Steaming Up Me Cranium!

Hi, All!

The Nefarious Doktor Nefarious with his Battle Tri-Skull...

Yes... I know I said I'd do more on Lord Smudgington Smythely-Smythe's Hydraulically-Motorvated Sextupedal Land-Traversing Vacational Domicile in time for this post, and I have... But it's not particularly exciting stuff to talk about as yet, and I wanted to mess about with my skull for a while.

A perfectly ordinary skull.

I picked up this resin skull as part of a ghoulish tic-tac-toe set being sold off cheap, and immediately recognised its potential as yet another Nefarious Machination of the Nefarious Doktor Nefarious!
 
Well, it's obvious. Innit?

(Left) The components are selected. (Right) A wooden bead is split in half to become the front wheel. Styrene discs punched out during other projects are glued to buttons to create wheels. Tubing is used to shape a chimney atop a pink 'boiler' bead.

Racing home with an enthusiasm to put the finest of pigeons to shame, I set about a-rummaging. And in moments I had a useful pile of beads, buttons, bits and bobs before me.

The holes in the buttons are filled and sliced clean before an axle is added, followed by square-cut tubing and finally beads as cylinders and boiler.

As you can probably tell, this project was a quick one. I usually intend my side projects to be fast builds, but often get carried away. It was nice to see something come to completion with so little effort.

The brass nut from a guitar string makes a pretty creepy mechanical eye.

1.2mm round rod and a slice of 3.2mm tubing are used to create a Gatling gun.

The Gatling gun is added, as is thechimney - and the model is almost complete.

Of course, rivets had to be added - fifty of them. "Fifty, Colonel?" I hear you exclaim, "Piffle! A mere trifle!" Well, yes... but I'll make up for it, I promise.

The finished Tri-Skull. Scary, huh?

Finally, I opted for a nice rusty-looking ink finish, contrasting with gunmetal and brass...

...But then...

Junior Skull, Senior Skull and General Skull-Duggery. (sorry!)

I thought I ought to do a few more...

...With Officers...

Senior Skull - His spikes are the ends of toothpicks, mounted in pieces of narrow plastic tube. A multi-facetted bead is used for his eye.

The fearsome General Skull-Duggery! I used greenstuff to sculpt the tusks, a piece of guitar string for the conduit, bits of plastic rod and tube for the bolts, half a small plastic press-stud for the monocle and beads and plastic tube for the blaster.

...After all, ten heads are better than one!

General Skull-Duggery, The Nefarious Doktor Nefarious and Slovenly Bob inspect the troops.

I can't wait to watch these wreak havoc on the battlefield!

Tri-Skulls... Chaaarge!

So that's it for this little quicky. More on Lord Smudgington Smythely-Smythe's Hydraulically-Motorvated Sextupedal Land-Traversing Vacational Domicile soon! I promise!

...and there's another side project on the way...

All the Best!