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The Grand Canyon. It is one of the few places on earth where peering over the edge of the cliff reveals a view that is more than one mile straight down. What better place to experience the utter bigness of God's Creation -- and your own smallness.
What's that feeling in the pit of your stomach as you stand with your toes at the edge of the cliff? It is equal parts fear and humility. Breathe it in.
Taken with a Canon XTi, wearing an 18-55mm lens and a polarizer.
Price: (as of Jan 01,1970 00:00:00 UTC – Details)
Wherever on the beach, Hawaii, Honeymoon, Sunbathing, white tiered ruffled crop flounce top matches with printed and polka dot high waist bottoms, which are fabulous and attractive. The flexible straps linked with bottoms, greatly...
fresh.ezyro.com/tempt-me-women-two-piece-off-shoulder-ruf...
Tempting Rosie play at the Hare And Hounds in Birmingham, 20 December 2012.
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This screamed "accident waiting to happen". So I waited for it to happen. I stood there thinking about how I would begin the story that I would inevitably tell. "A man was trying to position a window in the frame and he dropped it. Shattered everywhere!" But he didn't drop it. And I had no story.
Instead, I was left with the question "How did he actually install this thing with his hands in that position?" I just don't understand.
I so wanted to go in this barn, could just imagine the rays of sun coming through those little windows. Unfortunately, it might have been neglected, but it wasn't abandoned !
Our neighbour's apple tree has a few branches hanging over on our side of the fence........starting to look good enough to eat!!
HFF!
We theorized that we'd investigate every turn-off/hike/view proffered on the road to Hana, and pretty much stuck with that conviction(barring parking impossibilities). The first big hike on Highway 360 is Twin Falls, marked by a popular fruit stand. My wife walked a ways and then returned to car, nursing her swollen foot. I ventured to the falls with camera in tow.
couldn't make it to our original hostel (already 10pm) and decided to stay in this hostel on the way
The kit and its assembly:
This kit/figure holds a special place because it is a piece of memorabilia from around 25 years ago when I participated as exhibitor and workshop instructor at one of Germany’s biggest anime conventions at that time, the “Animagic”. It was a VERY funny period, meeting nice people and including some personal highlights like meeting the Japanese composer Yoko Kanno in person and attending a concert of her. Once in a lifetime! :-D
I found this figure at one of the merchandize dealers during one of the early conventions, before the doors opened for the public, and being a great Aa megamisama! Fan I was …tempted. The figure was quite simple and affordable (DM 79,-), and when I saw that a foot had broken off, I even negotiated the price down, IIRC to just DM 50;-, what would translate (w/o inflation) to roughly EUR 25,- today - a steal! It was, however, not certain where the figure came from, but it came with a clear blister pack and not in one of the typical pink or blank cardboard boxes in which cheap and shoddy recasts were sold at that time, and the seller also assured me that it was no recast. The internet was also not very common at these days to cross-check, so that research was not easy and had mostly to rely on Japanese magazines and collector catalogues.
However, once bought I never had the real drive to build or better paint that model – mostly because it was/is a “single piece” model without much hardware challenge. That changed a bit when I recently received a unique birthday present: a hand-drawn (commissioned) illustration of the character. That reminded me of the Urd model somewhere in The Stash™, I dug it out and decided it was now time to tackle it!
Concerning the figure I also became curious: what did I have here? Just a cheap recast, or something authentic? This is a real issue with these garage/short-run kits, esp. when you procure them online (totally dubious) or from merchants at fairs and conventions, where you can at least have a look at the parts, the resin and the packaging.
Good news in this case: With some internet legwork it seems as if it really is an original Volks model of Urd! Volks Inc. is a Japan-based corporation that produces garage kits and mecha kits as well as the Dollfie, Super Dollfie and Dollfie Dream lines of dolls. The company's headquarters is in Kyoto, with some 30 shops worldwide. Volks did a whole series of 1:8 scale Oh! My Goddess kits, and this Urd figure is apparently a special give-away model. What makes it odd is that it was not sold in the company’s typical cardboard boxes, but rather in a clear blister box with just a b/w sticker (and maybe a metallized Kodansha license sticker). Thanks to the internet I found references for both figure and boxing, and both look authentic, even though it’s still not certain. But I am inclined to believe that I really have an original Volks kit–these go for EUR 150-200,- these days, if complete and in mint condition. Therefore, despite the long hiatus in the kit pile, a good deal, even 25 years ago! ^^
So, here we are after 25 years. The blister pack is yellowed, the sticker faded, and the figure’s resin also yellowed a bit – but everything is still fine. There is hardly much to tell about this character model from a building perspective, because the figure consists only of a single massive piece – probably because it was just a quickly designed and produced special edition/give-away offering. The only thing I had to do was glue the broken foot back again, and sand away some light mold seams and sprue traces around the shoulders and the feet. To make the figure look a bit livelier and more delicate I added a few hair strands, made from 0.5mm styrene sheet – simply cut out with scissors and glued to the forehead with superglue.
