Limb and tail replacements

Making new extremities to complete the sculpting on the JP "cyclops" raptor figure I'm repairing and customizing into my OC Beetlebiter. I've already made him a new face.

 

I sculpted new toes directly onto the feet with epoxy putty. I left the sickle claws as they are, since they're on the short list of parts of this figure that are not broken. Each foot got two passes, first to make the toes and attach the claws, and then to add detail.

The claws are from the same batch of raptor claws made out of leftover epoxy putty from which I used claws for Singer, too. The claw on the middle toe on the right foot is made of leftover putty from attaching this figure's upper jaw.

I gave the soles a bit of extra material here and there to help the figure stand steadier, but it didn't need much, and stays well on its two feet.

I started to sculpt him new fingers directly onto the stumps he has left, using the still uncured leftovers of a few batches of epoxy putty I mixed for other things. First pass was to attach three wires for armatures. I got as far as making two fingers and a claw for one of them, when the second finger and the claw had to be removed because they were from the same badly mixed batch of putty as what I used to attach a finger wire for Singer. After cutting off the tip of one finger and one whole finger along with its wire, I could have proceeded by just redoing those, but I remembered some more spare raptor parts I had lying around, and had an idea.

Back when I made Whirlwind from a Fujimi model kit, I was happy to discover, after breaking two finger claws trying to attach them, that the kit has doubles for all the forelimb parts. So I actually had two already sculpted raptor hands, just needing assembly.

Like so. I glued on the broken claws, so those parts are useable, too. Since the figure can stand without needing a hand as tripod support, the hands don't need to be sturdy, and I could give him wrist articulation.

For that, I did need to chop off some of the unbroken part of the original arms, to fit the new wrist parts. But I kept the original hands, or what's left of them. Who knows, maybe I'll find a use for them, too. I kind of just keep everything just in case.

The hand is put together with the tab on the index finger going through the loop on the wrist and then attaching to the two other fingers. Since I didn't want to chop the kit's arm parts, too, I made new wrists instead. I bent a wire into the loop (and the wire is coiled a bit after the loop so it doesn't just slide out of the clay when pulled on), and sculpted polymer clay onto it. Then after baking I carved the clay on the loop to fit the finger parts. I also made a little piece of clay to attach directly onto the arm, to which the wrist part will attach with a wire stuck into both. This is so the hands can not only move up and down, but also rotate, in case future me disagrees with present me on where his hands' position should fit on the scale of pronated vs supinated.

If I had a drill, I could leave out that small part and just stick the wire directly into a hole I'd drill into the arm, but, I don't.

The new wrist loop wasn't a perfect fit, being just a bit too thick, and I ended up having to put the hand together with a small amount of epoxy putty instead of just snapping the parts to each other. I smoothed the seam a bit with a blob of paint after the putty had fully cured. (There's a paint blob on the middle finger's claw, too, as that seam had a small gap in it. The claws I broke had left the tab broken off of them inside the finger. I did get the tab out for one of them, so I could just fill the hole on the finger with glue and stick the claw onto that, but the middle finger claw's tab wouldn't come out and wouldn't go further in, either.)

For the second hand I used the wire on its own as the loop, which worked a lot better. Made things more complicated for myself than they needed to be with that first one, it seems, but it was a learning experience.

I went ahead and painted the hands before attaching them. Beetlebiter's claws are dark green, to contrast with the red he will have on his markings. It's also pretty much the exact shade as the figure's original colour, as a bit of a tribute to it since I'll cover it completely when painting the figure.

I glued the shorter parts of the wrists onto each arm, then after the glue had dried I reinforced that seam with epoxy putty.

Like with Singer's figure, I sculpted a replacement for the chewed off tail tip with polymer clay, with an aluminum wire and a bit of foil inside it.

The figure has one "dino damage" I've been neglecting, which is a crooked and probably intended to be broken tail. I've drawn Beetlebiter before with a smoothly curved tail, but maybe in certain positions it gets that sharp kink as a result of an old injury. The tail also had some holes in it that I'd first assumed where dog bite marks, but having looked at photos of unchewed cyclops raptor figures, looks like they're part of the design. Maybe intended to be bite marks by a dinosaur, or bullet wounds. Either way, while he'll get to keep the crooked tail, since the injury is old those holes would have long since closed, so I filled them in with putty.

Again like with Singer's tail, I trimmed the tail tip replacement, leaving a short bit of wire sticking out, and made a seat for it onto the tail stump with epoxy putty I'd mixed mostly for working on other parts of the figure.

I stuck the wire into the fully cured putty thing with some glue, and left it propped up on a pile of books (and one darning needle) to hold it in the right position overnight. Here he is drying the glue on his tail while also having his hands on supports to let the putty on their seams cure. I worked on these parts at the same time, but I left them for last, as I would surely have bumped them into things turning the figure around while sculpting the face. I'll try to be careful with them while painting, though they should stay attached regardless.

Going over the tail seam with epoxy putty the next morning and leaving it back on the book pile support to cure for 24 hours.

And here he is:

Before.

After. Now he'll just need the rest of his paint.