A Call to Arms

When a veteran calls...answer.

Flag damage

Recently, a colleague had the misfortune of some significant damage done to a statue of his. Command Master Sergeant Louis Barnes thought his retirement statue would be safe, but a strong gust of wind and down it tumbled off of his desk. This statue seemed heavy, but it turns out that all of the weight was in the wood base, so when the wind picked up; down went the statue to a crashing disaster.

Lou and I were, at the time, colleagues at Metters, Inc. which is now unfortunately closed (Lou is starting a new security company Barnes Security Solutions, LLC if you need assistance in the Orlando, FL area). Lou had originally asked our model shop lead if he could be of assistance, but was redirected to me given my hobby of small toy soldiers. Now Lou's soldier statue stands about 18" high all told, so a far cry from the 1" figures I usually manage.

Damage Done

Base damage

When Lou approached me, I was nervous to agree and so asked him to bring it into the office so that I could take a look at the damage. I am no sculptor and by no means a professional. Lou had attempted a self-repair, but could not get all of the little bits reattached and the gaps filled.

Foot damage

The biggest concerns for me were the damage to the flag. This was a pretty significant gap and a number of large cracks running up and down the flag. The access the parts of the flag that were damaged were obstructed by the head of the statue.

The other concern was the damage to the foot. This was mainly a concern because it was a more complex area with the laces and boot sections. The gap, while relatively small, was combined with a crack that went from one side to the other then across the front to the toe. The crack was thin and already glued back together so fixing that area was concerning.

Flag damage

The least of the concerns was the damage to the base. This overall was the least complex. It was a rather flat area with some scratch marks within the general area. The area was large, but all in all seemed like a pretty straight forward correction. The only potential concern would be the adherence of the materials to the base.

The statue is made of plaster, so the material was not too much of a concern. The larger issue was the paints. As I stated pretty clearly, I am colorblind so I had a significant concern with selecting the correct colors to match the under color and the and the bronzing. This was after some especially difficult times at Metters with work on one of the military trainers where we had a major issue with the customers original selection for a copper pipe versus what would actually be seen in the real world.

Healing Process

Reporting for duty

After the review of the statue in person, I decided to give it a go. The alternative was for Lou to ship it off to someone at an exorbitant rate to get fixed. I was fairly confident that I would be able to restore it to a more than fair condition and set it right back to Lou.

I started with the easiest first, the base. This was to get the mix of plaster (Merlin's ) correct and to gets my hands dirty again with the plaster. Once I had the mix right, I was able to apply using my dental picks. These were the perfect tools to work the plaster. After filling in the space, it was a matter of letting the plaster dry a bit and then marking it to look much like the other scratches.

Firm base support

With the work on the base done, I moved onto the boots. The hole filling was pretty easy, but then the next step was the work on the boots. This made me a bit more nervous with the laces. The hole was pretty easy to correct, but the crack through the laces needed a little more work. I managed to get most of the crack filled with a little texture work to make the laces match. The repair work previously done made the crack hard to conceal entirely, but I managed to get enough plaster around it to make it shelf worthy. The repair wasn't perfect, but it was concealed enough so as not to notice from more than a foot away. There was one area of the boot that needed a little more touch up following the plaster work, and for that I needed a little more of a pliable material and used some Gale Force 9 green stuff. This allowed me to work the material into a small space without affecting the boot surrounding.

The flag being the most difficult, was saved for last. I started with some plaster work to fill the largest of the gaps. The size of the space and the empty space within the statue made for some shrinkage. I had to go back with a second set of plaster after the first batch had dried. This didn't address all of the issues though and a significant crack remained along the fold of the flag nearest to the statues head.

Flag bearer

For this area, I had to do some work with the green stuff. The crack needed a few goes to get the length filled with green stuff and then worked flat. The overall result was a rather seamless set of joints in the flag, base, and the boots. The crack was slightly visible with close inspection, but not much else could be done for it.

The paint match, my personal biggest challenge, took much more time than the fixes to plaster and cracks. After going through every paint that I had for my tiny soldier painting, I starting going through the color ranges of Reaper, Vallejo, and P3. My search was fruitless. I spent the better part of 3 weeks looking at paints online, at Walmart, Target, Lowe's, Michael's. Pretty much at any location where I could see paints. Finally with a trip to Hobby Lobby for some Christmas decorations with my wife and the Command Master Sergeant statue in tow, she was able to help me find a match.