Another addition for later presentation is a home-brew display base for the figure, following my standard design. It consists of a square 4x4” melamine-coated press board base, flanks covered with edge-band. A custom adapter/holder made from soft 1.8mm iron wire that fits into a respective opening drilled into the figure’s right foot holds it in place. Carpet tile material was used underneath to add some ground clearance. The whole thing was painted black with matt acrylic paint from a rattle can for an even and neutral finish that does not distract from the flamboyant character on top of it.
Painting and markings:
Like many garage kits, especially those from the Nineties, this model has been sculpted after a concrete illustration or after OAV/TV screenshots – and this helped a lot in the later/current age of the internet to find authentic painting guide references, because the Volks kit did not come with any instructions (O.K., there is no assembly required at all!) or the typical photoprint of the finished model that is normally part of an original GK boxing.
In this specific guise Urd appears in the OAV series (what, considering her hairdo, too, appears plausible, so I’d date the figure/mold to date from 1994 or 1995) as well as in some off-manga illustrations, maybe cover motifs. Her clothes turned out to be quite colorful: a dark, deep blue dress with kind of tiger-striped lapels and wine-red lining, a wide purple belt or obi, and low ankle boots (on some illu variations Urd wears open sandals). Additionally, there is lots of bare skin with a marked tan/bronze hue, her curly and almost white hair, as well as some pieces of jewelry.
Painting started, after the few hardware steps, with an overall coat with white primer (Vallejo) to check surface quality and create a good basis for the skin. This became first paint layer to be applied, because I’d apply it with rattle cans – due to the relatively small scale of the figure I wanted to add a light shading effect, and this stunt as well as an even paint finish for the skin would hardly be achievable through brush work. Finding proper shades for Urd’s skin was tricky, though, and eventually I procured several Montana Gold rattle cans – primarily material for graffiti artists, but also great for models due to the acrylic paints’ great and fine spray quality, their even finish, and the available color palette with subtle grading that allows to create refined transitions.
I came up with a basic tone called “Make-up”, which is surprisingly close to Urd’s skin tone on official colorized illustrations, and on top of that I added a thin directed layer of “Flesh”.
After that work continued with brushes and primarily with enamel paints. I followed a from-light-to-dark strategy and started with the hair. It was painted in two shades of grey and pure white Revell 374, 371 and 04), wet-in-wet to create contrast and shading. Next came the tiger-striped lapels (Humbrol 7 and 9), the purple belt (a mix of Revell 350 and Humbrol 20 and 47) and her boots and fingerless gloves (both Humbrol 9 and 98). That had to dry thoroughly again and then followed the burgundy red liner (Humbrol 20 and 51) of Urd’s dress and overcoat. Again, this had to dry for while due to the glossy Humbrol enamel’s tendency to remain wet for hours, if not for days… Next came the very dark blue outside of her coat (judging the illustrations it is definitively darker than the dress underneath) with Humbrol 104 and Revell 350 – again painted in a wet-in-wet technique to create shading effects without an airbrush – and finally the blue dress with Revell 350 and Model Master 2012.
Once the figure had received her basic colors it was time for detail work. This included corrections, some thinned black ink to emphasize selected edges and folds, adding some highlights here and there, and painting the – despite its chunkiness – quite delicate jewelry. The latter was, to make things easier, primed with flat black acrylic paint, and on top of that details were painted with metallic lacquer pens in gold and silver, trying to come close to the figure’s canonical appearance on TV and illustrations.
The eyes are decals – at 1:8 it is a real fight to paint them well, and Urd has very special, narrow (almost cat-like?) eyes and a unique gaze, not the typical moon eyes of cute anime girls. I procured a couple of generic eye decal sets and eventually found a pair that fitted well in style and size – even though I was a bit uncertain about Urd’s eye color. According to official sources her eyes are supposed to be “amber”, but in most colorized illus I found as well as in the OAV it’s apparently green. Thanks to the vast decal sheet(s) I was able to procure white eyebrows (with appropriate white edges for better contrast) and a pair of eyes and lashes that come close to what I think looks “authentic” - even though it’s hard to judge, because we have a 3D face now, and Urd only exists in 2D, and that’s quite difference. But from certain angles her face and the eyes “work” well. ^^
Urd’s blue facial markings (the downward pointing triangle on her forehead symbolizes the past) were also created with decal material (TL Modellbau, taken from a mid-blue sheet), even though they were molded onto the figure’s face to ease painting. But the decal solution made things much less messy, esp. with the additional hair strands in front of Urd’s face. These would make delicate painting quite complicated, if not impossible.
As a final measure then model’s slightly opened mouth was “filled” with thinned brick red enamel paint, to create depth but to avoid a “lipstick look”, which Urd does not have despite her looks and attitude, and what also looks in general goofy on large scale anime figures.
Finally, the figure was sealed with matt acrylic varnish, again from a rattle can, the base was painted black, and then it was completed (and ready for scenic pictures 😉).
Rest House HotelTyre, Lebanon
You could lay down there and stare at the sky or sea and do nothing else.
A young fox sorely tempted...
I am a Kent artist, and can waste hours watching my pets and other beasties, and enjoy trying to capture their antics in paint.
Similar Original Watercolours available from ebay uk as; greypepper71.
A few degrees warmer and I might of jumped in. There's something about mountain lakes and river pools that pulls me over and causes me to take the plunge. Melakwa Lake, Cascade Mountains, USA