| Starduster | |
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Figure & Equipment: Funskool General Hawk Most people agree that this figure is very cool, but it just doesn't fit General Hawk. On the other hand Starduster, the sorely underutilised jetpack specialist, fits the mould rather well. I decided basically to transfer his original colour scheme to the new figure, since I'd always liked it and it was a nice departure from greens and browns. |
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Construction: Nothing elaborate; I just wanted this to be a quickie. I filed the mould lines and added tubing barrels to the rifle. I also filled in the rather obvious gaps between the two halves of the jetpack. |
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Painting: It took some experimenting to match the original Starduster's sky blue, but I think I got pretty close. I also copied as narrowly as I could the olive splotches on the trousers. For the equipment I decided to go way overboard and try an elaborate technique used by jet plane modellers to simulate bare metal. I airbrushed the parts with a metalliser spray made for just that purpose, then buffed it and airbrushed several coats of acrylic gloss. The faceplate also has this gloss and looks vastly better for it. |  |
Groundwork: In keeping with the aircraft modelling pastiche, I posed Starduster on a runway base. To make the precise yellow lines, I actually painted the whole base yellow, then put Scotch tape where I wanted the runway markings and painted the grey on top of it. The cracks in the pavement turned out even better than I expected, thanks to some heavy drybrushing. |