The Challenge (Day 17); The Importance of Adaptability (and Chemistry for Beginners)

The 6th Analogue Hobbies Painting Challenge continues apace!

Regular readers will be pleased to know that I finally pulled my finger out and got some runs on the board in the first of the themed rounds, 'Nostalgia', though it wasn't exactly what I originally had in mind.

I had planned to get some old lead painted up, but well, it was a lot of lead, and it was very old, and as it turns out, old lead is both very fragile and very prone to oxidisation. Here's an example;

He's clearly seen better days.

Needs a little cleaning and reconstructive work, right? And you see that fine dusty patina over the surface?

If only I'd seen that before undercoating the other dozen figs... I'd removed flash and mould lines, but failed completely to reckon with 30 years' worth of oxidisation. Paint completely failed to stick, leaving the vintage minis a blotchy mess.

Well, I still have the one shown above, so we'll see how we go cleaning him up for painting. Incidentally, he's one of a boxed set of RuneQuest adventurer figs from 1982 - how nostalgic would that have been?

So I had to activate my contingency plan, or rather, come up with a contingency plan. And here he is!

Hooray for Captain Spaulding, The African Explorer!

Copplestone Castings produced this wonderful figure of Groucho Marx, as seen in 1930's Animal Crackers. I'm just glad I had this one stashed away on the north face of my lead mountain!

He was painted with a mix of GW paints and the Vallejo colours which I'm progressively phasing in as the GW stuff runs out. Basing is on a 25mm Renedra plastic base with a layer of Vallejo White Pumice for texture, and Tajima1 Tufts to finish it off.

Hello, I must be going...

So if you haven't already, get on over to the Bonus Themes page at The Painting Challenge and check out the other entries in the 'Nostalgia' round. You will not be disappointed!

More later - stay tuned!

Ev