Thank you to all those that participated in our 31 Days Challenge in the forum. Congratulations to the winners! Below are the entries, their respective places, and number of votes out of the 45 votes cast:

First Place (15 votes)
1/7 (Kotobukiya recast) Kinoshita Takako (Chinese Dress ver)

Second Place (13 votes)
1/6 EL

Third Place (8 votes)
KV2 diorama

Fourth Place (4 votes)
1/6 Queen’s Blade Mercenary Echidna

Fifth Place (3 votes)
1/72 UH-1B Huey Wreck

Sixth Place (2 votes)
1/13 Pteranodon

Here’s my completed Pumpkin Girl fig for the 31 Days contest. I finished her with a few days to spare which was nice. I could had completed her quicker, but I realized that I don’t really care for painting these anime girl figures. Deunan and Gally were fun since I really like the characters and they didn’t have to be so clean.  This one though… meh… It was a struggle to pay attention to it and not shelf it throughout the whole build. But it’s done and now I can focus on bigger and better things.

The base is a simple wooden box from Michaels filled with plaster for weight. The soil is made from celluclay covered in sand then painted with Raw Umber for the soil. Thread-wrapped wire and thin wire was used for the pumpkin vines. The leaves were cut-out by hand and then airbrushed along with the vines.

The painting continues. Below you’ll find the flesh painted so dar. I need to do the eye and mouth detail on the face still as well as the black clothing/gold-top which will be next.

One thing I forgot to mention is that I’ve up to this point only used the 502 Abteilung oils from Mig Production to paint her. Actually I’m pleasantly surprised at how good they’ve been here. At first I thought they’d just be useful for weathering steps like discoloration and washes but the vivid colors I’m getting and smoothness is really great. They seem to be drying a little quicker than my cheapie “Winton” oils from Michaels. Last night I used a vivid purple “Winton” but that’s only because Mig doesn’t have that color.

The wings were painted with just mixes of Black and Primer Red. The flesh tone is mixes of light rust brown + white + a little orange (not photo’d yet aside from my tamiya flesh base coat). The pumpkin is orange (faded dark yellow they call it, but it’s pumpkin orange I tells ya!), Luftwaffe yellow, and light rust brown and dark rust brown. I really like the quality of the oils as opposed to the cheap ones I usually use. I have the rest of their line on the way. They can be seen and purchased here.

Here’s the latest pics. The first shows the initial flesh painting over the tamiya flesh basecoat. It was highlighted and shaded by adding white or light rust brown to the flesh mix. Then when it was dry I took some of my saved flesh mix, added some light rust brown and added additional shading. The bow was painted using 502 snow white and Winton purple.

While working on the Dagobah Diorama I am also plugging away at the paint for this kit. Oils take a long time to dry, even with my drying box. (wooden box with a lightbulb for heat) At least a day and a half for each coat so it’s a slow process. Even so I’ve managed to paint the pumpkin skin, hair, and wings. I also painted the base-coats for everything. You can see in the pics below the base coats for the gold and flesh-tone on the main body.

I’m enjoying the process of painting with oils. My main fear was that I wouldn’t get vibrant colors for the hair and pumpkin but that’s not the case. Priming in white then base-coating in the color you want helps a lot. Here’s the pics.

With the start of the 31 Days Contest this past Saturday I’ve been cleaning up the Pumpkin Girl kit. On first inspection the fit is molded nicely with very little flash and no bubbles. However on closer inspection and pinning the parts together you notice a few things. Seems like this kit had a lot of clean-up done by the reecaster before it even got to me. Some of the fingers, while nice are pure CA (super glue). Seems like perhaps they were bubbled away then filled or replaced outright with SGT. (superglue + talcum powder) Also some of the mold-lines have been sanded. Odd that they felt the need to do all this clean-up, but then again, all the better for their rep as otherwise I’d be a little pissed off about quality of the recast.

Once I started sanding away at the mold-lines (which aren’t bad at all) and pinning her together I’ve noticed that the parts don’t fit so good. But again, this is expected of a recast. Originals tend to fit much better. Again I might be annoyed, but my sculpting skills have improved to the point of my enjoying the clean-up rather than cursing it. I’ve been resculpting a lot of gap areas with Aves Apoxie Sculpt, an epoxy putty. After these areas cure I’ll go back and sand them flush to blend them into their surroundings.

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