ECW casualties

I spent much of this morning getting the garden tidy so we can leave it in good condition when we move out. It's a little depressing, seeing all the plants we've established in the time we've spent here coming into full healthy leaf and knowing some will be left behind - especially when we suspect the person buying the house isn't a gardener. We will be taking a number of plants with us, and hopefully we'll have time enough this year to establish a garden in the new place. Fingers crossed...

So, enough of that. On with a bit of modelling stuff. Having some time off this afternoon I thought I would paint up the 10mm/N-scale ECW casualty figures I cast recently from resin. The pieces have been washed thoroughly and have had plenty of time for any remaining volatile vapours to disperse.

Top two rows, from left to right: Sir Alan Apsley's, Earl of Essex's Lifeguards, Bolle's, Montagu's, and a quartet of Parliament cavalry. The bottom four have yet to be assigned.

I painted up two figures for each of my current foot regiments, and enough for the (eventual) two regiments of Ironsides. Royalist cavalry casualties are to follow.

In the Victory Without Quarter rules, a casualty marker is placed if a unit suffers three hits from firing in a single turn: It represents a significant amount of metal tearing through the formation. Once the number of casualty markers equals the number of bases in the unit, that unit is destroyed. Since my foot regiments have three bases, any markers over two are redundant. In a similar vein my cavalry regiments have five three-figure bases, so any casualties over two are a major depletion in strength and the regiment is destroyed.

Dux Britanniarum bases

I'd forgotten what a pain in the posterior house-hunting can be. It's a tiresome case of hurry-up-and-wait, with some jewels among houses to look at - and some I just wanted to close the door on right away. I'm also pretty sure I'm not the only gamer in the world who eyes up rooms and basement areas as potential gaming rooms?

After a hectic round of days spent viewing and packing I found a few minutes to spare, so i dug out the paints and finished off the first batch of the Dux Britanniarum movement bases.

The first photo shows them after a light wet brushing with an eclectic mix of Miniatures Paints and ordinary craft acrylic paint. I used a bit of chocolate brown in the cups to show where men have trodden after the casualty has been removed.

Second photo, with the bases occupied by the peasant levy. Note that I've yet to fit the shields to these since I'm waiting until the house-move malarkey is done with before buying some shield transfers.

Bases and Casualties

Our house is all but sold, and we will now need to pack in earnest. At least the weather is warm enough for me to paint, so I took the Dux Britanniarum bases and ECW casualties outside and gave them an undercoat.

I used the same dark brown Rustoleum spray paint that I undercoated the livestock pen with earlier as I find it sticks better to the resin. The coverage is patchy - the nozzle decided to clog up partway through the session, but at least they're all covered. The next step, whenever that will be, is to do the grass effect and so on for the bases, and paint the uniforms for the casualties.

I'm really not sure when I'll be able to post again, so I'll sign off for now. 

Resin casting frenzy

Well, not exactly frenzied, quite leisurely in fact, but I managed to cast a lot of stuff in quite a short time.

First up, six Dux Britanniarum movement trays for my 15mm figures.

The middle one of the bases in the bottom row cracked as I got it out of the mold, but this won't pose a problem. A dab of epoxy adhesive and a base of thin card followed by a bit of flocking and it'll be good to go. I now have enough bases/trays for the main infantry component of the Romano-British army. There are four archers attached as skirmishing infantry, so what I may do is modify one of the bases so it has only four compartments. Once I get the Saxon army, I can turn out trays for that in short order whenever required. 

Next, some Zanzibari slaver casualties.

These have given me some problems, mainly due to the elderly resin I'm using. Beyond a certain age the resin turns a bit... odd (so do we all, I suppose). It has a tendency to foam up if stirred too much and this of course produces bubbles in annoying places. Another flaw is the arm on one of the figures. I didn't notice the excess silicone that needed to be cut away from that part of the mold, so the arm didn't always come out until I fixed the problem. Still, a bit of judicious patching and filling here and there followed by a forgiving layer of paint and all should be well.

Finally, the ECW casualties.

These aren't that distinctive in the photo, but they come out nice and crisp. I sculpted a trio which represents pretty much everything to be encountered on an ECW battlefield.

The weather has turned colder with a perpetual drizzle falling this afternoon. Snow is expected tomorrow - whoopee. So, I'll need to wait until things warm up again before pouring the second half of the lamppost mold. In the meantime I'll clean up all these castings, give them a soak in detergent, allow to dry then give them a dose of chocolate brown Rustoleum spray. Results to follow soon.   

Showing moldy results

Success! The new molds came out with few problems worth the name. First up are the wargame-oriented molds. From left to right we have the Dux Britanniarum movement tray, the three 10mm ECW casualties, and the five Zanzibari slaver casualties.

The next is the 1/56 lamppost mold in its freshly-molded form showing what I call the "nougat" bar effect where the silicone met the Sculpey...

 ...then the separation of silicone mold half and Sculpey, showing the master in the mold and the lugs which will keep the two halves aligned. The next stage for this will be to clean up the Sculpey residue where it's sticking to the silicone before installing it in a new box. I'll put another plug of Sculpey in the recess at the base to form the pour funnel. After that I'll brush Vaseline over every part of the new mold half with the exception of the master. As I mentioned before, if this stage isn't done the next pouring of OOMOO30 will stick to the other half and it'll be a helluva job to cut them apart. I speak from hard-won experience...

Last up is the pair of molds which I'll use mainly for decorative items, although the doors, window and column can be used for making buildings for gaming. On the left is the new bookend base, and alongside it is the decorative piece mold.

The latter is the only one so far that has any appearance of bubbles. These lodged in the two chevron pieces on the left of the mold. They won't really be a problem since they're proud of the main surface of the piece and can be trimmed off.  You'll notice some of the OOMOO30 flowed under the diamond-pane window piece bottom-right, but this will trim off without any problem.

In fact all the molds now need to be trimmed in various ways. Silicone tends to climb up the sides of the mold box through capillary action, making the base of the mold uneven with a detrimental effect on the casts. Trimming this off even to the point of beveling the edges solves the problem. A few of the Zanzibari slaver casualties will need cleaning up as the OOMOO30 flowed under some of them. A couple of the masters also broke up when I popped the new mold off, but this is par for the course. I shouldn't need them again.

After all is clean and trim, I'll pour some plaster and/or resin. Results to come!

Going moldy

Yes, the planets finally aligned and the temperature's about right, so I went ahead and poured the silicone for the six molds made so far. I say the temperature is right - it's within the silicone's working parameters but at the lower end of the scale, which means the mix is a bit stiffer than optimum. In any case, it worked.

Top - left-right, dungeon/diorama items, Dux B. movement tray, Zanzibari slaver casualties. Bottom left-right, bookend base, 1/56 lamppost, ECW casualties.

I had to mix three batches, measuring out the two parts of the OOMOO30 in disposable cups each time, to fill all six molds. Even with this (fairly) accurate measuring system there's still a bit more of one part than the other, hence the colour variations in the photo. Really, it doesn't matter that much. Problems only arise if there's a drastic disparity between the two liquids.

It pays to vibrate the table when the stuff has been poured to force air bubbles from the various tiny nooks and crannies in the master models. If you have a vacuum chamber it's all the better - they can be made relatively easily and cheaply. I use an old electric razor since the vibrations are hard and rapid enough to do a good job.

It takes around six hours for the silicone to set. I'm going to leave them overnight and see what's what in the morning. I have another couple of molds to make, but they'll come in time. Tune in soon to see the results of today's session.