“March-sters of the Universe”

“Thundrcats! Hoooo”, oh sorry wrong franchise, anyway this is the first proper posting of “He-month 3” (I nearly wrote “serious posting” but that doesn’t really seem appropriate), and week one has seen some reasonable progress on my three, wave two characters.

Sunday, was really planning day (yes there really is some planning goes into this. believe it or not!). So come Monday it was out with the mini saw as some problems with the poses on the two metal figures were discovered and the “heroclix” figure.. well needed dismembering completely to be honest. So I began with Ram-man and the original figure had his arms, legs and slices cut from the front and back of his torso, he may well need some more removing here and there before I start to build him up again, but it’s a start. Turning to Trap-jaw due to the way his legs were positioned he would not even fit onto a two pence piece (my preferred bases), quite simply the worst case of what I like to call “Kev White Syndrome” I’ve ever seen (That is figures standing with their legs as ridiculously far apart as is physically possible), so first job was to cut through the centre of his base (easier said than done as it was pretty thick and tough metal, so I started by sanding away some of the thickness first), and then after cutting groves at the top of his legs to ease bending and removing about 5mm or so from the new base gap, I pushed the legs in till his stance was more believable. Next his right arm was removed ready for his “robot” one, and I also bent his left arm down a bit again to improve his pose. Tri-klops then had his base sanded until it to would fit onto a “Tuppence” (luckily I didn’t have to cut it as the above), but I did decide that his legs were too bent, so I cut slots into the back of his knees and the front of his ankles before bending him more upright, I also didn’t like the positioning of his arms so cut more slots under his shoulders and bent these tighter in to his body, the right one I also bent back a little, as I thought it looked better that way. Finally I filed their feet away a bit ready for me to add the boots and they were glued to “Tuppences” (Trap-jaw with a piece of card under him to make up the height I’d sanded away from his base).

Tuesday, was my first chance to mix up a little “greenstuff”, though not a great deal of progress was made really. I added the boots to Tri-klops, I’ll add the furry tops to these tomorrow, and filled in all the grooves I’d cut into the various joints on the two metal figures. I also just sanded the top of Ram-man’s head flat (he might still need more removing later).

Wednesday, I began by adding the furry pants to Tri-klops. The fur was just tapped in with the blade of a knife and then added the sausages at the top of his boots that then also had the fur effect tapped in. In a change to the original I decided to forgo the furry undies on Trap-jaw as it seems a bit odd that a chap with a cybernetic arm and jaw would be running around in animal skin knickers! So I didn’t add any fur to his pants just left then with ripples as if made of fabric. I also added his boots, these were left deliberately short as he has armor running up his legs to his thighs. Lastly today I utilized a technique I discovered making the Sorceresses’ staff, I took two pieces of wire and “sort of” wrapping some greenstuff around them, rolled them out so I ended up with two wire filled greenstuff rods. One of these will form the basis of Ram-man legs and the other the basis of Trap-jaws arm. Now the arm one by one of those really happy accidents, had a small amount of the greenstuff overlap the end of the wire and rolled to a point, this I was then able to tease into a hook shape, perfect for the hook at the end of Trap-jaws “hand”. I love it when things like this happen.

Thursday, I am now the world’s leading expert on making 28mm Ram-man legs! After drilling holes in the bottom of what remains of Ram-man (and Trap-jaws right shoulder), the “greenstuff rod” I made yesterday was first cut in half before I rolled out a thin sausage of putty and ran it down around this in a clockwise spiral, then I repeated this on the other one anti-clockwise. But this was too thin so I did it again with slightly thicker sausages, too short…etc, five attempts (and much swearing!) later I finally got them to where I wanted them, they are a bit long but I can cut them down a bit before I add his boots (if I ever get to that stage, that is!) Anyway I also added the belts to the other two figures and the detail on them too. Trap-jaw needed a small skull adding to the front of his belt, this was just a disk of putty with the detail pushed in with the tip of a cocktail stick, and you might notice the “V” in the top of Tri-klops’ belt, there is another round the back as this is where the straps will run up to attach this to his upper armor. Finally I added the disks onto Trap-jaws left shoulder and elbow (as the toy figure has), I’m not sure I like these but we’ll see.

And so dear readers we come to Friday, and the main job of the day was to build the armored shoulder/chest plate onto Tri-klops, this was done using two tapered sausages of greenstuff, one across this chest and the other across the back of his shoulders. These were then teased into shape using my various rubber shapers and a cocktail stick, the original has the tips of the shoulder parts split, but I decided it looked better as a single point. Small groves were added front and back ready for me to add the strap from belt to chest plate next. Slow progress on the other two though, Trap-jaw has two “Vent” type things on his thighs as part of his leg armor (perhaps he suffers from very sweaty legs?). I added these using small blobs of putty shaped and then the vents themselves pushed in with a knife blade. The first one went in fairly easily but getting the second to match was a right pain, and took several attempts. Lastly this week I cut down Ram-man’s legs and mounted him on a “tuppence”, I did this by comparing him next to my three finished male “Eternians” I’d done so far, he is now slightly shorter than “Man-at-arms”. However as you can see from the picture this means my two new “baddies” are now too short (AAAAARRRGGHH!!) I think I’ll have to add another layer of card under them before I “Tetrion” the bases to add a little height.

All in all it’s been a pretty productive week, and I’m fairly happy with how they are turning out so far, I should be able to finish Tri-klops next week the other two still have a way to go. So be sure to tune in again next week for more adventures in greenstuff…

Cheers Roger.