock Up

Junkanoo float with the major construction done.

Figures are conversions from Airfix and styrene civilians.

Eagle Games horses cut in half and front at the front and back at the back and middle in the spares bin.

This is a little skateboard model.

With four Lego type bricks on top.

Junkanoo floats are often outrageous and wild.

I plan to add more figures and flock the whole thing as flowers.
 

Junkanoo Float

In the James Bond movie, Thunderball, he attends a Junkanoo festival with floats.  I am doing James Bond as one of my project and I am basing him on the early movies.  So it seems right to do a few floats.  I am also working on American cities and so Rose Parade floats might be a good idea too.

I am using various scrap materials because I don't want to actually spend any money on this project.

This float will have two lego style bricks.

A few Eagle Games horses.

A finger skate board.

The upper half of two beach figures, these are their left over legs!  Saved for the next float.

The horse riding parts of these to Airfix Napoleonics are being matched to the upper bodies for the beach figures!
 

Spray Paint Can Mixer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VWJ5qdCe8sY&t=320s

 

This guy on you tube did a video on how to make a drill powered spray paint mixer.

It was so easy I was able to do it in about five minutes or so.  The longest most time consuming part was cutting down the length of the pipe.

Take a three inch diameter piece of plastic pipe, and a three inch diameter test plug and put the plug in the end of the pipe.

Put the end of the screw into the electric drill and tighten it down as if you were going to drill a hole.

Then you have done all the construction work needed.  I cut the pipe down to make it just slightly longer than the size of a Rust-Oleum spray paint can.

Take an old piece of towel and cut it into a small strip about twice as long as a spray paint can and about as wide as the can.

I put the drill motor on the neutral position so I don't accidentally start it while working with the paint.  Use the towel to hold the spray paint can in place when you slide the can into the pipe. 

Unlike this photo, try and leave a bit of the towel sticking out of the pipe, it makes it easier to remove the can if you can simply pull on the end of the towel.  Note the 0 on the spray can lid, it is how I mark open spray cans so I can tell at a glance which ones have already been used a little.

Then just pull the trigger and the paint is stirred.  I typically do 25 seconds, flip the switch and spin the paint 25 seconds in the other direction.  It's probably overkill but you don't always know how long a can of paint has been sitting on the shelf in the store or at home.

Grab the end of the towel and....

Pull out the spray can.  I usually shake it about 10 seconds, just because.  It's probably overkill.  Then paint as normal.  It seems to be doing a great job with all sorts of paint, primer, gloss, or flat.  I have also use the little short Tamiya spray paint cans and they work fine.  The towel holds them in place very well.

 

Deep Forest Green

The US Army was always on the forefront of mechanization.  They realized that shipping horses, mules, their fodder, tack, and all the other gear needed to operate massive numbers for animals for cavalry, towing wagons, and artillery was just too much space for shipping across the Atlantic.

The first motor vehicles had balloon tires that were white, they were like a big inner tube and got punctured frequently.  Later they added carbon to the rubber and made it both stronger and black.  Heavy loads still could not be carried on these balloon tires so tires similar to those wooden wagon wheels were developed.  They were a solid black rubber band heated and then slipped over the steel wheel.  It would shrink and bond to the wheel.  They were very tough and provided better traction than steel wheels without the rubber.  These were used in World War One.

Later the pneumatic tire was invented, not unlike tires of today.  Many thousands of US Army vehicles were switched over to the new tire type.  These were much like automobile tires of today, not the big off road knobby tires usually associated with military vehicles.  Those came later, during WWII.

My WWI era US Army vehicles get painted Olive Drab, but my 1938 US Army vehicles mostly get Rust-Oleum Deep Forest Green.  In peacetime the US Army usually drifts away from the mission of war fighting and the 1930s were no exception.  The began painting vehicle glossy paint jobs and painting large bold unit insignias on them.

This is one of my WWI era trucks, spoked tires.

The same with the canopy up.

And the first truck but painted in Deep Forest Green and with pneumatic tires.  After getting the Deep Forest Green, which as you can see if very flat, I will gloss coat them.
 

Modern Amazons II

The Dark Alliance Modern Amazons.

The detail is very nice, yo can see the little links on the chain mail.

Since I do collect super heroes, and Wonder Woman has been around since World War Two as a super hero it seemed only natural that I would get these for use as Paradise Island dwellers.

Since WW is a fictional character, the fact that these Amazons are less "realistic" than would be typical for ancient Greek Amazons, I am not concerned about their lack of period weapons, armor and attire.

Since having made it to the modern age it would seem to me their weapons may also have progressed, or at least changed in 2,000 years or so.

The poses all together.  You get 40 figures in a box, ten poses, four of each.  I culled a couple individual figures for other purposes.
 

Modern Amazons

Dark Alliance 1/72nd scale Modern Amazons.

They are modern in the sense that they are depicted as they might be in a 21st Century video game or movie rather than in an ancient mosaic or clay jar.

They seem to have rather generic armor and clothing, and the weapons seem oversized for the figures.

They all have the same size base, which is a problem for the figures with a big ax, they fall over easily.

All of them had some flash and it took a while to whittle it all off.

I used a fresh blade about every three or four figures.  Used blades go into the used blades box where they are utilized to cut things like resin or soft metal which really kills a blade.

Not a bad set, plenty of variety from axes, swords, polearms and a bow.
 

Ants Exit Nest

The men deploy as they exit the trucks.

 A long row of new trucks.

Ants in the distance.

More trucks are coming!

Still time to deploy before they get close enough to attack.

More trucks stop and unload.

Men are taking up positions to make a third side of the box.

Close combat going on at one end.

Most troops not in combat yet.

Line of ants spread out.

Seemingly unending masses of ants.