Making the Rocketeer

This instructable is fairly similar to my last one, in terms of it being from the same "Better Tomorrow" universe, and being made from scrap parts.

However, I thought it'd be nice to post another one of these, so here it is.

I also missed out a couple of photos near the end again, so I apologise.

For this build you'll need:

-Hemispherical shape (or ball cut in half)

-Cheap garden hose part (picked up for £1)

-Sculpting Putty (not clay)

-Empty pen ink tube

-Thin plastic rods

-Wire

-A straw

-Foam ball

-Small toy/scrap parts

-Hot glue gun

-PVA glue

-Various acrylic paint colours of your choice

You should always start off a build with a sketch. They're basically essential when you need a reference to what you want to make. Also, having multiple angles is helpful as you can see what all aspects of the model will look like before you make it.

Coming up with more than just 1 idea is good as well, as you can decide which design you like most.

P.S. Sticking directly to your sketches is not essential.

The basic construction of the 3 main parts is fairly simple.

For the body, you'll want to use that garden hose part as the main structure, and find something flat to pop into the top hole. Conveniently for me, I found a plug that fit snugly into the hole. It was a bit scratched, but nothing a little sandpaper couldn't fix.

The head was just made from the head of a toy duck, sand it down until you create a shape you liked.

The Rocketpack was just made from an old pencil holder I must've had since I was about 5 years old, and I found a straw that could fit tightly into the gaps.

Now, use your hot glue gun to attach the head, body, and rocketpack together, and your model will begin to take shape.

Then used kneadatite (or any other sculpting putty) to sculpt 3 buttons onto the model's chest. Make sure they're as circular as possible, it doesn't matter what it looks like on the top too much as that can be easily sanded down once it's dried.

Now you'll want to cut a circle out of a very porous foam ball, and stuff it into the bottom of the body. The foam has to be tight fitting or it will fall out. Then just apply 2-3 layers of PVA glue to the foam until the pores are completely filled, leaving a bumpy texture.

I forgot to take pictures of this stage before finishing the model, so hopefully this stage won't be too complicated without them.

Basically, cut a small length of thin wire and bend it halfway along. Then, cut a bit of your ink tube to the length of half your wire. Slide that over the wire and glue it in place. Now you need to find something to cap off the ugly end of your arm. I used an old shoulder pad from Warhammer 40K, sanded down until it was plain. The hands are just blobs of hot glue carefully squeezed(?) onto the end of the wire. Repeat this process for the other arm, and then glue them both onto the sides of your model.

The legs are much simpler. Use something pointy and relatively thin to pierce 4 marked holes in your foam. Then put some hot glue on the end of your plastic rods, and gently but fairly quickly push them into the foam, making sure they are all the same length so your model doesn't wobble or fall over.

Well, if you're reading this you've made it to the final stage! (hooray)

This is possibly the easiest and the hardest step, as anyone can paint a model with solid colours, keeping to the lines, which looks fine, but if you really want to go all the way with your model, then I'd advise using these painting techniques:

These techniques are dry-brushing, washing, and highlighting. I explained the first two in my first instructable, but I'll just post a recap here.

Dry-brushing is basically when you dip your brush in paint (here I used silver), and rub most of the paint off on paper until the paint is fairly dry. You then just apply it to areas of your model you think would need it most.

Washing is when you take a colour (in this case black) and thin it down with water. Then you brush it on in certain areas. You can leave it as it is, or if you think the colour is too strong, you can use a tissue to dab a bit of it off.

Highlighting is when you create a lighter version of your colour (e.g. dark yellow, light yellow), and paint very thin lines along the edges of your model, to really make the details pop. This technique is especially helpful when you're wanting to show off just how extremely detailed some parts of your model are.

And there it is, you're completed Rocketeer model sitting there proudly on your desk, ready to be shown off to all your friends.

Thanks for reading this tutorial, if you have any questions just ask in the comments box, or send me a PM.

EDIT: The last photo is a commission I made for someone, based off of the design for The Rocketeer. It's a more complex version, but I thought I'd pop it in to show another possibility of the outcome of this model, if you wanted to make it more detailed. :)