Lascannons&Lances

Make your own static grass tufts! A step-by-step tutorial

2011-11-20T17:27:00.001+01:00

Now this is something that can potentially cost the manufacturers, and you will probably like it.

Personally, I love tufts. I really do, but I always felt robbed buying them.

That's why I make my own, and this is what they look like

Step 0 - things you need

Static grass applicator - unfortunately it is a must. You can buy one on a riduiculous price from Noch or the wise modeller makes his own. There are plenty of sources on the internet in English, google it. I used a Hungarian description, this one. All the necessary parts cost less than GBP 10 combined and the machine takes about two hours to assemble.
White glue
A punctured piece of 1 mm plasticard
Static grass - in this case Noch's wildgrass - mittelgrün
A piece of sheet copper, brass, aluminium etc. shaped like on the picture
A piece of plastic foil, sturdier than a plastic bag or foil wrap
I forgot to include a few clips on the picture

Not much, is it?

Step 1 - Fill the cup with static grass

In this case less is never more. You can always recycle the excess.

Step 2 - Prepare the appliance

Stack the plastic foil on top of the copper sheet and then put the punctured piece of plasticard on top. Clip the sheets together. Attach the alligator clip of the static grass applicator to the little ear on the sheet of copper. Turn the applicator on.
A little explanation: in all other static grass tutorials it is said that you should push a needle in and attach the alligator clip to it. Wrong! It is clumsy and not very efficient. I have found that the electrostatic field is much more even, but not less effective this way. The punctured piece of plasticard helps to treat those pieces of grasss that would inevitably lay down otherwise.

Step 3 - Apply white glue

I use it undiluted. I like my tufts a little irregular, but you can make them perfect circles if you like.

Step 4 - Apply grass

Apply it by gently by tapping and shaking the reservoir from a height of around 1-2 centimeters. I held the applicator a bit higher so that I could take the photo.

A bit more is applied...

And it is complete. Turn off the static grass applicator and remove the alligator clip. Carefully turn around the sheets and with a little tapping remove the excess static grass This is how it looks:

Let it set a few minutes (but not too long).

Step 5 - Final stages

Carefully remove the clips, and the piece of plasticard. By lifting the plasticard you raise those pieces of grass that may be laying.

Now place the tufts someplace warm to set completely. Then behold your creation:

Looks professional, huh?

Some tips:

You can experiment with different lenghts of grass, and different colours. I have very nice tufts made of beige and green leaves
Spray or airbrush the tufts with matte varnish. While the tufts are sturdy, varnish makes them hard and quite durable.
Varnished tufts can be drybrushed with Bleached Bone, Iraqui Sand or any suitable colour to imitate dryness in the leaf ends for even more realism.
you can experiment with other types of adhesives

Ask questions, and share your experiences with tufts!

For those of you who are too lazy or motivated, tufts of your choice are available for sale: you get 100 tufts for GBP 5, USD 8 or EUR 6 +PP.

Myth Busted - Citadel colour mixing

2011-11-13T00:44:00.001+01:00

For months now colour mixing charts are circulating on the web about a great chunk of the current Citadel range being possible to be replicated by simply mixing Skull White, Chaos Black, Blood Red, Enchanted Blue and Sunburst Yellow in the right proportions.
The story surfaced first at Nesbet Miniatures Blog and months later on the excellent Path of the Outcast Blog that I'm following. After sharing my concerns; Cannonfodder, the blog owner started a poll, asking the public what they think. 54% voted that they didn't try it but they thought it would work.
Actually it doesn't.
When I first read the original post at Nesbet's blog I shared the enthusiasm with all the rest, but after a little while things started to distub me a little.

A little on colours

For three years or so I was an active (and now honorary) member of Europa Barbarorum a project that some of you may know. It is a hardcore total realism mod for Rome (and later Medieval) Total War. Apart from skinning a few dozens of units in the mod, I was making some research into dyes and pigments, and how they work. (It was important to know what colours could be produced in the timeframe, and what was cheap or expensive.)
A colour has three major attributes: hue, saturation and lightness. It is possible to produce any colour by mixing rays of light in different colour, basically any hue can be recreated this way. What works with light doesn't work with pigments though. Pigments are of different opacity and will not produce all the hues you want. Of course I mean the pigments we modellers use; the cyan-magenta-yellow system for offset printing is an entirely different matter, and even there colours are not mixed, only dots (I know it is a bit more complex then this).
The other important thing is saturation. It is the measure how vivid the colour is. Pastel colours have more gray in them so they are of lower saturation.
The third thing to be taken into consideration is that pigments have personality... some hues you just cannot produce by mixing them. The best example is purple. In the antiquity a few grams of purple dye could feed a family for decades. Don't you think it was easier to mix or overdye madder and woad or indigo? It just did not work. Only purple dye did the job.
The charts don't, or very little address these points and this is the reason why they fail miserably.

