Gern's Bugs II

[Gern]

I thought I'd better start a new thread for this as it might get quite long .....

I started the Bug figures last night and I've made some changes to the figures as supplied. This is for two main reasons. Firstly I'm not that impressed with the 'ball and socket' joints the manufacturer used. The design is such that you can't position the legs so they face forwards and backwards - they will only fit sideways. Secondly, I wanted to try and get a closer match to my Kay Tee.

One good thing is that the legs are completely interchangeable. They all have three sections and the lengths of the top, middle and lower sections respectively are the same on all of them. There are four different legs so you can get a variety of different poses. If you wanted to go overboard, it would not be difficult to cut the legs apart at the joints and create new ones. I'll not be making a huge number so I don't need to go that far.

The corrections were not difficult and clean up of the pieces was straightforward as the plastic is hard - not that b****y awful polyethylene stuff! Lots of filler needed, but obviously some of that is down to the changes I made. Anyway, some pictures:

The original design

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How they would look

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How I changed them

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The finished Bug

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Apart from the issues with the leg joints, overall I'm well impressed with these kits. They have much more detail than the resin kit I used for Kay Tee - despite the fact that Kay Tee is about 6 times larger!

As for painting, I'll be trying to recreate Kay Tee's colours. More later ....

 

[Gern]

I bought some Bugs ready-made from ebay. Even though they're not well made (maybe by a child who used them only as game pieces?) you can clearly see why I changed the ball and socket leg joints.

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Some work is needed to get these to match the ones I'm building, but it shouldn't be any more difficult than building them from the kit parts. It's not as if I have to be perfect with all the joints and seams - and you can hide a lot with filler!

 

[dubster72]

They're evil-looking buggers even as models Dave!

"The only good bug, is a dead bug! "

 

[eddiesolo]

Nice work Dave, the improvements make it look much better, great work mate.

Si

 

[noble]

These are very nice Dave, can't wait to see them painted up.

scott

 

[Gern]

Nice work Dave, the improvements make it look much better, great work mate.Si

I think the censors have struck again Si! Your clip won't play.

 

[Polux]

Nice work so far Gern!

 

[monica]

looking good Dave, cannot wait to see some color on the little critters,

 

[Richi72]

Cool Gern, loved the first Bug dio, but this is looking that good already.

Keep it up.

Cheers Richi

 

[Gern]

Thanks everyone.

I'm working on the Bugs and I've got three ready for paint. I've disassembled (?) the ready-made ones I bought as far as I can, and they're not going to be a problem to re-build. Meanwhile ....

I was struggling to find suitable figures to use for the Skinnies so I ended up going with these:

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They're rather toy-like and made from Polyethylene which is a real PITA! However, I found some spare heads in my spares box (from the 1/72 Valiant figures) and gave them a paint job. Here's where I'm at with them:

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A wash and matt varnish should put them about right for my purposes (Blue markings for ID again). I may add the transparent helmet covers - I'll see what I feel like when I put them into my dio. Now I got to find a vacuum cleaner - sorry, I mean a dropship or APC!

 

[Tone M]

Great work man! :D :D

 

[monica]

real like the look of them ,well done with matching bits ,

 

[dubster72]

Good work on the figures Dave! You've painted them excellently

 

[Gern]

Thanks folks. Your support is much appreciated.

 

[steve scan]

This is excellent work really like it.

 

[Gern]

Well I got 8 out of 10 built, just some touch up on a few seams and on the filler and then paint. I think I'll leave the other two in case I want to do another dio.

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Hardly a swarm I know, but they'd be enough to scare the s**t out of me if I was facing them!

 

[monica]

looking good Dave,cannot wait to see how you paint them,

 

[dubster72]

I wouldn't take them on without a couple of MG42's on hand!

 

[Gern]

Not quite so frightening now:

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One coat of Halfords white primer and some Vallejo yellow. I did one coat of their Lemon Yellow 952 but it came out a bit too pale - even though it covered the primer completely. I added one part Deep Yellow 915 to two parts Lemon Yellow and threw on a second coat. I like that much better. I'll use a toothpick to apply Vallejo Masking Fluid to mask off the yellow patches I want to keep, then I can spray all the rest black. I'm going to leave it to dry overnight though or I'll be risking pulling off the yellow when I remove the liquid mask.

 

[Gern]

Even less frightening now. Now we got polka-dot bugs!

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Let's see now. Three spots on each lower leg section, two spots on each of the middle and upper sections, two spots on each arm and two on each upper and lower jaw. That's 36 spots on each Bug. Each spot needs two lots of masking (one each side of the limb/jaw) so that's 72 for each Bug. There's 8 Bugs so that's 576 separate blobs of masking added.

No wonder I got little green spots in front of my eyes!