Construct then paint or paint then construct?

[Ty]

Hey. I'm about to start building a 1:1 vinyl T-800 endoskeleton skull and was having a thought..... Is it best to first stick all the parts together and then paint or paint the kit and then stick it together? I've just finished building ED209 from Robocop and I stuck that together first and then painted it (which was quite tricky) and would have been a whole lot easier if I had painted it first. Just wondering cause' I was thinking about the glue not sticking after the T-800 is painted, and I don't want it to end up a mess. Not sure what to do really... Any suggestions would be great. Thanks!

[Shinnentai]

Which parts come seperately from the main skull part? Saw one of those at a con' once, IIRC it was all one piece save for the little cheek acutators. Others I've seen on Ebay had seperate vertibrea and lower jaw parts.

I'd say paint, then assemble, then weather. These are supposed to be seperate & movable on a "real" Terminator anyway, so it shouldn't look wrong if it looks seperate, but the weathering shoud look like it happened to everything all together, including the joints and crevices between. Only exception is the vertibrea: they'll look wierd if only one joint is visibly seperate. Even if you try to hide it with the paint job, it'll likely still be apparent. Either cut all the vertibrea seperate, paint seperately, then reassemble (preffered method: it'll look better), or attach the vertibral column before painting.

If you really want to go the extra mile, get a set of acrylic teeth to replace the viny kit teeth. They'll look better au naturale than the vinyl ever will with any paint job. They'll also improve the recodnisable parts factor: the endoskull vinyl kit commonly found on Ebay is sculpted on top of a "bucky" skull (factory reject teaching model skull made by the Anatomical Chart Company, and sold dirt cheap to the halloween decorations market), and the teeth are one of it's most distinguishing features. Change the teeth, and you improve your suspension of disbelief index hugely.

[Shinnentai]

Just wondering cause' I was thinking about the glue not sticking after the T-800 is painted, and I don't want it to end up a mess.

Oh, forgot to adress this. Common methodology here is to carefully scrape the paint off places where the glue will go, allowing it to attach directly to the parts, while preserving the paint job.

Good for resin and styrene, but vinyl is a different kind of animal.

Due to vinyl's flexibilty, a lot of glues have trouble sticking to it in a secure fashion to begin with. In a figure kit you can get something like CA or epoxy to do the job well enough, depending on the joint, but on large cavity stuff like this, the opportunities for subtle flexion and/or warping to compromise the joint will be magnified. Warping is a "when", not an "if", with such a structure.

A large cavity viny kit like the Terminator endoskull should be solidly reinforced inside. The easiest way is to fill the whole thing with resin or plaster (newspaper or foam won't do on something with this much internal volume). That's messy though, expensive if you use resin, and heavy. What I do for stuff like this is to lay sheets & ribs of epoxy putty onto the inside surfaces of the parts, sometimes imbedding coathanger wire in the ribs. This will permanently secure the parts against any furure warpage, while keeping the weight down, and preserving the internal space (you'd want that if you're planning on putting lights in the eyes).

Make sure any warpages have been corrected, and all the fitted areas (like the joints and bite of the jaw) have been trued first. Adjusting vinyl's shape is easy compared to resin or styrene: five minutes with a hair dryer and a cold running tap is all you need.

Once the insides of the parts have been reinforced, the joints can be secured with your glue of choice. Though I'd still recommend pinning, or reinforcing the joints from behind, just because of the size/weight they'll be holding. A human skeleton is unfortunately one of the least ideal structures to have rendered in hollow vinyl, in terms of support and joint integrity .

Hope this helps!

[Ty]

Thanks for all that Shinnentai, you've provided alot of useful information that is sure to help me... I'd like to put a picture up so you can see exactly what the skull looks like but I'm not sure how to do that here. You have been a great help and you've probably saved me from mucking it up! I'll post back again when I start building (or need more help) Thanks again!!

[Ty]

Thanks for all your help you gave me on this, the model is now complete and is looking great. I stumbled accross some lead that's used on joints on exterior roofs and used this to weight the model from the inside so now it's quite heavy. Next I'm going to be building the endo arm kit (bit terminator mad at the moment). I'd like to get your opinions on the skull but I'm unsure where I should post these on the net for easy access, any ideas? Thanks once again for your help!

[Shinnentai]

I use www.photobucket.com as an image host. Snap a few pics, save/resample at 72dpi, upload, and post a link. Easy peasy and free.

Here's an example of how to post an imbedded link. Hit the "Quote" button above this post, and look at the bracketed code tags surrounding the link & first sentance of this paragraph.

[Ty]

Thanks for that, I hope this link takes you to the pictures....

http://s61.photobucket.com/albums/h58/Ty1978/

I'd like to hear your comments!