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Tuesday, August 20, 2024

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:

Stealer Gramps' Skull

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:
Gums

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

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:
Toof Test Fits

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:
Primered TEeEfs

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

After molding, the teeth were cast in white resin:
Resin TEEF for Placeholders

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:
Sculpts in Progress

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

Then layered on some epoxy gelcoat:
Epoxy Gelcoat on Both Hands

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:
Applying Epoxy Gelcoat

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:
Neglected Hand Molds

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:
3=Fingered Hands Epoxy Coated

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

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:
hehehe

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:
Pouring Fingers

And the plug being inserted:
Plugging Finger Molds

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

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:
GS Thumbs Up

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:
20240801_203313

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

And the calves and shins on the bench awaiting some bodyshop work:
Lower Leg Forming Bucks Assembled

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:
Riblet Seaming Nearly Done

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


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