Magnetized and kitbashed Foetid Bloat-drones

The premise is that I bought a single regular Foetid Bloat-drone kit, and several starter set drones. The regular kit comes with 3 faceplate and 3 weapon options. The starter set comes with a single plate and a single weapon type. The aim was to customize the starter set drones by mounting all the different faceplate options on them, as well as to magnetize all the weapon arms and have them be interchangeable.

This is something I did quite some time ago. I did not publish it, as I hoped that I would be able to paint some of this. I also wanted to do some additional conversions for more weapon arms. Alas, time is a precious commodity these days, and I managed to do neither.

In fact, since the rule of 3 came into being, my surplus drones are on sale on eBay.

But enough ranting. On to the conversion work.

Starting components for the weapon arms

The starter drone body up top, with the regular drone body below. All 3 weapon arms are mostly assembled on the right (Heavy Blight Launcher, Plaguespitters, Fleshmower).

Magnetized weapon arms

This is how the connector joint looks like on the weapon arm. The flat part goes into the connector on the body.

Using the hobby knife, I cut off the top part of the connector. (Protip: you're better off not assembling the arms.)

Make sure the polarity is OK while gluing a 3mm magnet into the hole.

Do this for all the arms.

Magnets in the body

At first, I drilled a 3mm hole in the body, right where the connector is. (Protip: use a 5mm magnet instead.)

I dry-fitted the Heavy Blight Launcher. This is the best arm for this job, as the hose that connects the two parts is flexible enough to snap into place, so you can place the magnets. The body is not glued together at this point.

Drop magnets into place.

Apply superglue.

After the glue has dried, take it all apart and apply more superglue generously to strengthen the magnet.

Apply green stuff to further strengthen the magnet into place.

Faceplates

I had 6 drones to start with, so I experimented with mounting faceplates as intended.

This is a starter drone finished.

With magnetized arms snapped into place.

This is the regular drone finished.

At this point I realized that the fleshmower hangs instead of standing at its original level. 5mm magnets would have been better. Oh well.

The starter drones have a horn that juts through the faceplate, as well as they connect differently. So I cut off the horn and cut the connectors down.

One plate fits perfectly.

The other did not - perhaps I cut too much. So I applied some green stuff to the connectors. It looks good, and I want to paint it in fleshy colors - flesh bulging from underneath the armor.

The squad