Dark Eldar don’t like to fly

So with the decision of a 10 hour drive to Apocalypticon, or a 80 minute flight for slightly more than what I'd have to pay in gas, it was a no brainer to fly.  Of course this was my first time flying with miniatures, and a lot of them, so I wasn't sure what to expect or how securely packed was well enough.

So I ended up packing as much as I could in my ArmyTransport bag, and then got 2 additional Rubbermaid bins that were 12x9x12-ish.  The first bin was primarily for the titan, but after seeing how well other things fit, I grabbed another.  After some indecision, a combination of soft foam and bubble wrap was used to pack the models into the bins.  The flight down was rather rough and very damp, upon arrival.  So I expected to have to do some repairs when I arrived, not nearly to the scale that I encountered though.  Many of the models took quite a beating, luckily it was mostly bad bonds letting go, or breaking at the bond, not many snapped or broken pieces.

Mostly the lower leg and back of the shoulder

One of the other things I noticed as I was pulling models out of the ArmyTransport was that some of my wyches looked like the paint had been removed.  On closer inspection of the faded red, I realized what my problem was.  The wyches seemed to be the only models affected, which I assume was because they were the only models that traveled with me that recieved a gloss coat, followed by a matte coat.  The way the Charadon Granite and grey highlighting looked under the clouding made them look bare.

So my first instinct was to take the heat gun to them, and fix up the finish.  The heat gun worked great, the finish came right back to where it was . . . . the problem was the 'melting' point of the sealer was basically the same as the plastic, so the model I tested it on became very malleable.  I knew I'd end up loosing details, and potentially whole models that way.

Not bad for a frozen wych

So off to the internets.  The clouding is usually caused by trapped moisture (makes sense with the wet arrival and high altitude), a couple places suggested either extreme heat or cold as a solution, or just re-seal them and that will often correct it.  I tried the extreme heat, so I gave a kick at extreme cold next.  I stuck a few of the wyches in the downstairs freezer for a couple days.  Most of them came out looking better, only 2 of them are noticeably gray still.  I'll try and re-seal them some time of the next few days, and hopefully that will bring them back.

* I apologize for the lack of pics, I thought I had some good before pics, but they too ended up being cloudy . . . maybe it's contagious.