Love the flu, Milliput and Terminator Genisys

Back from a sickness enforced break.  Had the worst flu/cold for a long time which wiped me out for the better part of two weeks.  So work has been a bit patchy…

Terminator Genisys figure

I finished off the first trial Terminator figure.  I base coated the figure with AP Gun Metal and VMC Dark Sea Blue and then applied a heavy wash of AP Dark Tone.  Then I dry brushed the figure using:

VMA Metallic Black - whole figure
AP Gun Metal - head to knees
AP Plate Mail - head to waist
AP Plate Mail + VMA Aluminum - head to shoulders
VMA Aluminum - head

I always dry brushed down the figure in the same direction, i.e. the strokes from the head down to the toes.  This works much better than the usual ‘back and forth’.  Pretty happy with the result in the time frame so will continue to do these figures in the background.

Mold box setup on larger resin piece

Adokul the Monk got a lot of base work and his head painted.  My original idea of the base wasn’t working so I went for a cobblestone base instead.  I purchased an A4 size resin cobblestone section at the MOAB 2016 bring and buy so decided to use it.  Rather than cut it up (and I suspect the resin is quite brittle as it already has a repaired crack in it) I cast a mold of a section.  I used a part of that for the base.  The dwarf statue head was then glued down with some Milliput underneath it to make sure there were no air gaps.

Cast section on figure base

Test fit

For the head I went for an orange (ish) hair colour.  I haven’t worked out what the headband will be yet, need to decide on the armour colour first.  However I got a bit of a mental block there and nothing seems right.  So rather than force that I decided to have another go sculpting something (the previous attempts never really went anywhere).

Adokul head

Rather than sculpt a figure I decided a bust would be easier (bigger scale but less figure anatomy) and do a non human so that any oddness looks more intentional ;)  The rough idea is some kind of worm/sea creature/alien thing.  Real sculptors draw pictures.  I can’t draw so doing it all freestyle.  Note that isn’t a good thing.

Stage two (missed getting a photo of stage one)

I started with a base of Milliput Standard around a paper clip armature (no picture of that).  I then rough bulked out the figure with more Milliput.  For the eyes I got some of my daughters plastic beads, filled in the hole and super glued them on.  This will give the eyes a real alien multifaceted look.  I didn’t have the eyes tracking as I was thinking of getting the whole chameleon vibe, with multi directional eyes.  That was partially successful.  I should have made one eye looking forward and the other looking way up instead of just to the side.

Stage three

To do the main sculpting I used a mixture of Milliput Standard and green stuff at 50/50.  I find this is butter like but holds well and doesn’t dissolve like Milliput does if you use too much water to work it as I tend to do.  I did the figure in a number of sessions

- back scales
- neck, mouth and head crest
- neck and eyes
- expand neck base (done in milliput only) and chin

Stage four

The eye sockets need some more detailing (next stage) and the head crest needs to be worked out.  The mouth needs more detail (teeth?).  Probably some more secondary muscles/veins on the neck too.  Then I need to work out how to give some character.  I’m having a great deal of fun with this so far.  Previous sculpting attempts (at a 54mm figure) never got past the rough bulking out stage.  I’ve also made myself a few sculpting tools as well so managed to get some shed time in there as well.  Both are rounded blunt edged tools to help lift up putty and smooth together putty joins.

Stage five (the yellow Milliput didn't come out right in the photo)

No real end goal here.  Just learning and trying.  If it all looks ok I might try and make a mold for resin casting as an exercise on how to do more complex molds (mostly I have done simple one sided molds).

Violinist diorama base work part 6

Well painting the figure didn’t really happen.  Too many nights of broken sleep for that which makes the eyes rather fuzzy at the end of a work day.  I did get the first cut of the face done and I’m pretty happy with that.

Looks super clear...

On the base side things are all coming together.  The resin pour for the pond worked really well.  It looks totally clear.  However from the side there are some tiny micro bubbles (or maybe dust?) visible.

...but not so much

So not sure if I’ll box in the sides or keep them visible.  I’ll be covering the top now with the Vallejo Water Effect gel to get some water ripples.  I painted up three leaves to be floating on top of the pond water.  Lastly I’ll be putting on the water effect to the pond with the leaves (the water effect can be used as a glue for the leaves) on top.  Should get that finished off tonight.

Autumn leaves painted up

For the fountain/wall I varnished the fountain in a gloss varnish to add to that marble sparkle effect.  I use Vallejo Gloss varnish which I apply via an airbrush.  I find approx 50/50 varnish to water works best.  I normally do 3-4 coats but keep them very thin and let them dry (which only takes a few minutes) between coats.