The proof

No research is complete without experiment though, and it was relative easy - as all my readers know - I keep my citadel paints in dropper bottles. This time apart from cropping I did not use any Photoshop goodies and let the image much bigger then usual.
The results speak for themselves:

As ever, I don't pretend to have a monopoly for the truth, so if you thik that the colours are good enough proxies, or I did something wrong and you had different results, please do not hesitate to comment!
But from my part: Mith Busted.

Dreadnought canopy in 1:16 scale

2011-11-06T23:17:00.000+01:00

Hi, this is a project I've been working on for a while now. basically I took an unused dreadnought box and replicated the little guy with all dimensions 3 times as big. I used mostly plasticard and spare pats from my scratchbuild boxes (friends and family are always on the watch for interesting pieces of plastic). No GW parts this time.

The scale is approximately 1:16; if we believe that 40K is roughly 1:48.
Anyway here is a wood elf wardancer for size comparison. Perhaps a marine would serve better, but this was the first mini that came my way.

The kit also contains a few resin parts where I felt that it was needed for uniformity's sake.

I tried to replicate every small detail, even in places not examined very often.

I'm quite proud of the back part

Right now the project is stopped because I have to finish a few minis for a local mini exchange raffle and my local Golden Gobbo entry.
After these I will continue with the legs.
At this moment I havent decided on the armament or even the chapter the dred belongs. I don't even know what I'll do with it once it is finished... I'm not the type to put things I do on doisplay back home... Many of my friends still consider me a sane person, and I like to preserve this... :-) I may not even keep it.
Stay tuned!

Back again - with a teaser

2011-10-20T01:45:00.000+02:00

Real life has been a bitch for some time but things seem to settle now, perhaps not the optimal way but at least with much more free time.
Nothing is more pathetic then apologize for your absence on your OWN blog, isn't it?
Anyway, I started a new project that pretty much grown on me. A lot of work, but hopefully a most rewarding result. Can you guess what this WIP part belong to?

More pictures and an in depth progress report is coming down the road later this week.

Castor and Pollux now on e-bay!

2011-07-03T21:00:00.001+02:00

If you want the twins for your army, here is your only chance:

Buy them on e-bay!

For King&Country - going Napoleonic

2011-03-23T23:46:00.000+01:00

I've been silent for a while, but have not been completely idle.
I painted some of His Majesty's riflemen (from the 95th). Actually I wanted to paint them KGL, but I found out that they had a pommel on the shako and not a plume, but since the figures were already primered I went on with the bit more minstream (boring) choice.
The Perry plastic minis were much fun to paint. I also produced my first ever tree for this little diorama.

Castor&Pollux finished

2011-02-13T23:08:00.001+01:00

So this is it... I finally found some time to weather the twins.

First I applied some chipping - not too much, and then I contimued with weathering powders. I hope I got the exhaust pipes right.

I'm pretty satisfied with the result and I hope that someone will be interested in purchasing them. Some people contacted me already so I think that I will wait a few days before I put the models on eBay.

This was a fun project, I learned a lot from it. Of course there are plenty of things I'd do differently but overall I'm happy with the way it came out.

Please comment if you have something to share, feedback is always welcome.

And now the pictures:

Previously on this project:

Castor & Pollux update

Castor and Pollux basecoated (sort of)

Diaskuri update II.

Castor&Pollux after painting before weathering

Castor&Pollux after painting, before weathering

2011-02-12T23:31:00.001+01:00

I finished painting the details of the predators just an hour ago. I quite like them. I tried some new techniques during painting, enough material for a few quick tutorials. Unfortunately I couldn't use a lightbox for these pictures, which is a shame, for there are some subtle highlights that can not really be seen due to the hard light.
Now the final stage commences, weathering.
I plan to use relatively few scratches and battering on the machines, and no heavy weathering. I preserve these for IG vehicles, marines for me are much better maintained, and their equipment is much closer to parade ground look. It is only a matter of preference.
Don't forget that these models will be for sale once they are finished. If you are interested, stay tuned, and if you have a buddy who is into classic models, spead the word!

Previously on this project:

Castor & Pollux update

Castor and Pollux basecoated (sort of)

Diaskuri update II.

