Modeling Tutorial: Cheap Plastic Zoanthrope Kitbash

Total cost per model: around $4.40 assuming you have the termagant/hormagaunt parts and arm spikes and buy everything else.  That saves over $20 per model and the savings just get better if you already have any of the trygon, mawloc, or warrior parts that I listed prices for.  Even if you do buy all those parts the total cost will be under $40 for 9 zoanthropes, compared to $225 for 9 of the official zoanthrope models.  With shipping and green stuff factored in you shouldn't have to pay more than about $50 for everything you need, saving you at least $175 which works out to a discount of 75% or more off of the retail price.  YES PLEASE!!!  Of course there are ways of saving even more money including trading for bits rather than buying them, substituting other bits, or using green stuff and sculpting skills (that are better than mine) to fill in the pieces that you are missing.

Once you're done drooling over thoughts of what you can do with all the money you will be saving, read on to learn exactly how I went about creating these models.

Step 2.  We've all seen this TV/movie cliche before.

2. Glue the head and 'gant torso halves together, but leave them separate for now or later steps will be much more tricky.

Step 3.  Just a little off the top.

3. The hormagaunt heads usually have horny bits sticking out of their forehead which can cause it to not fit in the trygon head crest. Chop off the top part of the head as necessary.  This is where I chopped off the claws on this model since I forgot to do it in step 1.

Step 4.  Cheap filler.  Also, sprues in the head.

4. Glue the head in to the front end of the crest.  Optional: make this cheap conversion even cheaper by filling in the brain area with spare bits of sprue to save some green stuff.

Step 5.  Dr. Frankenthrope's Monster begins to take shape.

5. Now shave off part of the warrior tail section and/or the hormagaunt torso to make them fit together.  The official model is kind of hunched over forwards so if you are going for something with a similar pose keep that in mind when doing your chopping.  I cut the front part of the warrior tail section just above the first "rib" like thing and then shaved the rest to fit that part.  If you start off cutting a bit lower, one or two "ribs" down for example, you could have your zoanthrope hunched over even more.  Pro tip: the fewer times you have to open your super glue, the longer it will last.  I try to glue as many things at once as I can so you can do all the gluing for Steps 4 through 8 at the same time.

Step 6.  Nubbin!

6. Cut the other end of the tail and the mawloc tongue so they fit together as well.  I used a diagonal cut to match them up and keep the maximum amount of length but you can use an easier straight cut or whatever you are comfortable with.  You may notice that I left a little nubbin on the end of the tail.  That is where the bit attaches  to the sprue and if you are going to use heat in later steps to bend the tail this will shrivel up because the spots where a bit attaches to the sprue are always just funky.  Leaving a bit of material there will reduce the amount of filling you will have to do after the heat shrinks that spot.

Step 7.  I can't think of any non-dirty jokes for this one.

7. Glue everything together.  I used plastic glue on this model but I found that CA super glue works better.  As you can see in the next picture the tail and tongue sections separated a little bit during the heating process and I did not have this issue when using the CA glue.

Step 8.  Is it hot in here or is it just me?

8. Now that the pieces are together apply some heat to the miniature so you can bed the tail into shape.  Obvious safety warnings here, hot things are hot.  Don't burn yourself or anyone/anything else or inhale burning plastic.  There are a few different ways to do this.  I used a Wagner HT1000 Heat Gun on the low heat setting but there are other ways to do this including the Hot Salt Method or even using a candle which is far from optimal but it will do the job in a pinch.   It is best to have both hands free while working with heat.  You will have more working time with the model before it cools because you won't have to fumble around putting your heat source down without burning anything you don't want burned so things like lighters are not recommended.   It doesn't take much exposure for the plastic to heat up enough to be flexible.  You don't want to let it sit in the heat too long or else it can start to burn causing issues from releasing toxic fumes to ruining your miniature to burning your house down.  This sounds pretty dire and it can be if you are really sloppy with it but it's really very easy to avoid those situations if you just pay attention to what you're doing and keep safety in mind.  Remember: hot things are hot.

I found that it takes just a few seconds for the plastic to heat up and I was able to tell when it was ready because it began to slightly bend on its own, whether it's from the heat itself or the fact that I'm using a stream of hot air that could be pushing it around.  To really be on the safe side, just apply a tiny amount of heat at a time until the plastic is soft enough to bend.  It's pretty simple once you get the hang of it but just to be safe I recommend trying it out on a spare piece of sprue or old junk bits or something before you start working on models you care about.  When you heat up the plastic, just use a tool (sculpting tool, pen, toothpick, just something so you don't burn your hands) and push it into the position you want it to be in.  If the plastic is still warm when you get it into position and keeps bending out of the shape that you want, just blow on it a little and it will cool down quickly and keep its shape.

