Sunday, March 3, 2013

8 Heads In A Duffle Bag


Well actually there are eight Sculpey squinky heads in a sandwich bag. 
8 Heads In A Sandwich Bag.





  But I’m not one to let reality get in the way of a good blog post title that references a Joe Pesci black comedy clunker. 
I actually liked the movie!

So as I mentioned in my last post, I was given a bunch of Star Wars Fighter Pod toys for Christmas. They’re sort of squished figurines, like the Galactic Heroes line, only smaller.  Hasbro has other toys like them called Squinkies (seriously, who thinks toy names up nowadays?), superheroes, My Little Ponies, Cars, Disney etc.  They’re just shy of 1” tall and if they were proportioned correctly at that height they’d be near 1:72 scale. They aren’t correctly proportioned, each having an (insert Mike Meyers voice) “enormous cranium”.  That got me to thinking; perhaps I could sculpt something like that, making my own riff on some other popular gaming figs. 

Having a fond remembrance of a certain companies beaky helmet and jet pack wearing troops, I though I’d tackle those first.  I made two heads out of Sculpey, which I think came out pretty good.  So I made 8 more.  That would make 10 heads.  But then the cat jumped on the table and batted the heap of heads and I could only find 8.  Which makes a way better blog post title anyhow.

Prototype heads
  Like my wooden figs, the intent is to give the idea of the troop type without being a true miniature repro.  I moved on to making feet.  My daughter had a heart shaped mold that I thought would fit the bill and it seemed to be the right size. 
Feet, tushy appearance notwithstanding 

But the body has proved to be problematical.  The size becomes way too fiddly in Sculpey for my meager sculpting skills.  I am leaning towards using wooden craft spools for bodies like the “crafties” on the Wargaming on a Budget Yahoo group.  Since I seem to be able to make the heads, I’ll keep doing those from Sculpey or maybe Fimo, which I like better.  I still have to work out the jet packs and weapons. Once that’s done, it’s terrain for the beaky vs. stormtrooper throwdown. 

2 comments:

  1. I've always had problems with Sculpey, especially baking small parts. I see to bake them too long. I probably need to use a toaster oven and not a full-sized one. Wish I could use a heat gun to bake them though.

    Hmmmm…

    At first I thought that last picture was an armored Space Marine™ buttocks! Nice feet though.

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  2. I know exactly what you mean about baking too long. I made some Schleich sized figs with my daughter and crisped the lot. Paint covered the burned bits, but the figs were very fragile, I think because I over cooked them. My oven at this house is digital and the temp is pretty spot on, so I've had good results so far.

    Now that you mention it, the pic does look like a tush! Have to put a caption too keep the G rating.

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