Borrowed Hobby Tips: Making Your Army Standout

Once again stealing... er *borrowing* hobby tips from greater bloggers than myself, I am re-posting the blog post below from the fantastic "From the Warp" blog.  This one, entitled, "5 Things to Make Your Army Standout" is a lot of simple but great advice.  The original article can be found HERE.  Please leave any comments on the original poster's blog as I don't deserve any credit for its manufacture.

--------
A long time ago (in the blogging world), I posted about making your army stand out. I had a few pics of some nice looking armies done by other gamers to show what I was talking about.

The question I was looking at was how we all go about making our armies stand out from the crowd and how we make them our own.

Since I'm building my new Deathwing (eventually), I find myself struggling with how to make them look different from the rest of the forces out there. And by different, I don't mean painting them orange or anything like that even though I'm sure that would work.

I find myself struggling with the tiniest of things like how I'm going to paint the chapter symbol on their right shoulder so that it looks like something more than just a red blob sitting there. How I'm going to paint the bases to show that these guys are on a specific planet and not just another "battlefield?"

So I got to thinking, what can we as gamers do to make our armies stand out and what are some of the more common solutions I've seen out there.

1. Swapping out certain bits
This one is one of the easiest. Nothing more than a simple head swap or change of arms to give a model a different look. The big thing with this is that it doesn't require extensive greenstuff skills to pull off well. A well placed bit can change everything on a model.

2. Adding bits/trophies, etc.
Along the lines of the first one, this is more of adding things to models. Things like backpacks, gun scopes, swords or anything like that. This one has the benefit of tying all your guys together too to give them a unified look.

3. Conversion work
Once you start greenstuffing... it can be hard to stop. This is the next step after swapping out or adding on bits. You start making your own stuff or making things fit that wouldn't normally. This can be real simple like a pelt or real complex like a full length cloak on a model. The sky is the limit here.

4. Your paint scheme
Whether you go with the Codex approved paint job or you make up your own, trying out a new color or method can make huge difference. Who cares if their guns are always red? Paint them blue or another color and see what it does to the look of the army. That might be all you need to rise above the rest of the crowd.

Maybe it's a simple detail line an icon or a line around the border of an element. It doesn't always have to be complex.

Maybe it's really nothing more than adding that one last layer of detail in terms of a final wash or line highlight or one last well defined shadow to your rank and file guys to finish them off.

5. Your basing
With the explosion of resin bases out there these days, it's become very easy to get a nice environmental feel to your force for just a little bit more work. Working with resin can seem daunting for some folks, but it's fairly easy actually.

And even if you don't go the resin route, simply completing the basing on your army improves the look ten fold I think. There's nothing wrong at all with a basic textured base that is painted well.

In the end, it shouldn't take much to get a good looking force that stands out from everything else out there. Nothing says you have to have a fully scratchbuilt army to look good. Just changing one little thing can be enough to make your guys really look sharp.

As for me, I'm thinking about adding tabards to my Terminators (all ten of them) to give them a different look. Of course then I have to figure out what color I'm going to paint them so that I don't look like everyone else out there. 

DIY: 40k Conversions - Conversion Beamer

One really cool option that is seldom played on the 40k table by vanilla marine armies is the Master of the Forge.  Most people don't like him because: (a) he doesn't have an invulnerable save, and (b) he is essentially a two-wound version of the techmarine, which can be purchased for much less, and without taking up an HQ slot.  But there is one really awesome piece of equipment that is available to the Master that can not be purchased anywhere else... in the entire game: the conversion beamer. A conversion beamer is an odd little device that has a variable strength and ap value based upon the distance to your target... but the further away from your target you get, the better it works.  And at a 72" max range, you're most effective when almost nothing else in the game can touch you.  The odd thing about this little device?  Nobody knows what it looks like!  No model has been made for it since at least the Rogue Trader days, and that's the last time a picture was produced too.  While this may cause some people frustration, I think it's a great opportunity for some conversion work.

(The RT conversion beamer in all its black and white glory.)

Interestingly, most likely because most current 40k players either didn't play the game back in RT, or much more disturbingly, simply weren't alive yet, there have been many attempts at capturing what the conversion beamer should look like:

From Stillfrosty at LINK:

Note in this version the conversion beamer uses a 'dish' to beam the deadly signal, but is essentially the size of a bolter. 