Diggers casting resin and catalyst

With the fountain then varnished (and left for a day) I mixed up some clear casting resin for the base of the water in the fountain.  This was because using the water effect would take ages to build up.

Plastic lid to keep the dust off while the resin dries

If you apply the Vallejo Water effect too thick it dries white, not clear.  The Diggers brand casting resin cures without any bubbles.  It's a two part product and you buy the catalyst separately.  You have to be careful not to add to much catalyst otherwise while the resin cures it can get quite warm (or in one test case I did, too hot to touch) and potential damage items.  Too little, it may not set.  The only problem is that it the resin is slightly yellow, hence why I didn’t use in in the pond.  When the resin is dry then I’ll glue on a piece of fishing line from the fountain spout to the basin and use the water effects to make the stream of water.

Basin full of "water"

DIY scatter flock, 54mm Samurai and more resin casting

Milliput ground effects

 A mixed bag this week.  I was a little light on painting due to illness but managed to do a wide range of other activities.  First off was doing some of the ground work for my 54mm Samurai.  I used some Milliput and filled out the blank area on the base.  Just some gentle ground variations to make it a little less boring.  Then I filled in the cracks between the resin cobblestone piece and the wooden base with the leftover Milliput.  I also painted up the back of the wall piece in good old flat black.

Next up was some mold making and resin casting.  I made up a couple of molds for some pots I had purchased recently as I wanted quite a number of them for a market diorama I have in the back of my head.  Also using the left over Pinkysil silicon I did a quick mold of a tree piece I had made but didn’t use for my 54mm Prince of Novograd.  This was pretty much the case of “got left over silicon, quick find something small in 1 minute to make a mold”.  The macro shot shows what amazing detail you can get out of a home cast.  It will make a great fallen log on a base.

Resin log love

As my wife prepares for the next cosplay adventure I’ve been spraying various toy weapons to make them look less toy like.  Many plastic swords are now black and/or gunmetal.  I even got break out my old Paasche model H airbrush as the larger nozzles it has are great for mass coverage of larger items.

DIY scatter/flock

Many moons ago I saw a youtube video made by RubbishInRubbishOut about making your own flock/scatter material out of sawdust and cheap acrylic paint.  Having done a large amount of woodwork recently I had some sawdust to play with.  First I used some flyscreen and sifted the sawdust to remove the big chunks.  Then using the cheapest paint I have (the $2 for 100ml type from the discount store) I added just enough water to make it liquid.  Then I just kept adding sawdust and mixing the two until there were no more clumps of paint.  I found that once the sawdust doesn’t feel wet to touch you are pretty much at the right ratio of sawdust to paint.  Any more and you end up with bits of sawdust that don’t get coloured.

To be honest I hadn’t really expected it to be that easy or to work so well.  I made up five batches just to experiment.  The beauty of this is that you can use just a tiny amount of paint and only produce a small amount of coloured scatter.  No more buying a huge bag that you will never use.  Mind you I already have those huge bags so this was more an exercise in producing odd colours of scatter to add some variety to the basing materials cupboard.  Any colour of scatter I like now.

54mm Samurai

Any finally, I got a bit of mr samurai done.  I put a hold on the breastplate for now.  Not happy with it but sick of doing it.  I worked on the yellow areas a bit and they are tracking ok so far.  The shades down are reasonable and I need to work the highlights some more.  The ankle areas aren’t right so I will need to have another go there.  But in all the yellow worked better then I expected given how little I paint yellow.

54mm Samurai

Some Flemish figures for Saga and steampunk resin casting

Just add earth..

Having a break week after finishing blue man I went back to 28mm land and did two figures (out of eight) for my Flemish unit for Saga.  These figures are Normans from Conquest Games.  I wanted to trial some different techniques of painting chainmail too.



Rather than just dry brushing all the chainmail the same way all over I did a graduated dark to light approach so the top of the figure was lighter than the bottom.  Once that was done I did a bit of earth/sky glazing and did a earth colour glaze on the bottom half and a sky blue glaze on the top.  With the chainmail done that was 75% of the figure.  I did struggle to get back to 28mm size faces but overcame that by going down a few brush sizes :)  Just need to finish off the bases and these two are done.

The wife has gotten back into sewing recently and has decided she wants to make some steampunk outfits/gear.  In my other hobby of electronics I have a large collection of misc. gears from old cdroms/etc so I volunteered them for the cause.  Steampunk costumes love gears painted up like brass.  But that got me thinking that my wife will only be able to make 2-3 pieces before the supply of gears is done and cdroms are getting hard to find.  So why not copy them…

Mould box and original gears ready to go

So out came the pinkysil and east cast resin and now we have two mould blocks of gears.  Really this was just an excuse to trial out some more mould making techniques and I did learn some new bits:

It's alive!

