by Joe Brown

John Ringo's novels covering Legacy of the Aldenata are military sci-fi; in Book 3 When the Devil Dances he introduces the SheVa mobile gun platforms. And SheVa 9 was called "Bun-bun" mostly because of the gunner, who had hooked the rest of the crew on an addictive webcomic called "Sluggy Freelance" and had personally painted the two story cartoon of a switch-blade wielding rabbit on the front turret. Bun-bun and other cool characters can really be found over at Sluggy Frelance but it's not for everyone's taste.

The construction was straightforward scratch building with foam; the outlines for the rabbit were traced on a big piece of pink polystyrene insulation foam, cut out with a hot wire cutter, and then sanded into shape with some drywall screen. The eyes came from a bag of spare googly eyes. The arms and legs were more foam, sanded to shape, and the ears are thin sheet styrene.

The handle was from an old bread knife left over from after the blade having been salvaged for another project. I used some of the on-line illustrations of Bun-bun to determine what shape the new plastic knife blade should be, and trimmed that from more styrene sheet. That was painted with a Krylon Silver pen, and attached to the handle after it dried.

Because there was no effective way for the foam Bun-bun to grasp the knife, a long nail was inserted into the handle at a carefully calculated angle, and the other end of this custom pin had to be carefully poked in the rabbit's belly. All of Bun-bun's limbs were attached with foam safe CA glue and then Parma Faskolor Paint acrylic paints were used, FasWhite and FasGray.

He may be odd, and have an attitude, however… Bun-bun rocks!

Image: Parts and references

Image: Test-fit

Image: Even from this angle, you're not safe

Image: Left/front view

Image: Fear the bunny