Kitbash on Thi's things

Sprue Dude: The Sugilite Knight

Wed, 15 May 2024 00:00:00 +0000

Few weeks ago, I stumbled upon Phil’s blog and crafts. He’s making minis out of model kits sprues leftovers. I found this very cool, both for the challenge and for the principle.

Concept

After giving it a thought (and moving houses, which took a bit of time let’s be honest), I finally cleaned my craft desk and starting to work. Of all of his awesome models (of which, I encourage you, to check!), one was my favorite, by its simplicity and robo-esque design: the first and original Sprue Dude.

Of course, my design had to be one-eyed and robotic. This is the original drawing which ironically ended to be 1:1 scaled with the mini!

Keeping it simple, it would be a robot knight, brandishing his blade after (probably) a victory or just before a very bad encounter.

And this is what I should be working with. I don’t have a ton of model kits (mostly gunplas), nor did I kept most of the sprues.

The build

Like Phil, I started by gluing the feet to what would be my working cork. And this is the exact moment I realized “Oh my god this is small”. And small it was.

I struggled a lot with the torso. I wanted to have a wider piece than the pelvis, so I tried to glue together two pieces of sprue to sculpt, but nothing pleased me. I now respect even more what Phil is doing with his minis!

I ended using a leftover piece from a Gundam kit. Is this cheating? Probably. That was technically on my sprue at some point! Sorry Phil, I failed you.

Last but not least, this little injection mark was the perfect size and shape to make myself a nice little head.

Then came the sword, taken from a panel on the sprue. I kept the little dots as they would probably serve a design purpose.

As you can see, I struggled a lot with my glue, and I used a bit much of baking soda. I sanded most of it before painting.

I’m skipping the painting part as it wasn’t very interesting. White undercoat, and multiple coats of regular citadel paint.

Final model

The base was 3D-printed, the model comes from ecaroth on thingiverse. Is this cheating²? Maybe. I’m not even very proud of this part. Anyway. Please enjoy my little Sugilite Knight, crawling dungeons and fighting horrible monsters to save his kingdom!

The forgotten tty_BUS_wanderer

Thu, 14 Mar 2024 00:00:00 +0000

I had the pleasure of making kibashes and scrapbuilds with Pnic for my last two projects, however I finally took the plunge of doing one by myself, from start to finish.

The build

Unfortunately I didn’t took a lot of pictures while building this little guy.

The torso is actually a piece I took from a long lighter. The piece between the handle and the articulated “neck” of the lighter. It was the piece that drove the entire build.

Arms and legs are both made of beads, bootlegs hama and random round beads found in my supply store. I used a metal wire to hold everything in place. It allowed me to have some sort of articulation that helped the pose.

I somehow quickly find the idea of using the plug of an old usb cable I had lying around. It would match perfectly the “retro robot” look that I was aiming for.

Feet were made using cork.

Having a general idea of what the robot be like and what purpose it would have in this universe, I started to make a base out of coffee, cork and an old poker chip. The poker chip idea is from Bill Making Stuff as he often use some for his Gutterlands figures.

Grounded coffee and white glue is surprisingly effective to render a earthy texture. This idea comes from a YouTube video that I unfortunately can’t remember to link here. And of course, I ued cork to simulate stones. My goal was to have a mountain-like environment so my robot could wander around to find his true purpose.

Painting

Here comes the first coat of paint.

I wanted a cool retro futuristic robot, made of simple shapes and with vivid colors. This blue-teal (Citadel’s “Ahriman Blue” to be exact) was the perfect fit.

Ultimately, the metal USB will dictate the use of chrome color for the joints.

On this picture you can also notice the base that is starting to be painted. Very simple, grey stones and brown earth.

But what’s a mountains wanderer without his walking stick?

Quite straight-forward, it’s a stick with a (broken) light bulb on top. So far, almost every person seeing this bot on my shelf is asking if the bulb is working and if I can light up the mini. Unfortunately, I can’t. But the idea isn’t bad at all…

Not seen until the finished model unfortunately, I added a little backpack made with papier mâché and tin foil.

Finished model

Lore:

Decades ago, the tty_bus_0x004 unit was commissioned to transmit a serial message to an archaic terminal located on a distant planet. It was supposed to meet with a COM unit in orbit to translate its payload and be able to perform its task. Unfortunately, its transport layer failed and send it to the wrong planet. Since then, the know named “tty_BUS_wanderer” can be seen from time to time traveling the planet again and again, looking for the expected COM oracle.

Overall I’m very proud of this build. I like the scale, what I pulled out regarding the build, but also the painting. For a first, it’s good!

Sir Brainius Cortex

Sat, 27 May 2023 00:00:00 +0000

This build is actually from mid 2023, when my friend Pnic came to my place for a weekend. Our goal: create something out of trash during the available time. We honestly kinda underestimated the time it would take.

The week prior, I mulled over the general idea and concept. Being influenced by a old (but nice) game named Feudal Alloy, I had my visual style. Dead Head Fred, a PSP hidden gem, was also one of my main inspirations.

I roughly sketched what shapes I needed, and I was ready to go: a robotic medieval knight with a twist: his head is a brain in a jar.

The build

This two-days kitbash marathon (kitbashathon?) was really intense. I gathered a lot of stuff, but never enough, and the lack of parts was both a handicap and a source of constraints that helped the creativity.

The main body is a part from an old electronic toy. Using beads, tubes, gardening hoses tips and a lot of glue, I started to have the cartoonish robot shape that I wanted. The brain itself was made using fimo. Not my best piece of art, but it works!

Of course it needed googly eyes.

I also added wires both for the details, but also to give the illusion of the floating brain plugged to the mechanical body.

Finished model

The base is a simple wooden disc on which I glued cut pieces of cardboard to give the illusion of a stone pavement.

Pnic’s

Mandatory inclusion of Pnic’s kitbash : Za’hg the martian

(source)