I fell in love with my heat gun and used it a lot on many of my tyranids tails so they don't all just stick out straight.  There are lots of uses for it and I found that it's a nice tool to add to my hobby arsenal and also a great investment.  I got mine for under $25 but I'm sure there are cheaper alternatives out there.  You could look at embossing tools as an alternative since they are pretty much the same thing.

Alternative steps 6-8: If you are not comfortable with melting your minis just use green stuff or another method to sculpt the tail.  It shouldn't be hard at all to sculpt a tail.  I would recommend cutting off the tip of the warrior tail and drilling a hole so you can put a piece of wire in there to bend and use as a guide to help shape the tail and keep it from flopping around like a wet noodle while you're working it.


9. At this point I used some green stuff to fill in the gaps left by the heating process with a bit left over that I stuck on the head section so it didn't go to waste.  This is also where the nubbin from Step 6 comes in handy.  You can't really see it from this angle but on the tip of the tongue section there is a small bump left over from where the nubbin melted.  If you cut the nubbin off there will be a small gap to fill in.  It still requires a bit of work to smooth out but it's easier to file down the nubbin than to fill in a hole.  Heheh... nubbin.

Step 10.  That color is so tacky.

10. This is an optional step but I find it useful to take some blue tac and stick the pieces together to make sure they will all fit together and basically just not look terrible when assembled.  It also helps me figure out exactly how to line everything up and what position I want the head to be in.

Step 11.  Holy guide holes, Batman!

11. I find it easier to glue the head on if I drill a little guide hole first using a 1/16" bit.  The guide hole helps keep the head in place while the glue cures rather than trying to keep the neck and a smooth flat piece of plastic aligned.  It's like trying to catch a greased up deaf guy.

Step 12.  Super glue: that's one way to keep your head on your shoulders.

12. Now glue the head on.  This will be much easier if you didn't skip step 11.

Step 13.  They're learning!  We're all doomed now!

13. Almost there.  Here comes the trickiest part of the whole conversion and while it might look complicated it's actually super easy.  Just stick a blob of green stuff to the head and smooth it out into the general shape that you want.  Once I had the general shape I just took a toothpick and started making rows of little indentations in the brain matter to make it look like folded brain tissue.  Just cover the brain with a random pattern and let it dry, and that's it.  Like I said, it's super easy and very simple and the results look great, especially considering how little it takes to get there.  Between the brains and the face I had some smooth area so I just made some shallow lines using the end of a rubber clay shaper.  I got the brain sculpting technique from page 3 of this thread.  I think they went a little more in depth with the technique but I kept it simple with just the single step using a plain old round toothpick.


14. Attach to the base.  Even though this is a fairly light mostly plastic model there is very little contact area on this model so I pinned it to the base.  I was able to align the pin in the tail with one of the holes in the bottom of the base for extra stability since the pin is glued to the side of the hole that you can see in the right picture.  Well, you can probably see it if you look closely. Trust me, it's there.  Another option is to add some bits or pieces to the base so they Zoanthrope looks like it's floating above wreckage/debris/random terrain features or whatever matches your basing scheme.  I am going to go for snow bases and I'm thinking about having a "bubble" around the Zoanthrope where the snow will be packed down and/or pushed out of the way to simulate the psychic field around the zoey that protects it.  I might also do something else to raise the pins up a little bit so the model isn't resting its tail on the base itself, but I'll worry about all that later.

Step 15 and done.  Now be a good little Terran and surrender your biomass to the Hive Mind.  It won't hurt a bit.

15. Glue on your claws/talons and you're finished.  Take a moment to enjoy your handiwork and then put them on the table and blast something into oblivion with your phenomenal cosmic brain powers.  Or you could paint them I guess.  Either one works.

So there you have it.  A simple and not very time consuming way to make your own zoanthropes for less than $5 per model.  It took a while to get this tutorial up but I finally got it finished.  I hope you enjoyed it and get some good use out of it.  Please don't hesitate to leave a comment to let me know what you think or any constructive criticism that you might have that would improve the tutorial.  In any case, thanks for stopping by and reading my ramblings.  This is Chaosheade signing out.  Catch you on the flip side.