2011-01-30T22:23:00.000+01:00

Just a quckie; I made a few photos before I airbrushed the twins (Diascuri as they are called in Mythology) with gloss varnish and used various washes on them. They look much better now, but as usual, documentation is a few steps behind the actual work.

Previously on this project:

Castor & Pollux update

Castor and Pollux basecoated (sort of)

Castor and Pollux - basecoated (sort of)

2011-01-18T22:13:00.002+01:00

I had some time for the twins lately. I basecoated them dark gray as I usually do and basecoated them with VMC Ultramarine blue. Much to my surprise it turned to be really ultramarine whereas VGC and Citadel ultramarine is not...
Anyway, I continued with adding some shade and zenithal highlight with my airbrush. After this I drybrushed the predators with a mixture of VGC Ghost gray and VMC ultramarine blue.
Unfortunately the pictures with the early stages fell to the warp, but here what they looked like then:

As you see they looked OK, but there was much chalkiness in the details, especially on the metal parts:

I was kind of expecting this and decide to give it a glaze at this point I heavily diluted VMC transparent blue (vallejo's transparent range is excellent, I can only recommend them, they are like heavy glazes) with liquitex airbrush medium and Vallejo's airbrush cleaner (which I use to dilute acrylics with great success) and gave the tanks two thin coats. Here's how they look like:

As you see the chalkiness is practically gone, and most of the highlights are still there. The new colour is much better suited for the mainstream Ultramarines, and since this is a commercial project, I tend to favour the mainstream... :-)

I think, after retouching the most extreme highlights, the predators will be ready for the painting of the details. I can't wait!

Previously on this project:

Castor & Pollux update

Castor&Pollux update

2011-01-12T02:01:00.000+01:00

My classic predator revamp project progresses steadily, I have just finished the rebuilding and detailing the twins.
Rebuilding the predators was quite time consuming as the models were in a very sorry state, the following pictures may give you some idea:

I guess most would view these wrecks as waste of time, but for me they are challenge, and I had the metal parts anyway :-)

Sometimes I had to replace damaged sections with plasticard but finally they started to come together. I magnetized the turrets, used a large amount of GS/milliput mix to fill the holes and blemishes and finally, after a lot of sanding started the detailing part.

And this is the fun part of course, details make the model alive, they make the difference between the average and the interesting.

I added extra rivets, and decided to use mark III parts and some imperial guard accessories as the original kit is quite low on details. I also made some tow cables and other appliances. Luckily I also found some old metal tank crew members in one of my bit boxes, that somehow survived the purges.

I'm quite happy with the outcome, and I hope that with proper paintjob the twins will find a nice spot in somebody's Ultramarines army - and help to finance some new projects besides.

So here we are now:

some details:

Update: after the pictures were taken I added some purity seals too - how could I have forgotten?

Update 2: News just in: My librarian Yorias has won me the first prize at the converting competition he was built for! I feel some terminators will soon join my forces...

December retrospective

2010-12-31T17:34:00.000+01:00

On the last day of the year it is common to look back to the year, but first I have to look back on December. It's been a busy month a bit too eventful even, as it turned out first of all, my Land Speeder has won a Bronze Gobbo in it's category on the Hungarian Games Day which is quite an achievement, considering that I accidentally applied... (I bought it for to show it to a guy, and he convinced me to enter the competition.) On the same event I won some Xyston 15mm Hellenics on a lottery game, that made me to order some more on eBay.

December has also shown me completing some commissions, plus pimping up some old school Orc vehicles for sale. This is part of the closing stages of operation Clean Shelf, aiming to keep only minis and vehicles I intend to paint in the foreseeable future.

Finally I stared a major project to restore, superdetail, paint and hopefully sell a pair of pretty much wrecked Classic Space Marine Predators, Castor and Pollux. The aim is to try and master some techniques I saw in Imperial Armour modelling Masterclass. Stay tuned for details. Below you can see Castor in it's original state to the left:

It's been a busy week, and a busy month, and I expect none less in 2011, though I plan to post more.

Yorias Redux

2010-11-28T20:29:00.000+01:00

I just finished him painting. I took a bit different path in painting him compared to the rest of the army, I think the characters will resemble him, while the troops will follow a bit more simple. So here you go, as always commets are welcome.

Yorias the Librarian

2010-11-18T00:31:00.001+01:00

For some time now I've been converting this mini, the first true HQ choice for my little chapter. I have a full plastic army in mind, so there was a lot of work with him: all parts, limbs etc were converted, nothing is untouched. Actually this mini was made with a local converting competition in mind, I have secret hopes to win it. (In reality nearly always Orc or Chaos minis win these tournaments....)
I hope you like it!