Bearer of Arms 

With a large selection of craft paints, she narrowed to a few options. The final selection for the matching base color was Folk Art Acrylic Cocoa (6498) and for the bronzing, Metallic Chocolate Brown (2570). I applied the Cocoa with a brush, Windsor and Newton Series 7 #2. For the bronzing, I would add with a brush to the high point and then rub it onto the statue with my finger. This seemed to allow me to hit the high points with the bronzing color without running into a channel. Overall, the statue turned out quite well and my wife and kids did the primary QC for me.

The other day, I got to meet up with Lou and discuss how things were and present to him the Command Master Sergeant statue once again. He was thrilled and hopefully it will complete his home office. I am glad I was able to do a small bit of good for Lou, who did so much for our country over his career with the Army.

This Is Not A Test: Marshal's Report: Search and Recovery Operations

The following are the Marshal's reports of recent occurrences of peacekeeper activity from events at or near to Games & Stuff in Glen Burnie, MD. All reports are provided directly from the surviving ranking officer and are considered accurate and true. 

Marshal's Report

Search and Recovery Target - Relic Vehicle

Unexplored Ruins - Search and Recovery

Reported by: Marshal O'Halihan
Date: October 21, 2086

Unit Details

Marshal O'Halihan
K-9 Handler Mutt
K-9 Units Dawg & Cagney
Officer Manny
Officer Flynn
Officer O'Brien
Officer Scullin

Activity Report

During some downtime in one of the regularly patrolled settlements, the Gardia were approached by a wild haired, rambling, older gentleman dressed in some sort of laboratory coat with an offer. He stated that he had located a relic, but was unable to recover the item and was looking for a group to recover the item. The item, a relic vehicle of some import, was located about 2 km to the west on a long-abandoned small town main street. Marshal O'Halihan agreed on a price and accepted a contract from the gentleman.

Mutants pressing through the ruins

Because of the number of buildings located in the area, Marshal O'Halihan utilized a spread formation to approach from two separate directions. Sniper Manny, Officer O'Brien, and Officer Scullin approached from the northeast corner. Manny had previously scouted out a ruined building that he could use to provide support fire so the officers could approach and secure the relic.

At the same time, Marshal O'Halihan approached from a small copse of trees on some small hillocks with K-9 Handler Mutt and K-9 units, Dawg and Cagney. Supporting the, was Officer Flynn. The approach was a funnel, but offered some higher ground where Officer O'Brien and Dawg could provide cross fire with Sniper Manny.

Gardia securing firing arcs

Not long after starting the approach, Sniper Manny noticed a lone caravanner approaching from a distant heavily wooded area in the southwest of the town. When he was able to get the caravanner in focus, he was able to identify him as Sven of Killee's band. With a quick shot, he caught Sven by surprise and was able to send him scrambling for cover. After this an additional caravanner made a hasty approach toward the location of the relic vehicle.

It was quickly apparent that Killee's caravanners were in the area for the same reason as the Gardia, to recover the relic vehicle. As with many things in the wasteland, success is not guaranteed and as insurance the old man had hired another group.

Caravanners moving to secure relic

Mutt sent the K-9 units forward to engage, but when Cagney went to spring from the wooded hillock, she was wounded and could not go further. The set of mutants that Killee picked up a few weeks ago quickly moved through the ruins to try to secure the vehicle and make off with it. Marshal O'Halihan was able to quickly mark the mutant, Stop, and put him out of action. At the same time Officer Flynn caught Pots with near-hit and sent him scrambling for cover.

Quickly the rest of the caravanners made headlong for the relic in an attempt to overwhelm the smaller Gardia force. Sniper Manny was able to quickly put Sven down in the woods to keep him from the engagement. The other officers, Scullin and O'Brien made approach to the relic through the ruins to create firing arcs to prevent the Caravanner advance.

