Time for Halloween

Check these out, they are a new release by Crazy Owners just in time for Halloween. I thought the shirt was very cool, so I pre-ordered a couple of these for the shirts.

My first Diorama attempt

I've always wanted to try my hand and making a custom diorama, but to be honest I've never thought I have enough patience or skill to do one. Today my wife and I needed to stop into Home Depot, so I decided to bite the bullet and by a 4'x8' sheet of styrofoam, the kind you see carpenters use to insulate houses.

One of my biggest problems has always been that I rush into my projects and try to accomplish the entire thing at one time... I want this to be different. So far I cut two 20"x20" squares - one for the ground, one for the actual wall. It's very very basic right now, but my plan is to work on it a little bit each night after work until it's completed...

Suggestions are definitely welcome... This is going to be a huge learning process for me.

New from Very Hot: US Army MP

Just saw this listed over on Very Hot's website. I'll definitely have to pick up a few of these sets when they are released... (click on the picture for more images)

Just preordered from Loading Toys

I just preordered this head-sculpt from Loading Toys. I am not sure where it will fit into my collection just yet, probably on my ODA team. As soon as I saw it, my initial thoughts were of Eddie Price from Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six book and video games. I can't wait until it arrives. This is the Loading Toys Primo Head with gas cylinder.





Primo

Beard Project

I've seen several people do some amazing custom work using different products, and I have been wanting to give it a try for some time now. After talking with Dave B, he told me what product he uses, and where to buy it so I figured I would give it a try.

The product blue/yellow epoxy or Green Stuff. It's basically a 1:1 mix that allows you time to work the epoxy before it cures. The thing that I really liked about this when Dave told me about it, was that you don't have to cook it...

Please keep in mind that this is my very first attempt, but I thought it wasn't half bad for a beginner....

First thing I did was picked an older joe body out of my spares box....
Then I cut equal portions of the green stuff....I wanted to keep this clean as possible, so I used a small piece of wax paper to place the green stuff on while I was working with it, and I used a pair of powder free latex gloves. This stuff is great to work with, it's just like playing with a sticky clay from when you were a kid... Once you work it for a few minutes, it turns a nice green color...Now I just started working with very small portions, adding it and smoothing it as I went. I don't have any clay sculpting tools, so I used two different style 1:6 scale daggers to work the details into the beard, and to shave of excess epoxy.... This probably took me about 45 minutes total, and a lot of it is just trial and error. Here's where I am at this point. I'm going to let it sit overnight, and will try to paint it tomorrow.I plan on doing a few more of these just for practice, so that I can move on to a couple ideas that I have floating in my head.... please feel free to let me know what you think... Thanks for looking.

Horse Soldiers

A couple pictures from the recent snowfall....Inspired by the book "Horse Soldiers" by Doug Stanton.

GO JOE!

Just received General Clayton Abernathy "Hawk" from my good friend Jim Merzke. Thanks again Jim, now my Joe team is complete - or at least as far as the ones from Rise of Cobra.