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Been wanting to paint this one for awhile. Love the dynamic pose! Really happy with this one.

It's been a short while, but I'm back with another project. This time around, I'm going to tackle this guy: 77116 Bones Colossal Skeleton. This'll be an interesting paint project for me, because I won't be able to depend on using an airbrush as much as I did for painting Kaladrax. I'll be out of my comfort zone and trying a lot of techniques that are new to me. There's a large gap where the skeleton's torso connects to the waist -- I could use an epoxy putty, but there's been something I wanted to try for a while: Alteco SSP-HG Instant Adhesive Putty, a two-part gap-filling compound that's meant for filling seams on vinyl and plastic models. I got this product mail order, and of course there's no English instructions -- it's all in Japanese. Fortunately, my S.O. was able to puzzle out some of the Kanji for me. The package comes with a large round jar filled with "micro-balloons" (a white powdery substance!), two bottles of a thin, slow-setting CA, a smaller bottle of "flex agent" -- it's supposed to make the compound less brittle (the translation was unclear) -- a measuring spoon and mixing knife, and a few plastic-coated sheets of paper for mixing on. The instructions were 12 drops of CA per spoonful of micro-balloons, but I didn't need that much, so I halved the recipe. As you can see, the mixture starts out slightly goopy, and apparently has a working time of about 2-4 minutes. I iced the connecting pin and area around it with the mixture and jammed it into the slot. Then I wiped the excess off with a q-tip soaked in lacquer thinner (it doesn't appear to attack Bones). Finally I added in a bit more and teased it with an X-Acto blade tip as it firmed to disguise the seam. Not too shabby... Quick summary review of the SSP-HG: On the plus side, it works quickly and it sticks and holds firmly to the model, and it sands and carves fairly well once dry. On the minus side, it's initially goopy enough that you can't sculpt it like green stuff, it dries to a rough surface, and it appears to be fairly brittle when dry, though i could try the flex agent for that. Its best use appears to be for filling gaps and sanding smooth afterwards. Not that it matters much, anyway; I went online to look it up, and it appears to be long out of production. I'm glad now that I kept the CA in the refrigerator. Finally, I put a base coat of paint on the model. Once again, I experimented with another product I had heard about but hadn't tried: Multi-surface acrylic craft paint. It's a fair bit more expensive than regular craft paint. The brand I tried was FolkArt, since I heard it sticks well to plastic, though I suppose you could use Martha Stewart brand, since both brands are manufactured by Plaid Crafts. It's too thick to be used straight out of the bottle, so I thinned it with a generic ammonia window cleaner mixed with water until milk-like in consistency and airbrushed it onto the model, using several light misting coats (drying between each coat) so it didn't run. As you can see, it goes on fairly glossy. What you can't see is how well it adheres. I usually try a "scratch test" on anything I base coat with. This paint passes with flying colors -- I was only able to remove a little of it by scratching hard enough to damage the underlying plastic. This paint sticks to Bonesium at least as well as Liquitex gesso. (I only wish I had purchased Burnt Umber instead of Bark Brown.) Next time, I'll start painting on some Reaper colors, and see how well they stick to this base coat.

Thought I might as well start this topic. I've begun work on him and wouldn't mind other people's take on it before I settle on a final scheme. Might be a while before I continue as the rest of the Bones just appeared. Woopdeedoo! So far I'm thinking bronze/brassy weapons and bluegrey for the bandages. Just some basecoating so far, but I don't quite know how to paint the area around where his midsection hits the girdle.