S is for Space

More 54mm. There's a story behind these, I talked my mate John into 'lending' me these, so that I could paint them, with the intention of giving them back to him to put on eBay, this was about 4 years ago!

When he was helping me with my flooded storage unit a year and a half ago, we found them and I asked him if he wanted them back (they'd been packed in a hurry and forgotten about, only to turn up in one of the damaged boxes), and he insisted I keep them after 'all the work' I'd done, so they are here in Berkshire, looking for a shelf, as even I can't bare to put them on eBay now!

One of each pose of the Airfix Space Warriors, painted with PVA/Acrylics, something I'm still getting my head round, but it does cover the larger figures well without flaking as easily as spirit-based 'enamels' used to.

I consider these to be the 'good' guys, hero and heroine on the ends, government trooper in the sand suit and a special agent in the red helmet (although he could be a 'neutral'...assassin or something).

I base with a fine soily sand I collect from beaten doormats, and run through a fine sieve, then a gauze tea-strainer, it sticks well to a thick layer of paint, but PVA white/wood glue would do the same job. The different colour of the bases comes from the underlying paint, not the soil.

The 'bad' guys, left to right we find Lizard man (they're always bad!), evil Manga robot and Darth Vader (TM)'s cousin Frank.

I used to hate this set, but actually they paint up quite well and half the hate was down to their lack of availability in the Airfix HO/OO range. Why is this about the only set the Chinese never copied in small scale either?! There were a couple of HO copies in a later kit from Airfix?