Trash or Treasure: Empty Sprues

Welcome to the first installment of Trash or Treasure! This time we're taking a look at the most common "trash" we come across as miniature gamers- the stacks of empty sprues left from the completion of a model kit.

In this post, I use:

• A few 1-2 inch sections of sprue.
• 3 extra Space Marine heads from my bits box (the most handy thing any hobbyist can keep!). Clip off the rounded bottoms of the heads to prep for this project.
• A small ball of green stuff.

First, I took an angled sprue bit. Using a hobby knife and file, I shaved it down into a spike shape. I then moved on to the Space Marine helmet. With a hobby drill (not a powered drill!) I made holes in the "neck" and upper right side of the head, which I then made larger by scraping the inside of the holes with my knife. I also scored the face of the helmet with the knife, making it look gashed by some kind of blade or claws.

Next I took a long straight piece of sprue and shaved it into a long spike. I used the drill to bore a hole from the neck opening of the helmet-less head, straight through to the forehead, which I again bored out larger with my knife. *CAUTION* When using the hobby drill to make a hole through a bit, make sure your hand/fingers are NOT in the way of the exit point. The drill WILL hurt when entering your skin! (Yes, I made this mistake)

 

To mount the heads, I held each one in front of the spike it was to be emplaced on. I then clipped off the portion of the spikes that would be "inside" the heads, shaved down the ends a bit to fit into the holes, and glued them in. After a couple position/angle adjustments, it looked fairly natural.

For the third head I had pulled out, I thought three spikes might be too busy, so instead, I bored out the bottom and laid it on the base in front of the spikes. I then rolled out some green stuff, connecting two strands to the neck and roughing them up with my knife. In my experience, this has made fairly decent looking "guts" once painted. In the end, I also added a string coming out of the spiked helmet, which will also be painted as "guts".

After a quick priming (and a little bit of green stuff to help the tall spike to stay in place), this Chaos/Ork objective marker is ready to paint!

(I will be attempting to get this painted and posted on here for you all to see as soon as possible)

There you have it! One simple, yet effective, way to use all that extra plastic that is normally just thrown away from your kit boxes. Have any of you thought of creative ways to use your extra sprue pieces? Feel free to tell us in the comments below!