The Thing

Some time back, at one of the many model shows I've attended I won a The Thing model kit from Toy Biz. It was a Level 1 Snap together kit. I've never been a big fan of the Fantastic 4 or Thing but the model looked like a quick build and a chance to do something a little different so I gave it a go. 

Assembly

There were few parts and the assembly was quite easy, however, there were significant issues with the seems. I will say that for a snap together kit almost nothing snapped together. There were many clamps involved in getting the pieces to join. Another complaint would be that the rocky texture of the Thing completely fell apart around the seems. I most of my time working on marrying up the textures and in the end I think I could have kept working at it a bit longer. Ultimately what I didn't achieve in texture I tried to imply with shading and I think it came out pretty well.

Priming & Pre-Shading

The model was primed in Stynylrez Black, highlighted with Stynylrez Grey at a 90 degree and once more with Stynylrez White from above with special attention paid to protruding surfaces. Some people claim that pre-shading is a waist of time but I think it depends on the model. The key is to ensure that the top coats are light enough to allow your pre-shading to determine the tone, shade, or hue of the color applied. In this case I think it had a very noticeable impact on the final result.

Color, Highlights, and Shading

All colors were Vallejo acrylics sprayed from my iwata Neo. I based the model in a 1:1:1 mix of Orange Red, Golden Brown, and Flow Improver. The shorts were painted in Dark Blue with Army Painter Blue Tone brushed into the shadows and Vallejo DeepSky Blue + Dark Blue for highlights. The belt, eyes, and teeth are Ivory with White highlights. All the shading and highlights of the stone texture are the result of pre-shading with the exception of the crevices which were hand painted with Games Workshop Nulin Oil (that was tedious).

 

 

 

Base

I did not care for the original base or the way it was painted in the box art. It was far to smooth for a destroyed street. To fix this I added texture with Liquatex Resin Sand and a mix of course and fine sand and PVA glue.

The Thing's foot didn't fit flush to the base so I layed down a layer of apoxie sculpt where his foot would make contact, wrapped his foot in plastic wrap and pressed it into the putty. once it cured I applied the same texture to the visible portions of the foot print.

It was all primed black, washed with a thinned Heavy Brown, and again with Umber Wash. Heavy Brown was then dry brushed across the gravely textures. The metal components were dry brushed with Army Painter Gun Metal then washed with multiple rust colors. 

The street sign was airbrushed with  Gun Metal from the top down. The street name plate was masked and airbrushed with light green and an ivory border was brushed on. I made the Lee St (RIP Stan) lettering in Comic Sans and cut it out on my Cricut. Chipping was added and a black wash was applied to the recesses.

In the end I'm pretty happy with how this guy turned out. It might not be the most complicated build or paint scheme ever but I'm happy with what I achieved and I think I was able to capture the old time comic feel better than the box art example.

Use a Scrapbook Machine for Scratchbuilding!

A little while back I picked up a Cricut Maker. The tool is generally used to cut card stock for scrap booking projects but this particular model can be used to cut anything from paper to 2mm thick chipboard. I thought the Mrs and I could get dual use out of it. She could use it for scrap booking and arts/crafts projects in her classroom while I could use it to score polystyrene and cut custom stencils for model builds.

I've made a few stickers and stencils but until now I hadn't used it for making model parts. Today I gave it a go and made the set of landraider doors you see above for a conversion I'm working on.

If you're considering using a Cricut, or any other vinyl cutter, for model building your likely looking for precision and uniformity. With that in mind the first step is to obtain the measurements of what you are planning to build. In my case I wanted to make a substitute for an existing model part. So I went about measuring all dimensions (x,y,z) with a set of digital calipers.

I worked in metric as I find it easier to work with at this scale.

The next step was to transfer my measurements into a graphic which would be accepted by the Cricut. The best, free, tool I have on had for that task is Google Sketchup.

This is a great free drafting program and I've used it for home remodels, furniture, and model design. I drew the doors anticipating multiple layers in order to build the thickness I needed. I am using .5mm polystyrene and need a final thickness of 2mm.

The square in the upper left corner is important for later. That is a 1 inch by 1 inch square for scale. Once the drawing is completed I exported a 2D .PNG file. I like PNG because the transparency works well in the Cricut software. Below is the .PNG file for a set of two landraider doors.

Note: the first picture is for plain polystyrene. The second photo is for a textured polystyrene. In my case I used diamond plate. Please feel free to use this files in your project!

The photo is then loaded into Cricut and inserted into a new project. On the artboard of the new project I make a 1x1 square a quarter of an inch into the board on both the x and y access. I use this to help me adjust the imported graphic to the appropriate scale. It is important that once you have this layout set to your liking that you 'attach' the square that you made to the imported graphic. This ensures that the dimensions and location carry over to the next step.

I've been using the settings below and 4 passes to cut my projects. Your results may differ, perhaps a the knife tool would be better suited for this but I'm using everything as it came out of the box for the moment.

Be careful when loading the tray. Any pieces of material that aren't adhered to the cutting mat have will likely get caught as the machine calibrates.

Once the machine does its work you'll have some beautify scored polystyrene which, after a quick pass of your hobby knife, will pop out nicely. Again, this is where perhaps the heavy duty blade would make better work of the polystyrene, but at this moment I haven't used one yet.

As you can see the work is clean and precise. One could easily design an entire model using sketchup and a Cricut!

Tip: Looking for a good source of cheap polystyrene? Look no further than your local sign maker. I was able to pickup a .5mm 4 foot by 8 foot roll of polystyrene for less than $10!