The big pour

 * always have a second item ready to become a mould.  That way if you have spare silicon you don’t waste it.  That is why I have a single gear in a mould by itself.  That was the surplus silicon mould and sure enough there was some pinkysil left over to make it.


* don’t change where you are pouring your silicon from halfway through a pour.  It’s a sure way to get air bubbles into the mould.  For a big mould pour in the middle as the pinkysil is quite slow flowing.

Resin casts ready for priming (sorry about the yellow light)

* always have an extra mould ready for when you are mixing resin.  I now have a very small new resin rock made from the larger rock mould from the surplus resin from the gears casting batch.









So next week is still school holidays so not much painting time as I’m taking time off to be daddy daycare.  However I will try and get going with my next 54mm figure, the Soldiers knight, Prince of Novograd.

Pinkysil silicon and Easycast resin reviews

One of my very early experiences with miniatures was casting my own lead figures with Prince August rubber moulds (the 3 figure fantasy range).  The smell of molten lead in rubber moulds, the heady toxic fumes reducing my intelligence and the sizzle of burning flesh as I accidentally touch the casting crucible.  Good times.  So I always enjoy casting and moulding things.

I have used the Woodland Scenics rubber rock moulds and even made some of my own moulds with Instant Mould/Oyumaru.  But the ultimate endpoint was to make a silicone mould and cast something in resin.  Well with a birthday just gone I splashed the cash and made it happen.

All ready to go

From The Combat Company I purchased some Pinkysil silicon ($40), Easycast resin ($40) and Stoner mould release agent ($25).  For the first couple of test pieces I went for a single sided/open mould.  This means one side is open to the air, as compared to a single part or two part fully enclosed mould.  A single sided mould is fine if one side of the object is not visible, e.g. will be glued to something else.

Ready of the silicon pour

The first test piece was to replicate a dead norman from Conquest games.  I glued the figure to some plastic card and hot glued that into the bottom of a cut down plastic cup.  The Pinkysil is a two part silicone that you mix up for a few minutes and then pour.  An hour later you are ready to remove the master from the mould.  That all worked pretty well.

Where did that norman go?

The Easycast resin is a 2 part quick set resin.  You have 2 minutes of mixing/pot life and 10 minutes before you can de-mould/remove the piece.  The first mix I made I mixed for 30 seconds (I was a bit gun shy of the 2 minute mix time).  That wasn’t long enough.  When the resin reacts the clear resin turns white (aka “blooming” as it looks like an algae bloom in fast forward).  This didn’t happen.  After 30 minutes I was able to get the figure out ok, but it had dried clear.  Over the next few hours it dried completely.  So not enough hardener had mixed in.  The second time was much better as I mixed for 1 minute.  Near the end of that minute I could feel the heat coming out of the resin.  Within 3-4 minutes I was seeing the white bloom and by 6-7 minutes the figure was fully white.

The bottom of the mould, with the figure removed

In both cases the detail was as good as the original.  The only issue with the mould were the feet of the figure.  As these go down into the mould they trap air, so the ends of the feet are missing.  So some air vents need to be added to the mould to fix that.

Resin "bloom" underway

Copy vs original

The second test I did was a nice sandstone rock I found in the garden.  First I covered the rock in PVA glue so it wouldn’t come apart in the mould.  I made a custom mould box from some 5mm foam card and hot glue.  Hot glue is quite good for this as it seals a join water tight (being melted plastic).  When in doubt, add more hot glue.  Finally I wrapped the mould box in tape to help hold everything together.

Sealed up with PVA glue

I underestimated the amount of silicon needed so had to quickly mix up a new batch to pour into the mould box before the first lot started to cure.  In the end the top of the mould is a bit thin.  I then mixed up some resin (again 1 minute mixing, waiting to feel the heat of the reaction near the end of that time) and poured away.  To preserve the mould I waited until the resin had cooled (approx 30mins) before removing from the mould.  The detail is fabulous.  Definitely going to be using this for some figure presentation in the future.

So crisp

So all up I’m pretty happy with the progress so far.  Next up is to do a fully enclosed mould of a test figure and get the hang of cutting open the mould correctly without damaging the mould.

Dan with a face

On the figure front I’ve done a bit on my 75mm test figure.  The face and waistcoat are probably 80% of the way there.  I’m pretty happy with the face so far, especially given the low quality of the figure.