No game night this week so that has given me an extra few hours to really try and focus on progressing with the Grot Bots, which has become something of an all-consuming thing at the moment. Although I have also spent some time working on updating the back end of the site so in theory it should be a little bit more stable going forward. Nothing major because I don’t really know what I’m doing so just trying to do enough to keep things ticking over. Now that I’m getting down to the crunch end of the build as anything that isn’t finished next week just isn’t going to get done in time. But with the progress made this week I think I’m still in with a chance to get everything buttoned up in time.
Whilst I had a couple of finished arm last week and had cut out all the pieces I need for the rest I hand greatly underestimated just how much work was left to do with them. So the first part of the week has been spent rectifying that mistake and have finished them off. That now just leave me with the close combat arms to work on and the arms will all be finished.
That just left the weapon hands to do but because I hadn’t made them from scratch, I just wouldn’t have had the time, there was quite a lot of clean up to do before I could start work on them. I had done a test piece a few weeks ago so it was really just a case of cracking on with thigs. A piece of tubing to act as a wrist and then a couple of pieces of plasticard to bolt it in place. Jobs a good one.
That rounded off the arm builds which I have to say took a lot longer than I thought, even when I thought I had taken that into account. But they are now complete and I’m really happy with how they have turned out. I still find it amazing just how much difference adding the bolts makes to these things. They go from something that is clearly a home build to something that looks like it has been made by someone who actually knows what they are doing.
The other thing that had been worrying me about the build has been the thighs as I wasn’t really sure how I was going to get these to work. What I’ve gone with in the end is very similar to the originals in that I’ve used an I beam with a piece of tubing at one end for the knee. To try and add some detail I’ve added side plate to look like they are holding the actual knee joint in place with some big bolts. At the other end I’ve just used some tubing of the same size I used on the hips to act as pocket to join the legs to those hip sections. It’s a simple solution but with a few bots added is should work out ok.
As for that connector between the hips and thighs I’ve kept that nice and simple as well. Just a few pieces of tubing glued together that will just add a little bit of extra detail. Most of this will be hidden once the bots are built but to me it gives the impression of some pipes and pistons. There are couple of other good reasons for taking this approach, the first is that it is reasonably quick and simple to do. The other is that simply by filing or sanding one end of the connector you can get the leg into a slightly different pose, which adds a bit of verity to the squad.
To finish the legs off I just need some shines and I wanted to keep these looking similar to the originals, in that they have springs in them. I haven’t done the small pistons of the originals just because of time constraints, but I think they look good as they are. The springs are made out of florists wire just wrapped around the plastic rod. A bit of a faff to put together but overall it’s worth the effort. The upper part of the shine will simply glue into the knee and then I will drill a hole in the ankle joint and attach the other end there. And that will complete the build work for the legs.
These components have than been put together to make up full leg sets. Think I’ve set them up in such a way that there is an even mix of left and right feet that will be fixed to the base. Then having the other leg in a more dynamic pose. The thinking being that they can be put together in a number of different way to add that variety to the finished unit.
That now leaves me with the tricky task of building the heads which to be honest I have been putting off until now along with adding the final details such as bolts to the bodies. So that means I’ll be working hard this weekend to try and get the bulk of the work done so that I can have a relaxing weekend next weekend. If I can get the build work complete and just have the details to do I will take that as win. Then with a bit of look I may well have some completed bots for you next Saturday. Until then have a good week and I hope to catch you all again next week.
