Icarus's blog: "Hurts to watch."

Well this morning I realized I had (among other things) a lil block of rock solid sourdough, 2 eggs, and of course the world's best ham
:3

So when I got back from ... going ALL OVER THIS F*CKING neighborhood looking for pins, I finally got back home and made french toast.

I cut some stale bread into about 1/2 inch to 1 inch thick slices, whipped the two eggs with about 8 drops of vanilla extract, and one tablespoon of agave nectar (or honey)

I then soaked each side of each piece of bread for 1-3 minutes each side
extracted and let sit while I cooked my ham.

Once my ham was crispy I grabbed some old granola I had sitting around, the bagged kind with sweetened oats. and dusted the top side of each piece of toast.
I started frying the toast and it occured to me that I could dump the excess batter over the granola to kinda hold it into place, flipped and fried the other side

extracted let cool for a couple minutes, plopped on some apricot preserves, a slice of ham, and some cool camembert (brie would work too)
and consumed.

That's right.
I went there.

It was sweet, puffy, custardy, hammy, fruity, crunchy, and had that spicey crip moldyness one expects from soft cheese.

Soooooooo good.
Sooooooo complex.

I tried about every combination, my favorite was the supreme. Cheese and ham was a close second.

So... anyway, I spent about 3 hours shopping for just a handful of ... PINS! Come on people don't make me go to a sewing supply store for something THAT simple.
Walgreens had them
out of stock
Dollar store had them
out of stock
Hardware store
no dice

Also- how fucking hard is it for me to get some foam board for my paint skewers?

Anyway, I dug Deathscythe out and...

*rubs his temples*

Stripped the hand painted slop I had left on the kit.

Now I have to give little-me props for accuracy, I must've used a single hair brush on some of those pinstripes, but it looked... wavey, uneven, not uniform consistency and stroke like an airbrush.

And there were nibs about half a centimeter out (that's a lot)
some were so big the plates didn't even fit together properly.

These were the days before I used wire cutters to get kits out of the runners
hell
this was before I used a pocket knife (which in all fairness, pretty good idea, it has a file, a straight blade, and clippers... usually SHIT clippers but hey...)
so it looked like...
crap.

I found this to be a great opportunity to learn how to strip paint and more practice on de-nibbing.

Two hours later and the job was done.

Every nib had been cut chizeled shaved or sliced by my #17 exacto blade
that's this really thin square blade

soooooo good for this
push it straight down the panel, or place it at a 45 degree angle and pop
no nib
oh yeah

and don't hold that fucker like a pairing knife
I probably have 8 fairly deep cuts on my thumb and pointer.

Anyway

the paint came off... easyish
Mineral spirits were fucking useless, so I used rubbing alchohol

shoop
that shit practically melted off.
There's some residual paint in the grooves and crevaces, but for the most part its gone.

Problem is some of the gold finish came off on a few of the pieces where the paint had bonded
*shrug*
it still looks better than before.

After I denibbed the
body
head
arms
legs
feet
hands
forearms
shield
hips
wings
wings
wings
I got to the beamscythes and went ahead and cut them to a finer point
it always bugged me how...
round
those blades looked at the end.
Not very manly or intimidating.

Y'know... even twelve years ago I really felt like I had to do too much to this kit to get it ready.

I still feel that way.

The panel colors are wrong (as in parts are WHITE instead of navy or black)
About everything white on this kit should be a shade of gray or ... red.
Yeah, that's some major points off for color accuracy.
And a lot of them don't even have decals to cover it up.

But I do have to say, after having the kit in my hands, it gets major points for panel lining.
Very in depth and cool looking.
But white metal blades?
White jammers and shoulder blades?
At least they gave me clear green blades, unlike the Shenlong which... some day I have to repaint those hideous white beam trident blades.
At least with that kit I had -most- of what I need to fix the color inadequacies but it was too heavilly dependent on stickers.

That kit is also due for a recolor, and possibly a foot mod so it can stand up on its own.

whiiiiich
brings up our next point of order.

Colors.

That's OOB except you see the white trim on the helmet, the red boxes on the wings, and the white panel on the front wings?

Yeah... the red is hanpainted you can tell by the thickness and incosistent quality of the color, So are the white triangles on the shoulder, the white panel is a sticker, the trim on the helmet is NOT there, neither are those gold vulcans, and those vents sticking up between his head and shoulder- those are WHITE on my kit.

Also- not that glossy, or that black.

essentially, that reference point is a lie.

So is this:

At the moment I'm thinking go opposite day with this damn thing

Which could mean
new shield
new weapon
new paint scheme (I was leaning toward white with blue ribs and blue/purple interior side of the wings)

Think angelic, maybe some panel mods on the wings as well to look more like angel wings.

Make babies.