Genestealer Build Update 16: Slow Going on the Teeth, Lower Legs, and Lower Hands

 I've been a little busy these past few weeks and as a result we haven't made too much progress on the Genestealer build.   I've also fallen into the trap I swore I'd avoid where I don't feel like writing up a blog article to show a bunch of unfinished stuff.  I keep waiting for good-looking milestones to post instead of posting regardless of how unfinished everything is.

I'll get back to regular updates.  I promise.

The mainest thing I've been working on is this:

That's the fiberglass underskull which has one major problem:  It's got no teeth.

So I went ahead and cut a little piece of MDF to fit on the mandible and another little piece to fit on the maxillary.  Each one was drilled out for teeth holes and whittled a bit to start the shapes I needed.  So here's the genestealer's wooden gums:


Those were fitted up with a bunch of epoxy putty blobs that were roughly teeth shaped:


I did a lot of trial and error test fitting to make sure the teeth wouldn't have to break for the mouth to close:


Then the MDF part was soaked with super thin CA glue to harden it and the teeth were filed down to sharper, less mammalian shapes:


Once I was satisfied that they looked appropriately creepy, they were given a glossy coat:

After molding, the teeth were cast in white resin:


Those are just placeholders for now.  Next I'll sculpt the gums and we'll mold those as well.

Meanwhile, I finished the sculpt for the lower hands.  I didn't take enough photos of the finalized sculpts, so this is the best you'll get:


Once they were completely smoooved and detailed, I went ahead and built up parting walls with WED clay:


Then layered on some epoxy gelcoat:


I built up some thickness on top of that using plasti-paste, then fiberglassed over that for strength.  I didn't take any photos of that process though, because my hands were covered in gloves which were covered in sticky goo and glass fibers.  You'll have to imagine that part.

Once that had all set up, I removed the WED clay parting walls, applied a generous coat of release agent, and gelcoated the other side:


That gelcoat was also covered with a significant buildup of Plasti-Paste prior to fiberglassing.  Then they were set on the bench amidst all of the other distractions:

I haven't touched them since.  Hopefully the mold worked out okay and we'll be able to get good casts out of it.

As luck would have it, this creature also has a whole 'nother pair of hands.  But those hands only have three fingers, so we started with a pair of lifecasts of my friend Ian's hands posed like so:


The fingers were wrapped in masking tape and I sculpted the claws out of Free Form Air like so:


When we did the lower hands, we made molds for all ten claws.  Then Rachel pointed out to me that that was a bit wasteful and we probably could've gotten away with using the one set of five claws cast twice.  She's right.  I'm an idiot.

So I smoothed out one set of these claws, made sure their hollows would fit either of the hands, got them all shiny and polished, and then pulled a mold off of them.  The only photo I took of the moldmaking process was this giggle-worthy bit:

That's the plug that goes into the smoosh mold to make the hollow end hollow.  Here's a shot of the resin being poured into the mold:


And the plug being inserted:


The result was a very wearable resin copy (left) of the hand-sculpted original claws (right):


They'll end up being cast in some sort of rubber to make them less dangerous when flailing around, but in the meantime, I'm happy with them:


Next I'll need to sculpt the three-fingered hands to go with them.

The last thing we've made progress on was the lower leg forming bucks.  That's mostly because Jeff put in a few hours gluing the maddening 3D jigsaw puzzle back together:


Here's the calves rough assembled prior to fairing and smoothing:


And the calves and shins on the bench awaiting some bodyshop work:


I know I said that's the last thing we made progress on, but Jeff also spent some time smoothing the seam where the bottom riblet will attach to the chest:

So that's where this thing stands right now.  Stay tuned for more...