"Bits... where do you get your bits?" Topic

I've been doing alot of painting and diorama making lately. I have bunches of bits but I'm always looking for more. Where do you all find your bits? and keep in mind I'm pretty cheap!

Where do you all find your bits?

Spare parts from kits?

We sell Scifi doors, windows, and vents. Stuff like that. Laser cut from Styrene.

corseceng.com/15mm_flat_pack

Anywhere and everywhere. Old pens, electrical parts, even been known to buy things at the grocery store just for an interesting shaped package. When an appliance goes bad one of the first things I do is tear it apart to see if there are any goodies inside. Doesn't get much cheaper than that!

For minis, I've acquired various batches of GW bits as well as weapon sprues and parts from other lines.

For Terrain, in addition to saving random crap from appliances, etc, I buy junk toys at resale shops. Places like Goodwill, Salvation Army and others often have broken and used toys for 1-3 bucks. These are great because they've already got texture, detail, etc on them, you just have to find the right way to cut them apart and reassemble them.

Sometimes they almost build themselves.
link

The best site -and most of my inspiration- for building terrain with toys and other found materials is here:
ironhands.com/necro.htm

I've had some interesting finds:
- Beads and findings section of my local craft superstore (Michael's), usually with a 40-50% coupon in hand. Found some awesome gears meant for jewelry which will be used as steampunk accessories.
- Ripped apart a dead stereo once and found some neat things; the laser thingy from a CD player could be a useful death ray, and the transistors could be tiny droids (some are really cool ant-droids).
- Glue, pop, sports drink bottle tops.
- Recently I cut some 591ml Mountain Dew bottles in half lengthways for 6mm sci-fi buildings; have a really cool shape and texture built into them, like pebbled leather.
- Air freshner bottles come in some cool shapes.
- The inserts from boxes of chocolates, flipped over, look like some sort of 6mm sci-fi complex (just need to figure out how to strengthen the plastic, it dents easily).

My biggest problem is I have too many bits, some that have been there so long that when I rumage through the boxes its almost like an archeological dig. Old model bits, toys, bits from appliances, packageing, spare parts from old PC's, off cuts……………..

What kinda bits are you looking for?

Thrift store – my favorite local one has bins of old toy pieces-parts from which you can fill a bag for a buck.
That's where all this came from…

Broken zoids are my favourite bits and cheap. Complete models are worth too much to use as bits though.
Ramshackle games do one of the best bits around called trindlings I think.

richarDisney

stuff to put on bases
armor bits for super mutants (Fallout)
Tires with treads (the cheap diecast cars I tear up from Toys r Us have no tread on the tires)

Some great suggestions so far!

gweirda – that is awesome!

gweirda,
I'm jealous. Even my cheapest resale shops are 25 cents a piece. Though when they pre-bag things up sometimes you can get alot that way.

Anywhere and anything; parts is parts!

Worst of all, I share my madness via my blog:

blackwidowpilot.blogspot.com

Come into my workshop said the madman to the spy… Mwaaahahahahaaa!!!!

Leland R. Erickson
Metal Express
metal-express.net

rhinestone kits at most craft store for under 5 dollars, and as said above the thrift stores junk toy bins, check yard sales as well sometime you can find models still in the boxes there really cheap, and dollar stores as well.