writes:Following on the vicious giant biting flies for my Alien Squad Leader Hive Mind army, I next needed some giant armored bugs.
The army list suggests using beetles, which do indeed have thick carapaces in real life, but I forgot that I had any. (There were actually beetles in the Reptiles set, the same one I got the scorpions from!)
Instead, my mind turned to… cockroaches. In real life, cockroaches have rather thin shells, but we can imagine that giant alien cockroaches could well be armored. 
So you might expect that I would just use the leftover cockroaches from my recent fantasy project… but they were hiding. (Probably with my post-Apocalypse stuff.)
Fortunately, I had a backup pack of toy roaches! No idea where I bought these, or how long they've been around here. The pack is from the That's Gross range from JA-RU Inc.
My workbench has been overrun by cockroaches!
These toy roaches are made from a soft, rubbery, translucent material.
I did a test-fit on a LITKO 50mm-square 3mm wooden base, and I can get one roach to fit (the antennae extend over the edge).
I painted the legs, head and antennae with black paint. Alternately, you can use black permanent marker – put the toy on a scrap piece of paper, and press the marker down to get good coverage.
Note that in the real world, cockroaches are brown, not black. But giant alien monster cockroaches can be any color you want them to be.
I wasn't sure what to do with the 'eyes', so I tried painting them with the same metallic paint I used on the flies.
I also did a test-fit to see if I could get two roaches per base, but decided it would take a lot of work to pose the legs to look right.
I decided the lime-green 'eyes' didn't look so great, so I repainted them black, and then drybrushed the head and legs with dark gray. I then superglued the roaches to the bases, using a clamp to make sure they were glued to the base itself and not just to the flock.
The toy legs just sort of stick out sideways rather than making contact with the ground, so I superglued some of the legs to the base. The roaches got a final spray-coat of matte clear, and LITKO FlexSteel on the base bottoms for storage purposes.
And here are the finished giant armored cockroaches!
I made three roaches in the first batch, but I ended up with some extra bases, so based up two more cockroaches – it was easy!
The translucency of the wings doesn't photograph well.
The toys are not as flat as they appear, but their bodies are mostly hidden under the 'flat' upper bodies.
That's another Hive Mind troop type finished, one more to go!