Hobby Tips - Green Stuff Moulding and Casting Tutorial

Hi Folks,
Today is the first in an infrequent series on the various hobby tips I've picked up or developed over my time playing and modelling. Hopefully for some people this might be useful but for those of you that are old hats at this modelling malarkey please feel free to offer tips and suggestions as to how to improve my tutorials and the techniques I use. Also as a heads up as I'm still only at the modelling stage of my current project most of my first tutorials will deal with this, painting will come later.

I've been asked a few times in the past how I recreate some of the icons I've used, how to replicate an icon from a shoulder pad or even how to cast an item off a flat piece for use else where. So I decided to make my first tutorial a quick guide on Moulding and Casting with Green Stuff.

To begin moulding and moving on to casting you will need a few items and I have cut my list down to the bear minimum for speed and cost. To make a successful mould you will need:

• The Item you wish to mould
• Blank Shoulder pads or items you wish to cast on to
• Green Stuff
• Cutters
• Hobby Knife
• Kitchen roll/towel
• An old paint brush
• Tweezers
• Some kind of lubricant

As you can see from the list and the picture this is not a huge list and certainly only covers basic simple push moulds rather than two part moulds. Once you have all these bits assembled you can then start on the following step by step guide on how to create a mould and then cast the icons in question:

• First job is really simple, all you need to do is decide on the the items you wish to cast, in this case I will be using the two shoulder pads that Ron over at ++From The Warp++ sculpted for me for the Red Hunters and the Mentor legion. Using these is twofold, 1- they aren't produced by GW so don't break any copyright and 2- I need them for my upcoming marine forces. Once you have the items its prudent to check them over and remove any flash on the pad and tidy up any rough areas on them to help produce a smooth lift from the mould, this is illustrated below:

• Next step is to measure out the green stuff you require to cover the whole front of the pad to a depth of around 3mm and to give an excess all the way around the rim of the pad to roughly 3-4mm, this is a ball of roughly 1-1.5cm in diameter. Leaving an excess round the edge gives you something to hold on to when removing the pads and the depth assists when you start casting later and means you don't end up pushing the green stuff through the front of the mould. As you can see from the picture below I do a little extra prep on my green stuff:
  
  As you can see from the picture I have cut the amount required, I have then cut the thin strip out where the two separate parts of the GS meet. This is something I recommend doing to help give a smoother putty to work with. I have found that sometimes if you have an older batch of GS the section where the two colours joins has often started to cure, by removing this it makes it easier to kneed the GS and gives a smoother finish, slightly wasteful I know but we're going for results here!

• Once you have mixed your GS the next step is to take your Old Paintbrush and use it to apply a liberal coat of lubricant to the front of the item you wish to cast. There are various types of lubrication you can use but I personally recommend anything water based, this makes it easier for washing off later and means you can make other moulds or even paint on to the item easier.

• Once liberally coated the next step is to push your pad in to the freshly mixed GS, I start by making a rough ball of GS and slowly pushing the pad face down in to the top of the ball. I make my best effort to get the centre of the icon in to the very top of the ball, this just makes sure the GS covers and fills the detail of the icon and helps locate the pad in the center of the GS, once completed the pushing the mould should look like this:
  
  As you can see at the top and sides I have left a 3-4mm overlap with the GS coming well clear of the edge of the pads, this gives me something to grip for removal and something to push against later for casting.

• Once you have finished the pads you should leave the moulds in a warmish place for 36+ hours, as I knew these would be getting some punishment I left them for just over 48 hours just to ensure they were fully set and rock hard, do not remove the pads from the moulds before this time as it means they do not support themselves properly and are likely to deform.

• Once this period for setting has elapsed you can then remove the pads from the moulds, to do this you can use your cutters, tweezers or fingers to grip the pads and pull, there is also still some give in the GS so you can at least try to tease it from the edges of the pads. Once done you should be left with something like this:
  
  I would then recommend leaving the moulds for a further 12-24hours to make sure the inside of the mould which was protected from the air by the pad and lube has fully cured. This isn't necessary but its a useful suggestion to prolong the life of the moulds

• Now the mould making process is complete you can begin on the casting. This is where you will need you blank shoulder pad. The first step is to mix up a small amount of GS as shown here:
  
  As you can see from the 6mm airsoft BB in the picture the ball of GS required is somewhere between the size of a Space Marine Shoulder pad and a 6mm BB.

• Step one of the actual moulding process is to take the mould you wish to use and cover the relief image of the icon and all of the internal part of the mould with lubrication:
  
  Feel free to be fairly liberal with the amount you use as any excess lubrication should squeeze out when you start the push casting.

• Next take your ball of GS and push it in to the mould gently, to ensure I roughly cover the whole of the icon before I start on the pushing I put a small amount of lube on the round end of the paint brush and push the GS gently until I end up with this:
 
as you can see this doesn't quite cover the whole of the inside of the mould and is still pretty uneven but this will be rectified soon.












