Johnny Quest Robot Spider

No model kit of a Robot Spider exists, so she had to scratch-build it. Her material of choice was a white ping-pong ball (from my spares box - see my Minion in 'Figures'), 4'+ of tie wire (ditto), and two different diameters of plastic heat-shrink tube (that I had to buy for her on the way home from work).

She cut the wire into four equal(ish) lengths then straightened them by rolling them between two wooden planks. She bent them at two specific places, covered each inner segment with heatshrink, then each middle AND inner segment with more heatshrink. This gave her the four legs of three thin, yet different diameters.

To create the body, she drilled a small hole into the ping-pong ball (with my drill and bit). Using the hole as a datum point, she painted an area of the ball's Temperate Zone with a red enamel paint. Next day she cut a circle of masking tape (with my circle cutter) which she burnished down over the red area.

Everything was spray-painted in less than a minute, with a can of cheap satin-black spray paint (that she had me buy from the hardware supermarket). The paint I selected advised that it would stick onto metal and plastic - perfect.

My Lady twisted the bear inner tips of the legs together, then screwed the resulting column into the hole. But, after positioning the legs, realised that her model was quite unstable, so a base was called-for.

The base is a piece of scrap MDF, raised on a perimeter of left-over timber slats. She drew an off-square grid pattern in pencil, then painted-on a road and added a grass verge from a sheet I had. To replicate a scene from the cartoon, she pinched a crawling 72-scale soldier from a set of soldiers I had, coated him in liquid Superglue so she could paint him, then set him on the base via a wire pin superglued into his leg. The spider was positioned on the base, and where each of the legs (almost) touched, a hole was drilled - not straight down, but at an angle pointing into the centre of the base. This locks the model onto the base.

In the cartoon, the spider took-out several soldiers with one of its (two multi-purpose) data-gathering black tentacles. My Lady tried to replicate the straight lance-like tentacle, but opted, instead, for an arching silver one, for the colour, and because it was easier to do. She replicated the (suction?) cup on the tip, via a spot of chrome paint on the figure's forehead. The other one is a small circle of paper - also painted chrome. The last step was to place a black dot in the red area so that the 'eye' looks straight at the soldier.

While looking over my shoulder as I perused my local internet model shop one Thursday night, she spied a set of PE gates. They should arrive on Monday PM, because she had me include them in my order. She erected them on the edge of the grass verge.

This was such an easy model to make that I'm surprised that I didn't make one myself. It is a very simple model, but my Lady likes simple things - she married me, didn't she? This model took her less than a week build. With those spindly legs, I'm not surprised that a kit doesn't exist.

One other Jonny Quest cartoon scared me. Now that I think of it, I might have a go at doing an 'Invisible Monster' It should be easy to do.

Just some internet surfing.

George Oh

12 June 2025

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