Is this the Droid?

Some finished pieces, 3 Sandtroopers and an R2 unit, including my conversion who is a Jedi killer, veteran of the Jedi Temple Massacre.

Scratch built Viking Longship

I don't often get requests but my youngest son saw me working on some card Sail ships and asked me if I could make him a Viking Longship.
Here is the result, it took me about 3-4 hours and I used the same techniques as I've used to make the card War Artisan kits. The scale is unknown but the base is about 115mm long.

After I finished, I realised I had completely forgot the rudder but my son wasn't bothered. The sail was a downloaded file to which I added a Thor motif. The rest is painted card, a nylon coated jewellery wire and some coffee stirrers for masts.

Let the Wookie win!

Some more Star Wars goodness, I've started converting one of the Sandtroopers, a bit of simple Green Stuff work. A cape (possibly Jedi), a fur pelt (possibly Wookie). I'm imagining this Sandtrooper is a grizzled veteran of the 501st who kept the cape as a trophy after the battle of the Jedi Temple in ROTS, I may even give his armour some blue highlights to hint at this.

As the Green Stuff for the cape was so thin, it needed to be built up in sections.

A Grey undercoat always shows off the sculpted areas nicely

Still a work in progress.

I've also finished painting one of my favourite characters,R2D2. Dirty and a bit worse for wear, this is definitely Tatooine Artoo.

Finally I was a bit concerned that my Wookie was a bit on the small side.

Drastic action was required.

A bit of pinning and glueing and he's looking a bit more like Chewbacca, I'll fill in the gaps and maybe even give him a makeover.

Finally he's towering over Han and the others as he should.

Look sir, droids!

I've been slowly getting back into the hobby after a long hiatus. I've had a change in employment that was a little unexpected but turned out well in the end. Now that things have settled down a bit, I am able to start dipping a proverbial toe into the waters once more.
For Christmas my family bought me a few of the Hasbro Star Wars Command toy packs which are 54mm Star Wars army-men in essence. Like most army-men type figures, the scale is a bit up and down but as you can see in the image below the are about right for 54mm.

Each pack has a theme and a selection of figures and vehicles, although the vehicles are of a different scale entirely.

Each pack also has some character figures, which are generally painted in a metallic finish, I managed to get an Imperial pack that has a particularly comedic 'jazz hands' Emperor.

Just like that!

The bulk of the pack is made up of soldiers or combatants that are aligned to the Rebellion, Empire and some neutrals such as the Tusken Raiders and Ewoks. Sculpting is of a good standard but there are are very minor casting detail differences from model to model, even of the same figure. They are cast in a 'soft plastic' similar in consistency to most 'army-men'. Not as firm as the new Airfix 54mm figures but not as soft as Reaper Bones figures.

The figures take paint as well as any other plastic figure I have ever painted, remember to give them a wash before painting etc. Here is the first test figure, a sandtrooper with suitably weathered armour. There is plenty of reference material available online, mostly from re-enactors and cosplay costuming tutorials.