• THIS STEP IS PURELY OTIONAL - this step can be used if you want to make sure you are covering the icon but is not required. If you would like to make sure it is covered then take your old brush and with the round end use it to gently push the GS to cover the icon impression. If you have found you havent put enough GS in you can add more at this point to cover the icon and repeat the brush push stage. one thing to note is that this step can occasionally cause slippage so personally i wouldnt recommend it be some people find it useful.

 

• Once you have done this place the shoulder pad in to the GS and gently push, you should then end up with this:
 
As you can see the excess GS and lubrication has started to be pushed out from around the mould and the pad.










• Next take the mould and the kitchen roll/towel, place the mould on the roll/towel with the pad facing down (if the pad was uncovered you would expect to see the icon facing up towards you. Then gently apply pressure to the mould and push down as hard as possible but slowly and gently. keep this up for 30 seconds to 1 minute and you should have like below:
  
  here you can see the excess lubrication and GS has being fully squeezed to the side of the pad and should be completely pushed in to the icon.

• Once this is completed you should now have a small amount of GS left over from what you moulded up, I personally use this to make rudimentary sandbag shapes for future terrain, you should therefore be left with this:
 
there seems to be a lot of excess GS sticking out from the mould but this is actually more of a bonus than it seems as it means you now have something to grip to help remove the cast from the mould.




• This step is nice and simple, leave the pads in the moulds for 24-48 hours to allow the GS to set and to make sure the icon stays crisp.

• After letting the GS set you can then use your cutters, tweezers or fingers to grip the pads and pull, this sometimes removes the pad and the GS cast, often though it will just remove the pad and leave the icon in the mould. If the pad takes the icon with it I then use my tweezers to grip the excess GS and remove the icon from the pad, if it doesn't take the icon with it I use the tweezers to remove the icon from the pad by the excess. Once removed from the mould or pad you should have this:
  
 
As you can see there is an awful lot of overflow but its very thin and easily removable with either cutters or a hobby knife.
• The next step is to clean up the icons and if needed remove a small amount of GS from the rear of them, rinse them to remove any lube and then stick them on appropriate shoulder pads. Personally I wait until I have cast all the pads I need of a type before I tidy them up and mount them on pads.

Well folks there we have it the step by step guide on making icons for short runs of pads or the odd character. I hope this is of use to someone and gives you a good basis for future modelling projects!

As I need lots of both icons and pads my next tutorial will deal with making a silicon mould for casting larger numbers of self sculpted or custom sculpted pads, this is why there are no finished pads above but tune in again soon when once I have completed an additional 5 Red Hunters pads I will then show you how to make moulds of them for a more production line casting process.

Any questions, tips or requests feel free to drop me a line.

**Please Note to comply with the GW copyright rules (and to cover my arse!) this is only to be used for casting either self sculpted or commissioned icons or casting icon that are part of a larger item - please do not use this to cast and replicate parts or icons that are readily available from Games Workshop**

Shoulder Pad Showdown Part 2 - Time for sorting out Iconography again!

Well folks, second post in a day and second post about shoulder pads! It really is beginning to feel like the 1980's all over, all we need now is to fire up the Quatro and we're sorted!

Well once the vote was repaired and people could vote I'm glad to say a small number did and they reached a decision as to which skull pad to use for my Red Hunters an I am pleased once again to announce that the winner was:

The Ron's Red Hunters Skull Iconography

Once things are back to normal here I will begin the arduous task of creating GS moulds of both this and the Mentor Legion pad to start casting soon.

So thanks to Ron for an excellent pad and thanks to all those that have voted in the poll.

Shoulder Pad Showdown - Time for sorting out Iconography!

Well folks time for a bit of 80's style shoulder pad action here!

The votes are in, the lines are closed and the decision has been reached on which iconography to use for my mentor legion! I am pleased to announce the winner is:

The Traditional Mentor Legion Iconography

The Traditional Owl design won by a clear margin and I personally am very pleased by that, however the only issue I foresaw with this was that a) I didn't think I could sculpt this and b) I didn't think I could paint this well. With that in mind I took the preemptive steps of speaking to Ron over at the "From The Warp" Blog - the blog can be seen here http://fromthewarp.blogspot.com - about commissioning a pad for me. After seeing his work on his blog I was impressed with it and on discussing the project with him he really appealed to my inner Northerner by having extremely low rates as well. I highly recommend him for quality of work, price and most importantly speed! To show you what I mean here is the pad I had sculpted that I will be using to cast the icon from for other pads:

The picture shows how good the pad is but o be honest it looks even better in real life!

Thanks to Ron for some excellent work and I cant wait to get some bits together to start using it on my conversions!

When I had the pad sculpted I also thought to make the costs more worthwhile and the project more practical for Ron to have an alternative "Master" Skull Pad sculpted for my Red Hunters to cast their chapter icons from. Again Ron surpassed himself and the level of detail was superb.

