Ages ago I bought some Sculpy to make prototype miniatures for a boardgame I’m developing. I decided against sculpting miniatures for the game at the prototype stage and decided to just use cardboard tokens with pictures on them. So I was left with two packets of Whipped cream(thats the colour apparently) Sculpy, which look like this:
‘Sculpy? What the fuck is Sculpy?’ you may be asking. ‘Isn’t Sculpy that American shit that people always use to make things and then post it on the internet but I always go bah! where can I get that if its American, do I have to order it from the US or something because fuck that I cant be arsed!?’
Yes it is but shut up because you can buy it from Hobbycraft.
Its a bit like Fimo but better and you get more of it and it sets better in the oven. So with that bit explained, on with the guide!
This kind of Sculpy is quite convenient because it comes in segments which you can just pull off(oh err!) to your needs. Its quite hard initially but you just kneed it until its soft(Its usually the other way round! amirite! aha!) and then you can mould it into any shape you want, like this to start with:
The head, the torso and the little antenna thingy. Sorry about the pictures, bit crap to be honest but it was a last minute thing I thought of to actually document the creation process.
Thats all the bits you need to make in that picture wot I took up there. Head, torso, antenna, shoulders, arms, hands, eye pieces, legs and feet. The most difficult part really is getting the head to the right proportions to the body. There is no room for error here, if its slightly too big or slightly too small it looks ridiculous, like a deformed cock or something. Get that part right before you do anything!
You must also score lines into the model to create the joins in the metal, make deep holes for the eye pieces to fit into and another hole for the antenna. Also make tiny blobs of Sculpy and use them for the rivets.
Get some wire or paperclips and create some small pieces of straight wire which we will use as supports for the limbs. Insert these bits of wire into each end of the arms and legs making sure that there is a good amount of wire protruding from both ends. This will create support for the completed structure and also it means you don’t have to hold all the pieces together when it comes to the super glue stage. Also make four tiny bits of wire and insert them into the other sides of the hands for the little claw like hands.
Next step is to arrange all the pieces in on an oven tray or casserole dish like we did for extra Delia Smith points and pop it into the oven for whatever time it recommends on the packet of Sculpy.
Remember to wear oven gloves or use a towel to hold the tray or dish as it comes out of the oven because that shit is hot.
Now what you have to do is fit all the pieces together and glue them with the strongest super glue you can find…or just a regular super glue. What you may find as I did, is that some of your pieces may not fit quite right. This is usually pretty easy to rectify with a craft knife or sandpaper to whittle edges down until they are flush with each other and they can be glues together properly.
So, when you have glues all the bits together you should have something like this:
The great thing about this robot is that it doesn’t matter if you have dents in it or bumps because he’s already a little bit worn and battered in the game so it all adds to the charm.
I don’t have any photo’s of the painting stage because we were so excited about it I forgot to take them. But I’ll explain it as best I can.
Spray the entire model with ‘Sea Grey’ Humbrol spray paint which is available at HobbyCraft and looks like this:
After that Paint in all the score marks and crevices you created earlier with black, I used ‘Chaos Black’ from Citadel paints because I’m a dabbler in the dark arts of Games Workshop. It really doesn’t matter if you get paint on the model out of the lines because we will be going over this in the next step.
Now the fun part…drybrushing!. For some reason I love drybrushing, this is where things start to come alive. This is where we make the robot look like its made from METAAAAAAAL.
For this part you need ‘Bolt gun metal’ flavored paint from Games Workshop, it paints metal onto stuff, can you believe that? Incredible. So what you do, is get a brush and dip it into your boltgun metal paint but then take a tissue and rub the brush tip onto it so most of the paint comes off. Then gently flick your brush to and fro over the entire body of the robot, just do it over the whole thing. It can take time because your building up layers. DO NOT JUST COVER THE WHOLE THING LIBERALLY WITH BOLT GUN METAL because it will look silly. When you have done this, you just need to paint the eyes which is easy, so just look at the picture and do it!
So then you are left with your very own Joseph Robot from Machinarium! (Sorry about the crap quality of the photo’s) Don’t worry if it doesn’t look exactly like the Joseph from the game, it would be almost impossible to make it identical because thats computer graphics and this is Sculpy.
So there you have it, its a fun way to spend a couple of hours. I’ll get round to making a proper base for him soon, with some bits of junk and metal. Special thanks to Clare for making the antenna and the arms and hands, she did a right good job and no mistake.
And yes that is the Deus Ex case he’s standing on.
