S is for Scruffy Scot's

A mixed post really, I'm finishing the Highlander box-tickers with Cherilea, but they are - as some of you will be only too aware - hard to find in good condition and/or number, so I'll do what I can with not much, although luckily Theo van der Weerden sent me some images of his with nice paint, so the 54mm figures can be shown fully!

The 60mm however will have to wait until I get some! This is it; not brilliant, but not too bad either, I particularly like the staff/mace, which has a decent rendition of the relief-tooled gilded-silver or plain silverwork you see on the shafts in reality.

54mm; I think it's only the four poses so I should count my blessings - at least I have them! Paint's tatty, but it nearly always is with these!

Earlier issue or very different second cavity? The figure on the right's barely 50mm and I'm assuming is taken from the original hollow-cast range, but the 'standard' sculpt, not the 40mm figure which was visibly smaller and wore a Glengarry.

I'm not sure why I took this shot, clearly - at the time - I was very pleased with my two tatty drummers! Or is it that ones got a slightly squashed drum? I don't know!

Again two sculpts with the left one probably coming via the hollow-cast range, the right-hand figure has quite good-to-fair paint (for my sample!) but a damaged mace, thus it is trying to collect these I guess . . . also coming to this late, all the good ones have probably been snapped-up!

Theo's have lovely paint! The broken one will require some Superglue 'Plastix'; paint the upper breaks with the activator pen, put two small blobs ('wettings' really) on the lower breaks and press firmly together on a flat surface. While you're holding them together, carefully paint round the lower break/ankle with the activator pen to encourage some of the glue to flow back.

The glue works through capillary-action, by having the spirit in the activator draw the glue down into the molecular structure of the polymer, like an anchor in sand, however if you follow the instructions to the letter and coat both surfaces you will find the glue starts to set straight away, which as that involves it wrinkling-up and turning glass-like, leaves you with a poor join. The activator is also a- or contains an additional- catalyst.

It's better to coat one-half of the break and then try to draw it (the glue) back into the other half after you've got them both lined-up and jointed flush. It's a skill or 'knack' that requires practice, but try it using some old knackered figures to practice on - it will help you save more valuable or rare figures later.

Another shot  of Theo's, showing the marching rifleman. He does these images on an Epson scanner, I have an Epson but I can't get results like this, despite trying all the buttons on the 'advanced' settings, I can't get the depth of field, and only end up with the bits touching the glass in focus, there must be an infinity setting . . . or something . . . fussa-russa!

And thanks to Theo for the images!