Scout Drones

Three scout drones are ready to take out the Muppets.

These are, in case you didn't guess, 3D prints I got from Etsy. They were pretty cheap, costing $7 for all three plus about $3 for shipping, and they're a perfect fit for Space Station Zero. I already have three drones of a different type, but I'm pretty sure the Muppets have an upcoming mission that requires six drones, hence me shelling out on these chaps.

All three had toothpicks inserted into their undersides to hold them while being painted, and they were then sprayed with grey primer. I thought about doing them in a silvery metallic shade, but in the end I decided on a sort of industrial yellow, using Averland Sunset as the basecoat.

Three thin coats covered the primer, and then I slapped on some thinned Nuln Oil to make them look dirty. A few drybrushes of more Averland Sunset and some Yellow Ochre provided the highlighting.

After painting their lenses Goblin and Scorpy greens and adding some black to their rear vents, I thought they looked a bit too monochrome, so I cracked out the Flat Blue and painted the raised parts of their "wings" just to add another colour. I highlighted the blue with Deep Sky and Sky Blues, and they were done.

The flight stands come in two pieces, so gluing them together without getting fingerprints or glue spots on the transparent plastic was fun, but they came out OK. The only problem was removing the toothpicks; one broke, leaving me having to dig it out with my Xacto knife. But finally they were stuck to the stands and will be making an appearance in a Muppet adventure soon.

Winter wonderland

Vermont's finally woken up to the fact it's winter, and last night dumped a ton of snow on us. This is only the second snowfall we've had; normally by this time we'd have been under six to eight inches since November.

Snow covered trees are so much better than dead trees.

I guess this is it till around March or April. I'm just glad we got our snow tyres fitted a couple of weeks ago or we'd be buggered.