The pad icon is slightly larger then the one I had initially used in my tests and on talking to Ron it was suggested that this would allow the use of the small brass =I= symbols from Forgeworld on it, which I though was a nice touch, however the problem is I now cant decide which to use!!!

So it is now time for another vote! I would like to know which pad is most preferred by my readers and which would be most suitable for usage on my Red Hunters, so here are the choices:

A - Ron's Sculpted Pad

B - My Green stuff Cast Pad

As usual the voting buttons are on the right hand side in the side bar, please vote and once I have the results I will post them and be able to start casting and modelling using the decided pad.

Later in the week more pics of my Kasrkin Officer conversions and more news on my other ongoing Kasrkin Trooper conversions.

Thanks for reading and please vote

Conversion Corner - Forces of the Librarium!

Hello Folks

Despite not posting much for a few days I've had a very busy few days. Not Content with furiously (well quite reasonable furiously for me!) converting away I've managed a trip or two out to the local Adnams shop for a wine tasting and ended up buying a bottle or 6 of a very nice New Zealand Sav called "Flying Kiwi". So the weekend became a mish-mash of tasting wine (if your in the UK may I suggest logging on to the Adnams website and trying some of their various wines, beers, ciders and foody products - free delivery on orders over £50) and drinking of beer, yet I have still completed a few tasks!

This weekend was a "Warriors of the Warp" weekend for me! I have finally got round to my Librarian conversions and have completed two and a third is awaiting a few finishing touches! Not only have I served the Red Hunters well but I also dug out my old copy of "Grey Knights" by Ben Counter and decided on a few conversions from that.

Finally not to spend too much time concentrating on Librarians and Knights I completed some work on my chapter icon pads to allow me to make a start on the rank and file, well after I've learnt the tricky art of GS moulding icons! Then just to wrap this weekends activity up there are a few pictures of some recently completed Imperial Guard figures to give you a little sneak peak of whats to come!

Due to the size of the pics and the number I will post the Red Hunters first, followed by a second post of the Grey Knights and the finally a third containing the Imperial Guard sneak peaks.

Red Hunters Librarians

Codifier Khorion

Codifier Khorion has served the Red Hunters with distinction for some 108 years, most of that time has been spent in the service of the 5th company, though as with most librarians this attachment is transitory and nominal.

Since his tenure under Inquisitor Tyndale during the Saldana Purges many have noted his increased aptitude in the ways of the warp and despite the loss of the Inquisitor during the Purges this has not adversely impacted the demand in which he finds himself and he and the fifth company are regularly requested for the most difficult campaigns by a growing number of veteran Inquisitors.

Since the Purges Khorion has developed a trait unusually (though not uncommon) amongst librarians and almost exclusively goes in to battle wearing his battle helm. Many Librarians choose to eschew this simple piece of defensive equipment to allow them to better harness the power of the warp, however after Inquisitor Tyndale was lost to a glancing shot to the head Khorion has chosen not to place himself in such a risky position.

Overall I am very please with how this model turned out, the simple green stuff icons have worked well and when combine with the Black Templar robes and helmet, along with the honour pad from the Red Scorpions set, gives a nice and simple Librarian conversion that works well.

Epistolary Rodriguez

Epistolary Rodriguez is currently on assignment with the Deathwatch on the behest of Inquisitor Grunvald after his actions during the boarding of the Ork infested Space Hulk "Dread Orktober" . The Epistolary has shown great aptitude for reading and coercing the minds of the myriad of Xenos races that assail the Imperium of man and is even now receiving further training in how best to improve and apply these skills.

Another relatively simple conversion using just plastic parts, apart from the Grey Knights Nemesis weapon and Deathwatch shoulder pad. Over all I am please with the Green Stuff work, though have noticed two missed parts - the right hand side lightning bot and the "edging" over one lower grieve, though may change this. Whilst the model is pretty static I think the Blood angels head gives a sense of motion or force.

Master Epistolary Haulvarn

Master Haulvarn has served with the Red Hunters for nearly six centuries and has completed numerous secondments to the Deathwatch, as is the way with many Red Hunters Veterans due to their Inquisitional ties.

Haulvarn is best known for his daemon fighting skills, and whilst many of his exploits are classified beyond Epsilon Vermilion level the power of this master of the immaterium cannot be doubted and his position within the chapter shows the mastery and skill he posses. Armed with his master crafted Storm Bolter and Nemesis Force hammer, both gifted by a Captain of the Grey Knights Haulvarn is a whirlwind of destruction and power on the battlefield.

Another conversion I am generally please with, however the skull on the chest really needs more work. I'm also not sure on the helmet so any views and suggestions would be great.

Red Hunters Test Pads

Some quick icon test casts of skulls to use for my Red Hunters logos, I know they need tidying up a little and possibly that the middle one is the best one of the three but what do you think?

Right well, that's update 1 of the weekends work complete.