Paper cut

I have been taking a rest from sculpting and done some other stuff. I have mostly painted on my newly cast miniatures but I have also made some card board houses. They where made as a assignment for a class in texturing I held this week. The assignment was to make a texture and then make a house of it in 3D almost like paper houses. So I decided to print some work samples out and glue them together. They will probably be used as ww 2 game scenery of some sort later on.

The thief and the mercenary

I have cast the thief and the mercenary. The mould making worked out fine but it was hard cutting up the thief's mould. There is some minor flaws on the thief but nothing that can´t be worked out after casting. All in all I´m happy with them. I´m going to cast some swords and daggers soon so I can give them something to hold. 

Mould factory

Right now I´m making moulds of the thief and the mercenary! I have removed the dagger from the thief. I did this to make the cutting of the mould less painful and to be able to choose from multiple weapons. I have made some channels from brass tubes to make the casting of the arms and hands easier. I´m also working on some swords and daggers to go with the sculpts.

The paint station is working out great! I love being able to pick up where I left in a couple of minutes. Pure joy:)

Paint station

I decided to make a paint/ sculpting station today. Sometimes it takes about 20 minutes just to find all the stuff I need to get started with a sculpt so I want to save some quality time! Luckily I had some mdf at home so I started to sketch out the layout and tonight I cut the pieces out and put it together. I´m quite happy with it.

I have also made some armatures for some new sculpts and sculpted on the female mercenary. I don´t have any good pictures of the progress so far because I just realized my youngest daughter must have smeared butter on the lens or something cause there is no focus

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Eye of the beholder

Tonight I have cast the prince or princess! I got inspired to make the sculpt while watching snow white so I had a princess in mind but it might as well work out as a prince. I leave it all up to the beholder:). The casting worked like a charm and I only had to recast a few times. Just as with the warrior I did not have to use any vents at all. I made 5 from about half a ingot of model metal so that´s great.

Painting

I have painted some on my miniatures and now I´m working on the base. It´s been interesting painting on the casts. I can easily see areas I´d like work on some more in the future and things I like. I have just finished baking a mould of the princess/prince. It looks like it turned out real nice but I will know more after I cast it.

Model metal

I have cast the warrior! First of I baked the mould in the oven for 5 hours to make it more durable as instructed by Dwr plastics. This is a new step I have not done before and it really increases the moulds tear strength. I used my new model metal from Prince august and it was awesome! I did not have to put much effort in casting just melt the metal and pour it in the mould. The details came out like on the sculpt. I´m really happy with this stuff! I´m looking forward to to get some paint on the miniatures!

Flexing

I could not hold my horses and started out with a new sculpt. Which is a good thing as long as I finish of some sculpts. My cupboard is filled with old unfinished drawings and stuff and I don´t want this for my sculpts. I´m going to try to finish of one sculpt for every sculpt I start from now on.

With my new rule of thumb in mind I also made a mould of the warrior. As I mentioned before I always brush on the first layer so that the surface of the mould gets free from bubbles. In the picture bellow you can see why. If I had not made that first brush on I would have had dots all over my model. I also cut some brass tubes and attached them to the hands. I did this because I was a bit worried about getting the metal to flow there and it also made the cutting of the mould easier. It´s also a good idea not to cut the mould in a straight line but work out some forms. It makes it easier to fit the mould together when casting this way.

Casting weapons

I have made some weapons for my warrior. I decided to make a sprue of two axes and a hammer. I have also prepared the warrior for mould making but I will have to wait until I get some more silicone. Here are some pictures from the weapon mould making and the casting. 

When pouring silicone it´s good to pour high above the walls in a long stream. This way most bubbles will pop.

Brass

I have decided to make most of my sculpts two part from now on. I will make the weapons separate from the body to make the mold making process simpler and to have the option to switch between weapons. I have started to use brass rod as a handle. It makes it much easier then before and better looking I think. I want to begin with some new sculptures but I have decided to try to finish of some old ones first. 

Here is a Picture of Botulf and he's knights. I´m almost done with him I just have to do some basing and cleanup.

Casting

I have tested the mould! The result is OK I think:). I used a method I saw on youtube called steam casting used by silver smiths. You just push a lid with wet paper towels against the metal and the steam pressure pushes the metal down filling the mould (do this at your own risk:). I don´t know how well it works with pewter but I think the cast gets better defined when I use it.  The air vents helps to. I´m using Prince august standard metal as casting metal instead of the old recycled pewter I have used before. Much easier casting and I like the finish as well. It´s gone be fun to see how the rest of the miniatures work out!

Mould making part 2

I´m continuing my mold making project. After I´m done with my last layer of mould release (I usually make 3 layers) it is time to mix some silicone. I got mine at dwr plastics. It´s a high temperature silicone so it will work with temperatures up to 330℃ and is easy to mix 1 to 1. I have made about 9 moulds with 1 kg silicone so I think it´s a good price for what you get.

First I make a small mix of silicone to brush on to the miniature. I do this to prevent bubbles close to the model. And while it cures I work some with my new sculpt (all power to Tengil our liberator;)

When the silicone has cured I mix the rest of the silicone and pour it in a thin stream in one of the corners until it reached the top of the wall. It takes about 6 hours for the silicone to cure so now I wait.

Now it´s cured and it´s time to cut it open. This is the tricky part. The silicone is easy to cut but not so flexible so I have to take time and effort to make a good cut. The best way is to get as much clay out of the mould as possible so that you can see where to cut. I tried to melt out the wax but it would not run out of the mold. But still it did help that it was soft. Next up casting!