From Digitaldaggers on the Bolter and Chainsword forums LINK: 

This thing looks like it's mostly centered around a plasma cannon, but that thing is massive!  Talk about the extreme opposite from the bolter version.

From Gurth on the Botler and Chainsword forums LINK:

Take a good look at the guy in the middle.  This is an amazing scratch version of the conversion beamer that has been given to some rogue trader era space marines... back when even a humble foot soldier could carry them into battle.  I don't know if Gurth actually made this model or if he just found it on the web somewhere, but I do seem to recall that someone, somewhere, scratch built and then cast that thing for his own personal use...

From WeeMan LINK:

This one is also based on some RT era parts, but relies on the old plasma cannon for its design.  Note that in this model you will see a fairly popular trend to put the master on a bike.  It makes sense that if you're going to want to fire that weapon at maximum range, then you need to be able to move fast enough to fire it that way!  By putting him on a bike you don't have to tie up a transport, and that extra toughness boost doesn't hurt either... even though S8 weapons will still make him go splat.

From Stillfrosty LINK:

I think this is a model that Stillfrosty found on the web when trying to figure out how he was going to do his own version, but I could be mistaken.  Either way, note that this is another massive version of the beamer, and has even been loaded onto a sidecar like WeeMen's version.  It's interesting to see that some people have decided a man portable relic should have the profile of a small tank...

From Turbo_MMX on the dakkadakka forums LINK:

This is, by far, my favorite version of the beamer, and I used it as the basis for my own conversion.  Note that as a plasma gun, it's still about the size of a bolter, but with the addition of the dish on front and the clever targeting module from the Ravenwing sprue, this thing becomes something just a little beefier than your typical hand weapon.  Also like Turbo_MMX, I decided to put mine on a bike as well, to take full advantage of the need for mobility and the toughness boost, without having to use the larger sidecar footprint. 
 
This conversion is deceptively simple, and you can pull it off without any step-by-step instructions, although there should be some within that dakka page I've cited above.
 
Although I do not have a picture of mine up here yet, I'll do so once I've thrown some paint on it.  I prefer not to show my models in their ugly naked stages, but I think you'll find some fairly common similarities between my model and the one above.  When I get around to painting my own Master of the Forge, I'll be sure to post him up here as an update... or as a page by himself with a link back to this page.
 
But what should we learn from all of these pictures?  Sometimes not having everything spelled out by GW creates great opportunities for real creativity to flow in the creation of your conversions.  At least, that's my take on it...

Borrowed Hobby Tips: Hardening Card Stock

Ron over at From the Warp always some creative ideas for your hobby... far more than I do, anyway.  In this installment of hobby tips that I've stolen from other people's blogs, you'll see how you can use the flexibility and easy to carve/cut capabilities of regular card stock (note cards, etc.) to create complex green stuff backing or other shapes that would be very difficult with plasticard (sheet styrene in the U.S.).  I encourage you to visit and leave any comments you have on the original article that you can find HERE.  Enjoy!

---

Turning cardstock into plasticard

With all the sculpting that I do, I've developed a way to turn simple cardstock into plasticard and make a very sturdy base for me to sculpt on when I need it. Using plasticard and greenstuff is an art. Some folks do it better than others... I'm not one of those and that's how this trick came about.

I've been asked before how I do this particular thing and I figured it was time to show exactly what I do to make the change from cardstock to plasticard.

You'll need two things

Cardstock and Superglue

When it comes to cardstock, I prefer the simple stuff like a regular index card. You can use posterboard if you want, you just need to make sure it's not the glossy kind or that it has any kind of coating to it. You want the stuff that will absorb liquid.

As for the superglue, I use the cheap stuff myself. The trick though is getting a kind that is like water. You want it to be very runny and nothing like a gel. You want to be able to apply it to the cardstock and have it be absorbed into it easily.

What I use this technique for
While I'm sure there are more uses, I tend to focus on just a couple of things. Purity seals (the long flowing kind), and support structures for when I sculpt things like tabards. Those are the two main things.

I also use this approach when I'm building armour plates like my Pre-Heresy Terminator shoulderpads and greaves.

How it works in practice
In the case of things like purity seals, I simply cut out the shape I want, bend it into position carefully and then attach the piece to the model with a tiny drop at the connection point. Once it's secured, I go through and "coat" the cardstock with superglue by adding a few drops here and there and allowing them to absorb into the cardstock.

