writes:I needed an opposing army for my Mechanoids in Alien Squad Leader (because I don't know anyone else in my area playing these rules).
I had bought figures for a second army, but the pro-painter who took the commission had a life crisis, and the figures were lost.
So I was flipping through the rulebook looking at the army lists, and I was intrigued by the Hive Mind army – an army of psionic insects, and the author encourages building the army from toy bugs!
As it so happens, we've been talking a lot about toy bugs on TMP lately, so it seemed like a good match!
So first, I need four bases of acid-spitting bugs. That reminded me of the scorpions we previously profiled in the Wild Creatures: Reptiles pack. Scorpions don't spit acid, but I imagine the tail of a giant alien scorpion could shoot acid, right? So I bought a second pack, giving me four toy scorpions.
Then I started prepping some bases in mass, enough for the entire army. I started with 50mm square, 3mm thick LITKO wooden bases, sprayed them with green paint, then hand-painted the reverse sides with inexpensive brown dollar-store paint.
I then brushed watered-down Aleene's Tacky Glue on the bases, and dropped them into my flock bin. I then sealed the bases with matte clear spray.
The toy scorpions were red and black, so I spray primed them black with primer suitable for plastics.
I painted the undersides light gray. (This turned out to be unneeded, the underside isn't visible once the bug is based.)
I drybrushed the top of the toys with medium gray, and dotted the eyes with a gold metallic marker.
I did some searching on the internet, and found a black scorpion with a reddish-brown tail end. So I painted the tail tip brown, followed by red using a translucent (i.e., inexpensive!) craft paint.
I then glued the painted model to the base using runny-type superglue, clamping it to get a good connection. I pushed the front of the toy down, forcing the tail up to look more threatening.
Unfortunately, the glue didn't hold, and the scorpion popped off shortly after the clamp was removed. The paint was pulled off down to the primer, showing that it failed to bond with the toy. The abrasion from the clamp also rubbed some of the paint off the top. So I used gap-filling superglue the second time, clamping it again. I then sealed everything with a spray of matte clear.
And here are the finished acid-shooting scorpions.
Total cost $2.50 USD, and I have lots of spare 'reptiles' left over.
You can see above how I was able to tilt the toy to make it look like the tail was ready to spray acid.
However, if anyone accidentally presses down on the tail, the toy will likely break off the base and need regluing.
The eyes stand out nicely.
