Carriages

I got these Christmas ornaments at the Dollar General store, for a dollar.

They are one piece resin, covered in glitter.  I hate glitter, it gets everywhere.

I used Simple Green, it did not take off the glitter and so now it is soaking in Kleen Strip Green Paint and Varnish Remover.  I have done the gold one a couple runs and it still has glitter in the tight spaces.  One more run and it should be fine, but it has been too cold for that.  Maybe next week.  It is coming off okay but I like very single square of glitter off before I repaint them.  It's a big carriage, really probably 1/48th scale.  But my plan is to use it for a Disneyland Main Street parade with Eagle Games horses, so it should be fine for that purpose.  The second one will end up in Oz, not sure who will tow it.  Maybe mammoths or giraffes or something odd.
 

Painting Trucks and Tanks

Still painting the little Christmas trucks.

And a Paul Heiser M46 tank.

Two more Christmas trucks, this time in Air Force blue.  Pick up trucks were all over the Cold War US military.

Painting the olive drab over the gray primer.  Since I had to strip the paint off the trucks and the Heiser Models are resin, both do well with a primer paint first.

Rust-Oleum Gloss Deep Blue is the color for the Air Force trucks.  I think I was moving when I took this fuzzy photo.

More olive drab for the trucks.  I constructed beds for about a third of the trucks.

They look much better with the beds but it is a lot of work.

I always paint the top and bottom of my vehicles.
 

MPC Vehicles and Boat

MPC collection in the dark.

These are all recast items.

A recast is a toy that has been made recently from old, original molds.  Sometimes the molds have been cleaned up or otherwise modified.  Usually the recast is the first time in years, often decades, since the original mold has last been run.  Colors of plastic are sometime the same as the original, but often are different so that collectors won't be confused as to the age of the recast figures.

The paper flags are older than the models but I can't say how old.

The original MPC weasel had a silver painted wooden dowel.  I used a white plastic tube instead with the recasts since they did not come with a recoilless rifle barrel.

This is the MPC DUWK amphibious truck.

The originals had more accessories, including a canopy.  Often these types of parts were cast from secondary molds and recasts often don't have them available.

The PT boat in the back is also an MPC recast.  I have all these models for over ten years.

As a kid I had one of the PT boats in a beautiful metallic blue with the accessories in some other color, maybe white.  I have a couple old original weasels that I had as a kid and a few from eBay a long time ago.  I never had the DUWK as a kid.

All these vehicles work well with 54mm to 60mm figures.  They have a lot of play value and I like playing with them even now that I am retired.
 

Figure Conversions

These are figures that I am working on in 1/72nd scale.

They are henchmen and molls and villains for Batman 66. 

The hexagon bases are for major named characters.  The triangle bases are for usually unnamed henchmen.

I gather figures from all over the collection to modify to create these heroes and villains.

They get headswaps, new arms, sometimes it even takes four or five figures combined to create one.  Frankenstyrene and his monster.

Other figures, like this black and white figure, will just be repainted.

Most of these are from generic plastic figures, often with head swaps.

This Dapol figure has had a Fujimi WWII German head with gas mask replace his original head.

All of these figures are 1/76 to 1/72nd scale.

This is a three way head swap.  Each figure here will lose a head and gain a new head.  Most of the British Commandos will get an M1 helmet.  The white figures will get the Commando watch cap.  The remaining Matchbox and Airfix figures will get either heads from the white plastic guys, or other heads from the spares box.  I am creating MR Freeze henchmen, top row, US Navy landing party, bottom row, and the middle row will be US civilian police or US Air Force and Army Air Corps soldiers.