The torso is made from a tactical sergeant's bit, the head is from an old Catachan mini. Instead of the banner, I used some banner-like things from the ravenwing sprue. The legs are repositioned, the feet have lobstered guards. The loincloth is that of an AoBr captain's

I made new style shoulder pads for him, and attached a laser engraved chapter symbol

I like the way the powerpack turned out...

The powersword is made of a piece of plastic, a terminator ornament some lead wire and greenstuff.

And the same with a coat of dark grey primer (as primer brings things together so nicely):

If you are interested in how tis or that detail was made do not hesitate to ask. Comments are welcome too.

Stay tuned for painted pictures.

Oriental Orc Archer

2010-10-30T10:16:00.000+02:00

I try to make up my lack of posting in the last few months, so this is a mini I painted for a local painted miniature exchange lottery. Yes you pick a mini, paint it to the best of your ability, and a dosen or so guys do the same. The minis then get distributed randomly. Works quite fine if everyone paints on the same level, but anyway, Let us concentrate on my entry:

I tried to create a mini diorama with some pieces of scenery, since it is unlikely that anyone in Hungary fields an oriental Orc army. BTW if anyone knows the origins of this mini, please let me know, since I don't even know what make it is.

I'm quite happy with the results, this is really about the best you can expect from me nowadays. These were my first experiments with pigments on the base, and they look quite natural, so I think it is a success.

I made a mistake of posting it on coolminiornot.com but I got what I deserved. A score of 5.1 - just good enough for tabletop is quite depressing, but I asked for it - again :-)

Budapest Grand Tournament

2010-09-07T18:58:00.000+02:00

You know, that I don't play, but I have promote this event; if you are have some time drop in. I buy a beer for all my readers who show up. (I come as a spectator.) It will be held on the 16th-17th of October.

Here is the link Regular tournament prizes, entry fee is €20 that includes luch on both days.

Saying goodbye to the Catachans

2010-08-23T14:33:00.001+02:00

For some time I played with the idea of building an all metal Catachan army (the same way my Bretonnians are being collected) but I have to realize that I will never get to finish them. Facing the fact one has to have a great moral character, that I happen to possess, so here they are for sale.

Reasonable offers in e-mail.

Meanwhile summer holiday passed uneventful, but I managed to sell a lot of unused stuff to local gamers; and so I invested in a new airbrush+compressor combo. I haven't had much time to try it out (family holiday, canoeing with colleagues etc.) but I'm sure my Mk1 will shine at the time of the local Games Day.

The Great Vallejo Wash Review

2010-08-03T22:40:00.000+02:00

Regular readers may know that I'm a bit partial to Vallejo paints. I love the dropper bottles, the consistency and the price/quantity ratio. The only thing I kept buying (of course I still own and use a lot of Citadel paints) from the Citadel range are their very cool washes. Obviously when I learned that Vallejo comes out with a brand new range, I had to have them. This is a humble review of my impressions.
I bought my set from Maelstrom; using their latest voucher the whole set cost a mere £ 12.79 for eight bottles, and let me remind you, you get 17ml bottles for this price, not 10 as for Citadel washes.The Citadel set sells around £15, so per ml you pay twice as much for Citadel.
The colour range is very similar as for the Citadel washes, the only exception being the lack of violet, where you get the mysterious pale wash instead. This is how the washes look boxed.

Methodology

I tested the washes basically in 4 or 5 different settings:

Undiluted over Vallejo's grey primer. (this is a fine light gray polyurethane resin primer, ready to use in an airbrush, but good to apply with an ordinary brush too.)
Wash diluted with distilled water, 1:1, over grey primer
Wash diluted with Johnson&Johnson Pronto Floor Polish mix 1:1 over grey primer. We have no Future in Hungary. Of course it is not nihilism, I'm not worried about the national debt, but we have no such product, as Future or Klear, or Klar etc. However we have this floor finish that is almost identical, but is not clear but have a pale almond colour. It disappears though as it dries.I mean the colour. I use my mix with 1 part Pronto and 1 part distilled water, so in this case in fact it is 3 parts water, 1 part Pronto
Wash applied over a suitable colour, to show how it fares under real circumstances
In case there is something needs testing, armour, a face etc.

For a test model I used CW's very fine Cadian standard bearer. Shown below with primer only, for reference.

