Tuesday, July 9, 2019

The Red Army Recruitment Drive

Next up on the painting table, some recent Marx Soviet recasts, i.e. these aren't collectibles.


Comrade Commissar persuades the new recruits to follow their orders.
I feel a growing desire to paint- the question is how to balance that with playing games, given time is always in short supply.

6 comments:

  1. Sometimes l am too tired to paint and have a wee game and vice versa. Also you can paint whilst listening to music or podcasts etc or talk to folk too. Gaming takes up more attention l feel .

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    1. I tend to view painting as a means to an end - to play games with painted figures - rather than an activity unto itself. It would probably be easier to motivate myself to paint if I saw it as a fun activity of its own. Certainly, it does have the advantages that you note (although I have read that some people play suitable music during their wargames).

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  2. I find painting relaxing and it is engrossing in a crafty sort of way.

    The Marx re-casts don't seem to have mold lines? I am still finding the mold line cleanup a discouraging issue. I don't like the way they look, and I don't like the way they clean up.

    I am about to try to mitigate the latest effort with some pvc glue and post on it.

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    1. These Soviet recasts (I can't speak to any of the other Marx recasts) have mold lines, but they seem less obtrusive than some others. However, they are there - most noticeably on the helmets - those drive me crazy even though I usually only make a half-hearted attempt to remove them. A heated x-acto blade was sufficient to remove most of the lines and at least all of the helmets and the officers cap are smooth now.

      Also, these figures are a harder plastic and take well to using the knife blade to scrape away the mold lines. Normally I ruin the surface of the model doing this (AiP in particular, but also those Chinese Airfix knock-offs) but with these, the mold line itself goes away with no damage to the surrounding bits.

      In addition to the mold line, these figures have the ever present injection point. I find this melts away smoothly-ish with the judicious use of an open flame applied directly to the area. You have to be careful not to melt more than you intend but it consistently smooths out the injection point to a much more tolerable blemish for my tastes. Someone handier with green stuff or some other filler could do a better job finishing the injection area.

      I look forward to seeing your results of how the glue handles smoothing the lines.

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  3. Very nice figures.
    Given the natural Airfix 'Russian' style accepted 54mm style, these are quite the breath of fresh air.

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    1. I really like the Marx poses - they seem to be full of action and implied motion. While I don't dislike them, the Airfix Soviet poses seem unnaturally stiff, even the running figure. My only complaint is the lack of non-prone helmeted figures in the bag I purchased - I prefer the helmet to the ushanka, no matter how common it was.

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