"Good sources of greeblies..." Topic

Hey, kitbashers ( is it me or is there something slightly obscene-sounding about that name? ) ! Share with us some of your sources for good greeblies and kitbashing salvage! [Anyone who doesn't know what greeblies are, so are the little bits that break up a kitbashed model's regular form and make it look custom.]

Here are a few of my favorites:

Old computers: tear the motherboard out and there are all sorts of things that you can pluck off and put in your bits box. Needle-nose pliers can be a lifesaver here. I recently added a rocket launcher to the back of one of EM-4's fighting robots by using some kind of plug that goes into the back of a CD-ROM and three cut-down straight pins.

Coffee stirrers: the little plastic straw kind can be useful for conduits, gun barrels, road barricades, etc. The plastic ones that look like two little straws glued together side-by-side make nice electrical conduits for your sci-fi settings.

Hair curlers/rollers: a neat source of engine cowlings, roll cages, etc. Cheap and easy to use.

Sprue: obviously a good source of plastic for whatever you might need. I use it for landing legs, weapon mounts, etc.

Window screen mesh: available in both metal and vinyl, it's great for fences, Mad Max-style vehicle window coverings, sci-fi walkway flooring, air duct covering, and so forth. Some people also use auto-body repair mesh.

Household bottle lids and caps: a cap from an Aleve bottle ( a painkiller available in the US ) makes a great sci-fi-ish turret. Other caps make good hatches, ring mounts, access covers, armored wheel hubs, and so forth.

Bamboo chopsticks: great scratchbuilding material, being both strong and easily drilled. I've seen an entire Vietnam watchtower built out of chopsticks.

"Egg crate" lighting panels: these are panels that go in office-style overhead light fixtures, and have 1/2" square holes in them ( here's an example of some being used for a different project: balinka.com/pdfsetup.htm ) . Good base for sci-fi walkways ( covered with window screen mesh ) , gantry cranes, and perhaps buildings.

Anything in the electrical aisle: Your local DIY store or Home Depot is a mecca for kitbashing. The electrical aisle alone has loads of good stuff: outlet sinks can be used as small utility sheds ( think I saw that on Terragenesis ) , while I've used some little square bits as feet for my dropship's landing legs.

Disposable razors: don't throw away that Bic! The handle makes a dandy boom crane, while you can glue together multiple caps to make a ventilation louver or whatever.

Plastic cutlery: Disposable plastic forks, knives, and spoons can be a good source for making spiky bits ( you Chaos 40Kers know you can't resist having more spikes ) , reinforcing structure, or adding mysterious domes to your alien attack craft ( "oh, yeah, that there's the magneto-anti-flux-proto-grav-tesla-flibbert drive sponson. Glad you asked?" ) .

I know there are many more sources, some of which I'll think of and post later. Where do you get your greeblies?

The plastic tray that Wall's Vienetta used to come on was once perfect for metal flooring. It had a great embossed pattern on it that looked just like metal floor panels. But then they changed it. It's totally smooth these days.

Curses!

The plastic light covers for overhead lighting makes great sea terrain. Paint some green and white streaks on the smooth side, then spray the whole smooth side blue. Flip it over and you have ocean.

Watch parts. You can buy bags of watch parts for making jewelry. You can also get cheap small chain in stores that cater to amateur jewelists. Another thing to keep an eye out for is bottles of things you would buy anyway. For example, I've gone through several large bottles of rubbing alcohol as paint thinner for my airbrush. Plastic pill bottles from old prescriptions, and my wife's endless assortment of cream and powder bottles can all make nice scenery, towers, gun turrets or the starting points for scratchbuilt vehicles.

Half a Kinder egg mounted on an old Humbrol pot (with an added plasticard access panel or door, and an old placcy heavy bolter or something fixed on the top or front) makes a cool automated sentry post/pill box for 40k-type games.

I turned a bundle of those Kinder egg inners into landing pods. Bits of sprue added... and one of them is crashed. I used them as objectives back when 40K was cool and dark.

Of course, I meant the inner. Not the chocolate. You eat that.

You never know, you might get something cool inside you can kitbash as well. Though usually it's "Oh, a crappy plastic toy, that's the surprise!" I live in hope, though.

I do find it annoying that just about the nicest chocolate around is sold in an overpriced toy-egg combination.

Plastruct sells a lot of textured styrene sheeting and a lot of prefab shapes like I-beams and tubing of various sizes/cross-sections that go well together when you're building something. With a fancy protractor, a knife, some sandpaper, a decent glue, and a steel rule, you can make a lot of interesting vehicles and scenery items from these plastic bits. Add all the other sources of greeblies mentioned by others in this thread, and you're good to go.

-Mel

I've seen bags of soft plastic astronauts / space shuttles, etc., in Dollar Stores that might contain some useful bits for SciFi scratch-building.

Also saw various sizes of inexpensive plastic columns for weeding cake decorations in the local arts & crafts shop. Could be useful for scratch-building temples, government buildings, and such for historical or fantasy games.

Just returned from a wholesale place for restaurant supplies - you wouldn't believe the amount of plastic stirring sticks and other stuff you can use as cheap profiles for way too many projects. And little (3 inch, I guess) plastic palms for something like 6 (Euro)cents a piece! It's about as tempting as all those bobs and bits in the DIY shops.

On one of those home shopping shows I saw the most amazing spray paint. You just spray it on for instant stone effect. It was called textured stone or something like that.

Also saw a dunny seat called king of thrones or something. Made startrek seats look positivly primative. But thats another story.

Ink jet cartregies make great genric sci fi/ modern cover. Say they're electrical boxes or something. Also check out the wood cutout isle at the craft store. There are all kinds off possibilities.

Scurvy,

You're not in the US, are you? There's several types of spray-on faux stone at Home Depot here in the States. I've been looking for an excuse to buy some; it looks pretty good in the finished product.