Posted by Germy | 1st March 2010
Although I'm not into Pulp gaming I just couldn't resist having a go at a Pulp style robot. This was also my first ever 25/28mm sculpt. The style I wanted was the same as all those cliff hangar serials on the TV back in the 20's and 30's. Essentially I wanted it to look like a man in a tin can style costume.
First up I decided to make this miniature out of the new modeling
putty called ProCreate.
I started by modelling the main body. For this I stuck some putty
on the end of a piece of metal rod. I made the basic shape and tried
a simple eye slit.
Next up I had a look at how I could make the arms and legs. I wanted
a flexible tube look to the limbs. I also wanted nice big chunky shoulder
pads and feet. So these I made by creating balls of putty and then
cutting them in half. The limbs were more of a problem, I found some
metal rods with the right look but they just would not bend. So in
the end I had to heat them up on a stove while gently aplying pressure
to get some sort of curve.
Next up I put the pieces together to see if I was on the right lines.
You can see in stage 3 the first robot next to a 28mm Foundry cowboy.
The robot was a bit to short so I re did the legs to make it a bit
taller than the Foundry cowboy. Stage 3 also shows the additional
work I did on the body by carving parts from it to make room for hip
joints.
The feet came next and these were done by drilling a hole in the top
of the feet and inserting the leg tubing. Although it was a tight
fit I used super glue to stick them together.
The vision slit was also changed at this point where I gave it a frame
and holes for the screws to connect it. The discolouration of one
of the legs comes from the heating process as previously mentioned.
The arms were next. For the shoulders I did the same as the feet.
I cut out a piece of them and inserted one end of the arm. Again I
used super glue to keep the arm in place. The same process I used
for the hands. I was not going to be able to attach the hands any
other way than by sticking them on. But I knew from a casting point
of view this would not be strong enough. So I then started to add
detail to the shoulders and hands to help support them.
As you can see from stage 6 I enclosed the shoulder joints and made
them look like they were bolted on. Similar for the hands, I created
a cuff and detail to make it look like the hands were screwed together.
Lastly I added a similar cuff for the feet for detail and to help
support the foot connection.
Lastly I added a few more bits of detail. The model had to be simple.
Almost like it was a costume built on a low budget! So I just added
a couple of plates to the front and back.
So there we have it.
For a laugh I have put together a newspaper article on the Robot Rampage
:)