roleplay-geek: Reaper Bones #3: A Carcase of Skeletons

Wednesday 19 June 2013

Reaper Bones #3: A Carcase of Skeletons

The Reaper Bones Painting Marathon continues, this time I have a carcase of skeletons.

So far I've been pretty impressed with the PVC material the bones minis are made from. It's much more robust than the plastic that the WotC D&D or Paizo Pathfinder plastic miniatures are made from and the sculpts have been intentionally strengthened in some areas to ensure that they don't break or bend excessively.

The skeletons are a prime example of this as during transit they tend to get a bit bent, particularly in the polearm and base/ankle areas, which means when you unbox them they can have some weird lean angles. I had to use the hot water / cold water dipping technique on a few of them to refresh the plastic's memory and return them to their intended poses. If you want to change a pose slightly you can, you just have to overbend them slightly as the plastic really wants to go back to its original shape.

DHL Classic Skeletons x3 (Ed Pugh SKU: 03467)

Six skeletons (Front)

Six skeletons (Back)

From the pictures you'll see that these are the first Bones I've tried to mod. I was pretty unhappy with the flexibility of the upper bow limbs, so I decided to string them to give them a bit of extra realism and to give the bow limb a bit of support. This involves a few steps:

Heat a thin guage sewing needle over a naked flame until it glows cherry red, then pierce the miniature between the bottom limb of the bow and the skeleton's leg. This will create a hole through which you can feed your bow string.
Cut a suitable length of solid thin wire to form your arrow and glue this between the drawing hand and the thumb with small dabs of superglue. My knocked arrows are way too long to fit into the skeleton's quiver and I should really cut them down, but I like the way that they fit the skeleton's half draw pose so I'll leave them for now.
Take a length of sewing thread and knot one end. Then thread it through the hole you made in the bow in step 1 and set with a dab of superglue. Stretch the thread in as straight a line as you can to the flight end of the arrow (ie the bit the skeleton is pulling) and set with a dab of superglue.
Make a loop in the end of the thread and hook it over the topmost bow limb. Tighten this thread until both bow limbs are symetrical and then set the knot with superglue.
Coat the thread in superglue on both sides. Once the superglue dries, the string becomes rigid and supports the upper bow limb and prevents any excessive flexing.
The final stage is to cover up the drawn end of the bow with a flight. Make this by pressing a small amount of modelling clay (milliput or green stuff) into a thin diamond shape on a cutting mat. Whilst still pliable cut the diamond into two triangular halves and then stick one to the end of the bow. You don't have to be too great at modelling to do this, just patient.