Happy Seppuku Base Stamps

Back in April of last year I did a quick tutorial showing how I made my cobblestone bases using putty and a home made stamp. The tutorial can be found here. Several people asked me where could they get a stamp? Well, now I know just where to go to get one happyseppuku.com. This little company is producing durable silicon rubber stamps in all sorts of textures and they are large enough to allow you to stamp several bases at once. I made my stamp too small for mass base stamping I can only fit 2 bases on it at a time which is an irritating time drag. You'll find downloadable PDF instructions on using their stamps on their site and links to their 2 youtube videos under "videos" on their website. Normally I would insert them here on the blog post but blogger isn't recognizing the youtube videos. This issue is becoming a regular problem with blogger these days.

 I managed to upload the video from my computer.

Making Bases

In today's post I'll show you have I make my cobblestone bases for my figures. I realize that there are many fine companies producing very nice cobblestone bases for reasonable prices. Fortunately for me I happen to live near a talented lunatic named R who enjoys filling 30mm lipped bases with these (Pegasus Hobbies small bricks) to form cobblestone bases for his miniatures.

 He then pins the models directly onto the bricks.  One evening I used the revolutionary and reusable mold medium called Instant Mold to make a quick mold of one of his creations.

This what the package looks like.

Ok lets get down to the down n' dirty tutorial. To make these bases you will need putty,a sculpting tool, hobby knife, sand paper, some water, 30mm (or 40mm) plastic bases and a mold. I've been using the afore mentioned mold for over a year now.

First press putty into the top of the base like so:

Smooth it out as best you can. Water will help with this.

Next press the base putty side down first on to the mold. Press down hard, I use the palm of my hand and put a little weight on it.

Once the putty dries you can safely remove the bases from the mold. You'll end up with this:

As you can see the edges will have to be cleaned up. A sharp hobby knife will do the trick. You may have finger prints in the surface of the bricks, a light sanding will fix that. After the cleanup stage you should end up with great little base like these.

I hope you liked this and found it helpful.