Assembling the Fanticide Hole Beast

The first model I wanted to work on is the Hole Beast. The Hole Beast is a piece of terrain in the Fanticide game. It also attacks other models that come near it, so it gives new meaning to hostile terrain.

Hole Beast

This is a combined resin and white metal model. The largest piece of the model is the base, which is cast in brown resin. The kit also includes four white metal arms and a white metal eyestalk. The pieces are detailed nicely, especially the resin base. They do not have a ton of fiddly details, though, so this piece definitely lives up to the claim of Alien Dungeon that the Fanticide models will be nice to look at but easy to paint.

The resin was cleanly cast and only had a few mold lines around the edges. I decided not to file or sand these, because I didn't want to take the time to get out my sanding films and do some wet sanding today. (Note: there is no warning on the packaging for the Hole Beast, but most resin is harmful if inhaled. I always wet sand resin models to avoid inhaling the dust.) I can always cover them with a bit of flock or scatter once the model is painted.

I scrubbed all of the parts with some soapy water and an old toothbrush to knock off the mold release solution. This is always a good idea, especially with resin models, to make sure that you get good adhesion with the primer.


Once everything was washed, I started working on the mold lines on the metal arms. I used a pair of clippers to trim the bits of flash and injection sprue and filed the mold lines with a semi-round metal file. These are the tools I use the most when I'm cleaning models. The file has one rounded face and one flat face, so I can use it to work on just about every kind of surface shape.

My most used tools

The arms had a little flash here and there, but it was fairly easy to trim. You can see in this pic that the bulk of the flash was injection sprues at the tips of the claws.

Arms before cleaning and filing

The mold lines were fairly small and easy to clean off. For the most part, they blended with the carapace on the arms and the edges of the claws. The only exception was where the line crossed the eye.

Mold line on the eyestalk

I used the file to clean and smooth it, and it buffed off quickly and easily.

Eye after filing off the mold lines

Once I had the parts cleaned, I tried a dry fit of the pieces. Anytime I'm putting a multi-part model together, I always dry-fit everything to make sure that it fits well before I get out the glue. That way I can make sure that I don't need to trim or adjust anything before the glue gets in the way. In this case, I needed to trim the posts at the ends of the arms a bit to fit them into the holes on the resin base. I gave them a quick snip with the clippers and they were fine.

Dry fitting everything

Most of the holes were tight enough that the arms could stand without glue, so they should hold well once they are glued in place. This is always something to consider when assembling large models like this. If the arms didn't fit tightly, I might have been tempted to put some pins in them to hold them better.

Once I was sure the arms fit well, and I knew which arm I was putting where, I glued the arms in place with a bit of super glue and set the piece aside so the glue could cure. I noticed that there were a couple of gaps at the base of the arms. Normally a small gap like this wouldn't be a big deal, but I know these models are going to get some heavy use. Any gap like this increases the chance that arm will come loose with handling, so I decided to fill them.

A tiny gap at the base of one of the arms

I mixed a bit of Kneadatite (green stuff) to fill the gaps. For this particular piece, I only need a tiny bit of putty, but I know I'll need more for other models tonight. I always mix more than I need, though, so I only cut off about half of what I think I'll need.

A little goes a long way

I mixed it together and used a sculpting tool to push it into the gap. At first I just try to get it roughly in place. One trick when working with putty is to make sure you keep your sculpting tool wet so the putty sticks to the model and not the tool.

Putty in place

With the putty in place, I use the tool and smooth and sculpt it a bit. The idea here is to blend the putty in so that it looks like the parts of the model next to it. In this case, I cut some grooves to align with the grooves in the resin and smoothed the top to match the carapace on the arm.

The putty sculpted around the base of the arm

The final step with the putty is to use an old paintbrush to smooth it. I use an old nylon brush dipped in water and go over the putty with heavy strokes until I smooth off any sculpting or marks I don't like.

A pair of arms with putty covering the join with the base

I filled the gaps around all of the arms to make sure they are all firmly attached to the base. Better do some extra work now than try to fill and repair later if one of the arms comes loose.

Another couple arms filled

Finally, I set the whole thing aside to dry and cure overnight. I always like to leave things at least overnight to make sure that all the glue and putty has had a chance to cure.

Completed Hole Beast front

Completed Hole Beast rear