Cthulhu Update: Happy Feet!

I cannot begin to tell you how excited I am to be able to share this news with you.  I resumed work on my Reaper Bones C'thulhu again last night, and successfully repositioned his feet so that the pegs and slots on his feet and the base line up neatly and he slots right into his base without difficulty.  

Not going to even pretend I wasn't nervous as hell about doing this.  I've never done much in the way of repositioning miniatures (other then the occasional straightening of a bent sword or a slight arm adjustment), and never in the polymer that Bones are cast in, and absolutely never on a scale as massive as C'thulhu's.  His legs are as thick as my fingers, for crying out loud!

I don't have photos of the reposing process, because both hands were busy and my girlfriend had gone to bed.  So let me walk you through the process anyways, even though I can't illustrate it step by step.  

I brought a pot of water to a boil and prepared an ice water bath right net to it in a large bowl.  Once the water was good and boiling, I submerged C'thulhu into it up to his knees; I just wanted to repose him from the knees down, so there's no point in having his whole body soft and floppy.  I held him in the boiling water for 20 seconds - even used the timer on the microwave (right above the stovetop in our apartment) to make sure I was keeping good time.  

Taking him out of the boiling water, I lined up his left foot peg with the hole in the base, and used that as leverage to bend the legs exactly right so that the right foot hole lined up with the peg on the base as well.  Once I was satisfied, I lifted him off the base and deposited him in the ice water bath for about 30 seconds.  A second test fit to the base showed that one of his legs had shifted a little before going in the bath, so I popped him back in the boiling water for about 10-15 seconds, refitted him to the base, let him cool down slightly while still on the base, then put him back in the ice water for a final setting.  

Now why the hell didn't I take a "before" shot to show how misaligned his feet were to start with? As an aside, I haven't glued him to the base yet - that'll be the last step once everything's fully painted.  The plan for this afternoon is to spend some time with the superglue and Green Stuff and get his arms and tail attached to the body and the gaps between the pieces filled in and smoothed over.  The head and wings are going to be left off until painted, so once this is assembled and the Green Stuff sets fully I can begin painting - probably some time early next week, either Tuesday or Wednesday night after work.  

And honestly, not a moment too soon.  My stress and anxiety levels have been through the roof lately as my responsibilities in the office increase and the amount of time I end up spending working through other people's mistakes goes up, and I'm really looking forward to spending some quality quiet time with the brush and paints and letting myself Zen out while basecoating this figure.