Lucky Luke: Daisy Belle (work in progress)

The next addition to the Lucky Luke project was quite unplanned. I accidentally found the Lemax christmas ornament "River Belle" and thought it could work with the project,

As an added bonus, it has a passing resemblance to the Daysy Belle from the "Boat race on the Mississippi" album. Not quite the same, but close enough.

Here it is straight out of the box with the christmas lights still attached and a couple (to be stripped) Atlas Lucky Luke figures for scale. As can be seen, the ship has the same undersized but with exagerated details thing going as the vehicles and houses in the Lucky Luke range, which gives it the right cartoony feel.

The main downside of these Lemax pieces is the material. The body is made from a type of ceramic that holds reasonable detail, but can't really be modified much and weighs a bit more than your average resin piece.

I went to town on it and started stripping the christmas lights (and the inside batteries ans stuff). I also noticed that the plastic railings and resin details were glued on with heavy handed doses of hot glue, so those had to come off too, to be cleaned and reattached after painting. I couldn't get the steering cabin loose from the main body, despite using liberal doses of Aceton on the glue, so had to pry out the pilot and will have to make sure the replacement I make for him is not too big can be put back in.

The detail bits. I'll leave off the benches and passengers. These are actually perfect 28mm scale for once (most of the time, the Lemax figures are 40mm and up), so they will be put away for later use in IHMN/EOTD Victorian games.

So here's where we are now. Another look of the stripped down Belle with some Atlas Lucky Luke figures. Next step will be to do something about those christmas wreaths attached to the sides (although the material being so hard to work with, I may just paint them as they aren't too conspicuous) and fill in the gaps in the upper deck planking where I removed the benches. Also need to remove the moulded "River" and replace with "Daisy" for the name.

I'll also need to convert me a Captain Barrows to go with it too.