Best laid plans...

Well I had hoped to report that the Mazda saga was over... but I got distracted by painting a couple of figures.

The first was the girl for the Showa era diorama for small cars.  As I mentioned last time she is a Vietnamese girl made by Masterbox for their Vietnam War series of figures.  In this scale she works fine as a generic Asian girl... She is 2" tall, no-one can tell where she's from!

It's been many years since I painted figures this size, and the amount of detail sculpted into her face was certainly a huge help!
I used acrylics throughout, which are not as easy to work with on figures as I remember.  I may have to resort to the tried and tested method of using oils for skin tones.

This diorama now only needs the bike added, and some sand between the garden paving stones.


The next diorama on the conveyor is for the Airfix BMW Mini Cooper S.  This will represent a side street in Chiba Prefecture, Japan (based on one in a town I stayed in called Minami Nagareyama), and will include a wall and chain-link fence on top.  The car will be parked up while its young lady driver is leaning on the wall waiting for a pal or her boyfriend.

This is the basic layout...

The 'stop' sign on the road will be applied by using the printout as a stencil and stippling the white through it and onto the tarmac surface.

The girl with the car is the previously shown Aurora Models figure, but she was a pain to paint.  I love these figures to bits, but the lack of any detail on the face makes it a huge challenge... probably not the best choice for returning to figure painting.  Ho-hum.  When I've got properly back into the painting side of things again I'll repaint her in oils.
Apologies for the awful eyes...

 I still need to paint her belt and add a logo to her top.



In addition to working on these, my Bilek UAZ 452 Ambulance arrived from the Czech Republic today, and it's a nice kit.  The parts are flash free, although a little on the thick side.  It has a large sheet of etched detail parts, a good decal sheet, very detailed instructions and nice (if very shiny) rubber tyres.  The box looks a bit dated, and is completely devoid of any logos or descriptions to mar the artwork.

Here's what's in the box!

One curious item is this reference document... it a lovely touch and will aid any competent modeller should they wish to detail the van to the ultimate!  As I said previously, mine will be built as a civilian vehicle imported into Japan and used by a rural onsen hotel.

Another update in a few days ^_^