Friday, November 14, 2014

Captian Bluebear

 
This is a hobby and as such, should be fun. That's my excuse for this little project. Spotted on a stand at the IPMS show (more on this tomorrow) for 4 quid, it was pretty certain that the serious modellers weren't going to be grabbing Captain Bluebear from the shelf. They prefer to leave that to idiots like me.
 
Captain Bluebear appears to originate from a 1999 novel called The 13 1/2 Live of Captain Bluebear published in Germany. This has been turned in to a film and animated TV show and from this in to a set of easykit plastic figures by Revell. Why? No idea.
 
 
 
Anyway, each figure is supplied on its own coloured sprue. The smaller bears (Bluebears nephews apparently) are 6cm tall and the main man just under 10cm.
 
What fascinated me is that all are pre-painted. Looking closely, each sprue has been sprayed with several colours. Presumably some sort of 3D masking method is used. I certainly can't see anyone doing this by hand. Now this is a technique I'd like to know more about - can anyone point me at some resources on the Interweb that describe the process? I'm assuming the sprue is fixed in place and the mask is a moulded metal thing placed over the top and then sprayed. The results are certainly neat.

 
Assembly is appropriately simple. The parts are trimmed from the runner and clip together without glue. Juggling the loose hands, feet and heads is a little tricky though. I found it best to clip the front and back of the bodies together but not squeeze them until the extremities were fitted. Even then they occasionally dropped out and the parts had to be prised apart with a screwdriver.
 
I did try a little cement but the plastic is very hard (ABS?) and seems immune to normal cement and solvents.
 
My completed crew look fab and will one day find there way aboard some model boats. Just not the serious ones.  

Captain Bluebear and crew


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