Scratch building and Kitbashing

Scratch building is the art of fabricating models and miniatures from junk parts that you can find around your house. From Bill making stuff and his bead bots to classic film props like the original star wars blasters which involved “dressing up” a real firearm with plumbing fittings, scratch building can take many forms. Similarly Kitbashing makes use of parts of existing kits in order to produce something new, essentially the same as “conversion” in the miniature world.

Today I’ll share with you some kitbashes/ scratch builds of my own, in the hopes that it may inspire you to make (and share!) your own efforts.

First of all we have a small mech made from a 1/72 Churchill crocodile, some miscellaneous gundam kits and the cupola of a 1/35 conqueror.

I think the results of this first attempt are acceptable, but I later pulled this piece apart to reuse some of them.

I was much happier with my second attempt (see below). This was shortly after discovering the work of Kazuhisha Kondo as well as dragon’s heaven. Hopefully you can see the resemblance to the “baund doc”. Model kits and garage kits exist for the baund doc, but they are quite expensive and so I set out to create my own with materials I had on hand.

Some advice for prospective scratch builders is to keep an eye out for interesting shapes in inexpensive everyday items. Additionally, it is very easy to hoard items which you will never use. To counter this I follow some self imposed rules.

• Limit items to what will fit in one shoebox/ designated container

• Never make a purchase on the basis that the item could be used for crafting

Some noteable creators that you might want to check out are Adam Savage, Cut Transform Glue and Miscast.

Have fun and happy crafting.