Gardia approaching through ruins

Marshal O'Hallihan and Officer Flynn took up locations at the tops of the hillocks to use the tree coverage and provide additional firing arcs to prevent Caravanner advance. Marshal O'Halihan was able to quickly Ms. Perfect as she returned fire from the corner of the ruined building. Marshal O'Halihan proved a better shot and put Ms. Perfect down. Killee opened up on Officer Scullin with her submachine gun, but none of the three shots were sufficient to penetrate the officers armor.

The caravanners continued the all out press toward the vehicle, taking up second story positions on the building at the southwestern corner at the vehicles location. Marshal O'Halihan took advantage of the close proximity of the caravanners and was able to quickly hit Mrs. Argyle, Swifty, and Mr. Flash. Where Swifty was wounded, the other two were downed and out of the engagement. Officer Flynn was able to put a shot on Mrs. Stuffings, but it was just a grazing shot and she went to cover but was not wounded. ant

Gardia eliminating caravanner rush

Officer O'Brien was able to keep Black Widow pinned down in the woods to keep her out of the engagement while Sniper Murphy was able to eliminate the mutant Pots that previously fled the engagement. These last actions effectively eliminated the potential for the caravanners to continue the engagement and with the loss of overwhelming numbers and at a tactical disadvantage, Killee withdrew her group and abandoned the vehicle. The Gardia cannot determine the nature of the vehicle as it appears to be some high technology that would risk obliteration if activated. If that was even possible still.

Post Activity Update

Midpoint Algoryn AI Squad Figure

When the Gardia salvaged the Depend O'Bot ($6.50) in the Wasteland encounter, I immediately purchased two from This Is Not A Test. But with the combination of personal things and pre-registration for AdeptiCon 2016, I went back to the Liber Metallica Seminar with Dave Taylor I had taken. With this seminar, we received a Warlord Games Gates of Antares figure, specifically one of the Algoryn AI Squad figures ($32.00 squad of 5 metal figures). This seemed like a good figure to use and it had the bonus of already being assembled and primed.

I decided to implement the Liber Metallica method with this figure so I started with by coloring all of the metal components with Vallejo Gunmetal Grey. This was the darkest of the gunmetal type paints that I have. I followed this immediately with a wash of Secret Weapon Miniatures Soft Body Black Wash ($2.99). Now one of the important aspects of this method is to repeat color with washes to change the tone color up and down as you go, remembering that the light is coming from above.

Finished Algoryn AI Model (Front View)

I tried very hard to keep the color scheme to a very limited palette. To deepen the spaces between the armor plates, I lined with Vallejo Black Ink. The cables were painted with Vallejo Black Grey and then washed with the Soft Body Black again. The gun was based with Vallejo Black and then there are touches of Vallejo Tinny Tin to give it a little pop. Who doesn't want a gun with a little pop.

Finished Algoryn AI Model (Rear View)

He has a series of belt pouches and a jet pack on his back. I decided to give these a little color to break up all of the shades of black and grey. The base color for the pouches and backpack was Vallejo Dark Red. This is a really flat red and not really dark or deep. I layered above on the elevated surfaces of the backpack with Vallejo Flat Red. The vent for the jet pack got some touches of Vallejo Gunmetal Blue to give it a little of the heated metal look. The belt pouches were limited to the dark red. I also gave some touches to the face and the emblem on the shoulder pad with the dark red.

Now all of this didn't provide any highlights on the figure. To achieve that, I went to the Citadel Chain Mail. This is a lighter silver color. I applies this to the exposed surfaces of the figures, trying to imagine those parts that would get the most light and therefore be the brightest/most reflective. While it is entirely clear that I need some more work on tackling this technique, I am happy with the results and this will make a nice addition to the Gardia.

Achievement Unlocked!

Bronze Bombardier Award

With all of the goodness at Bombshell Miniatures, it hardly seems appropriate to get recognized for supporting them. Last week though, I received an unexpected package from Bombshell. Inside was great looking pin and with a certificate indicating that I achieved the Bronze Bombardier Award for my continuing level of  support. In addition to this was a very nice hand written note from Patrick Keith thanking me for my continued support and help with spreading the good word on his materials. So my thanks to everyone at Bombshell Miniatures for the great stuff they produce and I look forward to the challenge of achieving Silver and Gold levels!