Figure Modeling Part 3 - Pinning

August 19, 2007 on 9:20 pm | In Resin Kits, Figures, Merchandise, Misc. Items |

While most parts have some sort of nook or bump on them to guide you as to how they fit together, these tiny little things aren’t going to do much to actually keep them together. To alleviate that problem, you have to pin them.

Pinning consists of drilling holes in the kit so that you can insert metal wire which will in turn help with keeping the kit together. There’s really not much to it except drilling holes and inserting wire.

To drill, use a pin vise. Since my model is on the small side, I used a #56 drill bit with 20 gauge wire. As an example for how it keeps the model together, here is a picture of what the two halves of his lower body looked like after I pinned them:

Now they stay together!

Of course one has to be careful of the angle and exact location or where to drill. If the part doesn’t indicate where it fits together with another part, uh, just sort of guess and estimate? I did that for his arms and his upper body, and it worked.

His chair is made up of really tiny pieces and was a bit of a pain to deal with, mainly because I didn’t want to drill too far so that the pieces of wire I ended up having to work with were tiny and impossible to hold nicely.

Here is a picture of Kaworu half pinned together:

And here he is all pinned and ready to go (one with the flash on and one without):

Don’t let his appearance fool you, there are quite a few pinholes in annoying locations (like the edge of his flying… shirt thing) and a mediocre fit between the two halves of his lower body that I will have to take care of next.