When it comes to tabards, it's the same thing. Cut your cardstock to shape, attach it to the model and then coat with glue.

I usually only coat one side of the cardstock and thats the side I'll be applying the greenstuff or any paint to. The other side is left alone. It can still be worked on since the glue has soaked through the cardstock and solidified the whole thing.

What to be careful of
The big thing is applying too much superglue. This only matters on things like the purity seals since too much superglue will dry and once the cardstock has absorbed all it can, the rest will pool up on the surface creating unwanted texture.

In the case of half tabards, it doesn't matter since you'll be covering the whole thing with greenstuff anyway.

The second problem comes when you rush the drying. Don't mess with the superglue as it's drying or you run the risk of pushing it around on the surface and creating waves of texture. The idea is for all the glue to absorb and leave a smooth surface you can work over it without having to worry about the water in your paints affecting the cardstock underneath and eating away at the stability of your model.

And there you have it, how to take regular index card (cardstock) and turn it into "plasticard" so that you get the rigidity and support you need in the end while keeping the flexibility and ease of working with cardstock in the beginning.
 

Borrowed Hobby Tips: Assembling a Drop Pod

Below is a fantastic article put together by Ron at his awesome From the Warp blog that I'm posting here in case you missed it at its original location.  As usual, I am re-posting his work, without permission, but I strongly suggest that you visit his site for some other great articles; his stuff is consistently top-notch.  I have added some of my own comments at the bottom with regard to my own approach.  I just wish he'd put this up before I magnetized a couple of pods on my own...
  

The definitive guide to building and magnetizing a Space Marine Drop pod

If you've never built one of these before, you owe to yourself to do some research before you get underway.

There are a few things you need to know before you put glue to plastic.

Magnetizing is an added benefit, not necessary, but definitely nice to do.

This tutorial covers the basic construction and magnetizing of the doors and both weapons for the drop pod. You can skip the magnetizing parts and still use all the info here to build your pod.

Believe me, reading this before you attempt to build your own will help you out tremendously. I wish I had it before I started mine. Make sure to read through the whole thing before attempting it though. While it's presented in the order you should do things, there is some room to move things around and depending on what tools you have available, you may need to do just that.

The follow up to this post will be the painting of the same pod. The construction of this is designed to allow easy painting of the final three sub-assemblies so that you can get into all the tight spaces fairly quickly and easily with the last step being to glue the three components together.

Start by cutting and cleaning everything
Start out by making sure you have all your pieces and your tools. If you're magnetizing this, you'll need a few more things in addition to your clippers, files and glue. I use 1/8 inch rare earth magnets for my work. I've got a 1/8 drill bit that I use to create the perfect size hole for the magnets to rest comfortably in. This project requires 13 magnets when all said and done.

I've found it easiest to clip everything from the sprue and take care of all my mold lines. Once I have everything ready, then I start building.

We're going to build three sub-assemblies. The inner harness assembly, the floor and doors and the engine/fin assembly.

The inner harness assembly
This is perhaps the most important thing of the whole project. Understanding this little tidbit matters. Unfortunately, GW is not that clear in their directions and most of us have figured this out by trial and error.

The center console itself can sit on the floor base facing any direction. The key is getting the components of the Sergent's individual harness correct.

To do that, we need to know what components make up the Sergeant harness.

On the center console itself, it will be the one panel that has the keypad and readout screen and not just two blank spots. The blanks spots are all the Marine harness points.

GW provides this tiny picture in the instructions but no real explanation as to why it's there.

There are three things you need to note about the drawing.

1. The Sergeant shoulder harness is the one with the skull. The rest have round blanks in the same position.

2. That particular harness/upright assembly needs to plug into that particular panel on the center console.

3. The Sergeant also has a specific upright piece as well and it can be determined by the low hanging cable that none of the other uprights have.

If you try and fit any other harness into the Sergeant upright, you'll notice that you'll have considerable trouble. This is because the pegs for his particular shoulder harness are made to fit into his particular upright piece. Get this correct and the rest is a piece of cake.

You can see each "harness" is actually two (one on each side) and an upright in the middle.

I built all of my harnesses and then attached them to the console making sure to put the Sergeant harness next to the correct panel on the console.

In the picture there, I have them resting on the floor piece, but they are NOT glued in place yet to the floor.






