With local temperatures in the upper 90's farenheit and a heat index of 110f, I kept indoors today, avoiding the heat and an Orange air quality warning. I put the time to good use by painting up the plaster casualty figures I cast recently. In truth, they look like victims of the ferocious heat around here!
The British uniform trousers look lighter and bluer in the photo than in real life. Those brown blobs to the right of the picture are actually pith helmets, knocked off in combat. The native casualties are soberly dressed to match the generally drab appearance of the Ukrazi tribe. I intend to add rifles, spears and shields later.
3 comments:
Hi AJ,
Super DIY project - nice job! How durable are you finding the plaster figures? I have found plaster to be pretty tricky. I located somewhat local source of hydrocal for my own little experiments. It is certainly a bit expensive but I don't need so much (5 pounds goes a looong way) and it both takes detail very well and dries very hard. I wonder what else you might use for the casualty figures if you find plaster too fragile? The Smooth On silicon mould could take resin though I don'T like that much resin as it is fiddly and toxic-smelly for working about the house. In your small quantity of production, I wonder if you could use simple epoxy glue? Also, you can knead sculpy till it is very warm and pliable, fill the mould without distorting it, freeze the mould, extract the now quite stiff sculpy figures (HA! Stiffs!!) with some care and then cook them, providing reasonably durable copies.
Anyway, congrats, you have a regular zombie factory on your hands! I wonder what you will cast next?
Cheers,
Jim
Jim
Hi Jim, thanks. =) I've yet to use the figures in action, but hope to do so fairly soon. As for durability, I used Hydrostone for this first batch, which is much harder than Hydrocal. It does go a long way. I think they'll be okay as-is, but at the moment I'm thinking of basing them on thin plastic card with scenic effect to reduce handling wear-and-tear on the figures themselves.
I have used resin and agree with you, it's too smelly for work around the house, and the results I got weren't all that great anyway. Thanks for the tip about Sculpey, I didn't know it could be press-molded. I'll give it a try. As for what to cast next, I'm open to ideas. =)
AJ,
Regarding press-moulding sculpey, the problems are deforming the mould when pressing it in (hence the thorough warming of the putty) and its extraction (without deforming the putty). Freezing will let you pull the putty out without serious problems. However, putting the hydrostone castings straight onto bases ought to work as well. And, they are very low-cost castings should they break, easy to replace.
A great project, once again. I really like your gun boat as well.
Jim
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