And the completed inner harness assembly. Each harness has been glued into the console. This part is done now. We can set it aside for later on.

The floor and doors
The majority of the work here is due to the fact that I magnetized the doors. Drop that option and you should be able to cruise through this portion with ease. The first thing is to build each door by gluing the halves together.

I elected to magnetize the doors in such a way that the magnet is not obvious and positioned at the tip of the door when opened.

I wanted to keep the doors upright, but did not want them to close so tightly that it would be difficult to get the open either.

The drawback to this method is that the magnets are positioned in such a way that if they do break, it will be almost impossible to repair.

They should not need to be repaired I believe with normal use, but it's worth noting and being aware of it if that is a big concern when building your own pod.

We start by gluing a small piece of sprue (narrow end upright) just a millimeter or two from the edge of each door opening. Mark the middle of it along with the middle of your door. It's best to place the door in the frame to see how it all lines up.

The magnet will go in the door itself just above the seam between the two halves as seen in the picture. The line up between both magnets does not need to be perfect, but you want to get it as close as possible.

Also make sure that your magnets are flush with the surface they are embedded in. There is not a lot of wiggle room here and it pays to get as close as possible.

Drill your hole in each piece and secure your magnet to each half.

I don't think I need to remind everyone about magnet polarity. If you get it wrong, you'll need some creative cutting to extract the snugly glued in place magnet.

Once you have all the doors done this way, you can test them out to see how they work.

There should be just enough draw between the magnets that the door will "pop" into the upright position when it gets close, but not so much that it can't easily be pulled away.

Here you can see how the finished door will look. The magnet is barely visible in the open position.

When closed, you can see how the two magnets line up (this is prior to the floor being glued in place).

You'll want to make sure all of your doors are functioning correctly prior to gluing the floor decking in place. Once it's down, you can't make any more adjustments.

Inevitably, one door will not operate as smooth as the other four.

You'll need to do some cleaning up of the joints in order to make sure everything works as it should.

Using this picture as a guide, we're going to clean up a few connections to make sure everything operates without trouble.

All we're trying to do here is take the tip of our X-Acto blade or file and clean away a bit of the surface area to increase the tolerances.

If you're using a file, you may need to back up and do this before gluing everything in place as you won't be able to get in there once it is glued.

1. This is actually for the fins to connect to in the next part. We just want to make sure they can be slotted in here without having to squeeze them in place.

2. The bottom of the door and the top of the floor deck. If this area is snug, you won't be able to get your door closed all the way without having to force it into position and we don't want to have to do that.

3. Make sure the sides of your doors are kept clean and free of glue and debris. Any junk in here will also make moving the door troublesome.






In the end, we want our doors to all close up to this position. There shouldn't be much of a gap between them when closed. Not much more than the thickness of the stabilizing fin that goes between them.

Will you get them 100 percent perfect? No.
You shouldn't kill yourself trying to do it either. With a little work, you should be able to get real close. You just have to keep in mind that this is plastic we're working with and these things are not as perfect as we'd like them to be sometimes. Just look at the old Land Speeders.

Once you are comfortable with how all your doors are operating, glue the top portion of the floor deck to the base. This part is done. You can also glue the engine vents to the underside at this time.

The engine and fin assembly
We start with building the upper engine assembly. The stabilizing fin you see in the picture is for reference only. It is not glued in place at this point.

The red pieces are glued together and the blue pieces are glued together. This will allow you to actually rotate the weapon mount when done if you are careful in how much glue you use later on.

You can see the magnet in the middle of the weapon mount. I cut away the stud, drilled out the hole and inserted a magnet into the opening.

Whatever magnet you use, make sure it is not any thicker than the width of the plastic for the mount.

If you look closely, you can see that each weapon has a magnet inside it too.

Where it would connect to the mount by way of the pin, I have glued a magnet in place there.

Again, make sure you check your polarity. Once you glue the weapon halves together, it may real tough to get them apart to fix it.

Doing it like this will allow you to use the parts that come with the pod and still make the weapons interchangeable. It's just a matter of sliding one off and sliding the new one in place.






Next we glue on the five engine housing pieces to the upper engine. This will allow us to position our fins on the engine correctly in the following step.

This last part can be a bit tricky, but once you get two fins in place, the rest will be easy.






The first thing you do is set you inner harness assembly down on the floor deck. It should sit in place without any trouble. DO NOT glue it in place yet.

With the harness in place, take your upper engine assembly and add a drop or two of glue in the slot created by two of the engine blocks you just added to it.

With your upper engine assembly in one hand and a fin in the other, you want to position the fin correctly on the floor deck (make sure it's connected to the harness correctly too) and then glue it to the upper engine housing.

Things should fit together snug enough that they will hold while the glue dries. What we are trying to do is simply glue the fins to the upper engine housing without gluing it to anything else just yet. This allows us to lift the engine/fin assembly straight up when dry and remove the harnesses as well.






Before you take all the assemblies apart, make sure to place a dot on the underside of each one so that you can line everything back up together once you have it painted. In a perfect world, all of them would be the same and you wouldn't have to worry, but we don't have that luxury here.

We should have three distinct sub assemblies now that we can paint and then reassemble afterwards. If this seems like a lot of work, it is. But... I have three pieces now that I can paint up fairly quickly and reassemble without any trouble creating a complete drop pod.

Follow-up Thoughts

And that ends Ron's post.  As you'll see in the pictures below, I chose to put magnets on the other end of the pod doors when I put pods together.  My thought was that you'd not only be able to keep the doors closed (which you can), but it would also allow you to stick things on the outside of the pod... such as tentacles, an exoskeleton, or whatever... in order to make them "infested" pods for use in a tyranid army.  Given the trouble I had with opposing polarities on my version, however, I like Ron's solution a LOT better than my own.  I MUST try this out the next time I set about putting pods together...  Ron has come up with an elegant solution to a great looking model (that can be a challenge to put together well).
 

DIY: 40k Conversions - Magnetized Land Raider

There are a lot of reasons to utilize magnets when building your vehicles for 40k.  The chief reason, of course, is the fact that GW has made these things so expensive, that it's hard to justify purchasing just a few rather than one for each possible varient.  Apparently the marketing geniuses at GW haven't figued out that if they charged just a little over half of what they do now, everybody would buy twice as many.  So, to avoid extortion... er... the ridiculous expense of buying multiple vehicles, rare earth magnets are a modern modeler's god send.
Because of the expense associated with each kit, the landraider is a common subject for magnets.  There are lots of ways to magnetize the parts to a landraider to make the different varients.  Because all of the parts are now plastic, there are some folks that have come up with some rather ingenious methods for magnetizing each individual gun so that you can just swap them out on the fly.  A great example of this method can be found at The Rollin Waagh: http://therollinwaaagh.blogspot.com/2008/12/magnetized-land-raider.html.  I really like this method and may try it out someday.
When I put mine together, however, the Crusader was still a metal/plastic hybrid kit, and you simply couldn't use magnets in the way shown above.  The bolter assembly was just too heavy for that kind of thing.  So, I came up with my own method -- a method that can also be used for other sponsons, including those on the sides of Baneblades and Predator tanks...
Supplies
The first step for any project is acquiring the tools and supplies you need.  Fortunately, for this project, you don't need much:
- 1 complete Land Raider kit
- 1 Land Raider Crusader/Redeemer sprue set - 2 rare earth magnets
- 2 flat faced screws
- 4 very short screws - computer case screws are great; flat faced if you can find them
- 1 sheet of 1.5mm-2mm plasticard (a/k/a sheet styrene) - nothing thicker is necessary, and anything thinner would be too flimsy
Assembly
(1) Cut out a piece of plasticard that fits over the interior space of the sponson hatch.  I used 2mm sheet because it fit flush with the guide rails.  Neatness is optional.

(2) Screw a flat topped screw directly into the center of the plasticard.  I tapped the hole with a pin drill first.

(3) Next, I put a simple short screw from a computer case directly into the center of the sponson back itself.  It's easiest to do this before you've actually put the whole sponson together so that you can ensure that you're drilling in the center of the hatch from the other side.  I left the screw post sticking out on the other side, which means you can see it, but I don't think it matters either way...

(4) Next up, you need to actually acquire some rare earth magnets.  I purchased mine a long time ago in a packet of about two hundred and fifty that I've never used up.  These things are incredibly strong!  Mine are neodymium (Nd₂Fe₁₄B), which means they were relatively cheap.  But even a tiny one that is only about 1.5mm to 2mm thick is more than enough to hold the sponsons on.

(5) Then assemble the tank.  Follow the instructions.  I have opted to glue all of my hatches shut because I game with my models and don't care for the tiny interior details.  Plus, I don't have to try and lop off the ends of my screws that are sticking into the main body of the tank!

(6) Still assembling.  As you can tell, once the exterior of the tread walls are up, it looks pretty snazzy from the outside.

(7) As you can tell, you then just pop the magnet right on top of the interior screw.  No glue, no mess, no fuss.  The magnet is plenty strong enough to hold both sides together. You can now adjust the interior screw up or down as needed so that the fit is snug between the screws and the magnet.  Once you find the right spot, super glue the screw in place.

(8) And here the sponson is all popped in and ready to go.  Now you just need to make sure you do the same thing with the other side and include a computer case screw in every other sponson hatch you create for it. Just note that you need to put the same size screw in every sponson hatch so that the snug is always fit between the screws and the magnet.
I'm toying with the idea of also putting together a Prometheus set of sponsons as well.  If hurricane bolters are nasty against troops at 24", how deadly are four twin-linked heavy bolters at 36"?  Talk about a rolling anti-horde Devastator Squad...
Anyway, the next step is making a swap out set of hatches for the multi-melta and a swap out set of turrets for the heavy bolters and assault cannons, but that's all pretty straight forward.

DIY: 40k Conversions - Rifleman Dreadnought

This is a great, simple conversion by Dave at the Gone to Ground blog.  This article is copied practically word for word, without permission.  Once I have all of the components for my own Mortis/Autocannon dreadnought, I'll add to this little article with some thoughts of my own.

The rifleman dreads (2x TL autocannons) are one of the simplest, and most point efficient, ways to bring long range supression and anti-transport fire to the tabletop.  The lascannon/missile launcher variety is certainly better for cracking tough armor, but it is more expensive and puts out far less shots. 

The following is an extremely cost effective solution to bringing riflemen to the table.  You can often find packs of three autcannons from $3-$7 if you shop around.  So for 3 dreads (think 12 twin-linked S7 AP4 shots per round), $20-$25 + shipping is all it's probably going to cost you.  Not bad considering the Forgeworld autocannon arms cost around $11 each.

Per dreadnought you will need:

• 4 IG autocannons with ammo canisters (the ones that are hollow on the inside)
• a hobby knife
• a file
• super glue
• plastic snips
• plasticard
• greenstuff

Step One
The first step is to make some inital cuts.  Using a hobby knife or snips, cut at the red lines indicated below.

Step Two
One you have cut, use the file to flatten out the trimmed area.  The mounting is not flat, so it will take a little care to make it square. 

Step Three
Once both gun mounts are flat, glue them together.  Then glue one ammo cannister to one of the autocannons - the one you want on the outside of the dreadnought.  Remember that for each set of arms, you will want canisters mounted on opposite sides.  This will probably not make a difference given how they are constructed, but you might want to take care to leave the best side on the outside.  At this point your guns should look like this.

Step Four
Here is the tricky part.  As you can see, because of the way we glued the guns, you have one ammo feed on the outside and one on the inside of the arm.  What you need to do now is carefully use your hobby knife to cut the inside aiming ammo feed off.  It should be the one you haven't glued a canister to yet. Also cut off the handle to the crank on the gun.  Then turn around the ammo feed bit you cut off and attach cannister to it.  Now your arms should have the ammo cannisters both on the same side and look like this:

Step Five
Now, you have some decisions to make.  The arms won't fit exactly as they are, so you have options.
A) You can add magnets to the inside so that the arms are easily switchable. 
B) You can use plasticard to cut out a circle to fit the posts on the body.  This is a bit more laborious and requires taking off a little at a time to ensure a good fit.  If not fit correctly, they'll sag noticeably. 

Finally, I don't like exposing the space that the backs of the guns show, so I used plasticard and greenstuff to fill in the gaps and cover it up yielding a final-ish product that looks like this:

With a little care and a trip to your bitz box, you may be able to find something to make the outside of the weapon look suitably menacing.  Either way, once you're done, you can file down the greenstuff to make a nice eaven covering and voila! You have TL autocannon arms.  The approximate time required to make each set of arms is 30 minutes, give or take.

In the end, you will have a guy that looks something similar to this:

If you enjoyed this, don't leave a comment here.  Go over to Dave's post and leave comments there.  He deserves the accolades for his ingenuity.