Black

Black is one of the basic washes you need and Vallejo's works quite well:

Nice even finish, it glazes surface, but stays mainly in the recesses. Perhaps a bit too strong. Has a slight brownish hue
Diluted the wash falls apart a bit and the result is rather blotchy, with some tidemarks
Diluted with floor polish the wash performs rather well; remains nicely in recesses,
For the colour test I chose Vallejo's air colour grey primer (not to confuse with the urethane one!)
The result is quite convincing, a tad too dark again
As armour wash over Citadel Mithril Silver: nice gradients, performs quite well

Conclusion: a solid performer, a bit dark, and I learned not to dilute it with water.
Rating: good

Umber

Another classic. Umber comes in a nice neutral dark brown colour, that I came to like quite well

Over the primer it looks quite nice, promising
Diluted with water looks much better then black, perhaps a tad too light
Diluted with Pronto it looks OK, a bit light again
The real test is over VGC Iraqian Sand (I know, but they call it like that regardless) one of my favourites nowadays
The colour test looks very much to my taste, exactly what I'd expect from such a colour

Conclusion: Umber and me will be good friends. It has the perfect shade and coverage, can be used to make darker shades too, mixed with other washes

Rating: Excellent

Sepia

Sepia is exactly what you'd expect, a warmer, yellower brown. Less versatile than Umber, but still have it's uses.

Over the primer it looks good, with some of the quality of Umber, but warmer. It glazed the primer nicely
Diluted with water it falls apart a bit
Looks great with floor polish, I guess this is my new recipe for bone
Again, Sepia will be tested on Iraquian Sand
Nice even coverage, but a bit too much. Would look better diluted.

Conclusion: I think sepia will be a good choice for aging gold, bone, cloth, whatever. Good to have on the desk

Rating: very good

Fleshtone

Fleshtone is meant to shade human skin, let's see how it fares. The tone is much lighter than the previous colours, and looks very different than VGC Skin wash, which in fact is a dark orange ink, and looks quitre strange on minies (shading flesh I mean).

Applied over primer it looks exciting. It takes some abstract thinking to see human flesh in the flag, but you can try. A bit reddish where it pools.
Diluted with water it doesn't cover much
Little better with floor polish; stays in the recesses nicely
The test is with Iraquian Sand again, as I use it as basic skintone too, quite often
The result is OK but again one needs some imagination
Helping the thicker hobbyists I painted a Catachan face. I think it looks good, especially if highlights were added

Conclusion: I'm not yet fully convinced as it needs some more testing but the results look OK.
Rating: good

Pale

Pale wash is a very interesting colour. Actually it is light grey, and it is primarily meant to shade white, which is good news to anyone struggling with that colour (Hey, Island of Blood is coming! Hint, hint... Elves?)

You can't see much on the first few pictures, as the primer and the wash have similar shade. The difference shows when tested on VGC White Primer; it shades white nicely and evenly. With the proper shading the results can be stunning. Please note that in the latest flag the wash was diluted 1:1 with Pronto mixture.

Conclusion: Pale wash is something new and I'm positive that it will make many of us happy in the future

Ranking: very good

Red

Red is what I feel is the weakest link in the range. It has a dark magenta colour, that is great for enriching red though

Painted on the primer, red wash looks rather weird, but the consistency is OK
Diluting red is a bad idea. the result is a lot of uneven tidemarks looking quite bad
Using floor polish will not solve the problems either
I tested the shading qualities over Citadel Blood Red. Perhaps it was not such a good idea, I should have chosen a less saturated colour
Red wash shades Blood red nicely, but the result is too weak and light to work. As a side effect the magenta of the wash boosts the saturation of Blood red to irrational levels.
With a second coat of wash the banner looks OKish.

Conclusion: Red wash in one layer will not do the trick, it is too light and bright for that. Might work on oranges perhaps. Before I'd bury it though, it must be said that combined with sepia or umber it will work well, and one can find many useful ways to use it. But still no good to shade red.

Rating: below average

Green

Green is similar to red in many ways but performs better. The colour is quite light and bright, and therefore suitable for lighter greens only.

Applies over the primer I quite like the way it looks, though it shows alrready, that the wash is too light
Diluted with water it is much less blotchy than red wash is
Looks nice, though pale with Pronto too.
I tested over VGC's Scorpion Green (A bit too saturated, but unfortunately I have a limited palette of light greens)
Wow! This looks cool! The paint and wash look great together.

Conclusion: Green is a decent wash, but to wash Orks or any darker green stuff, it is no good. Mixing it with umber or black may worth a try, but in itself it is good for lighter shades only.

Rating: Average

Blue

Compared to red and green blue is a much darker shade that works as expected

It looks decent on primer
Does not look good diluted with water, does not fill the recesses or builds nice gradients
Looks OK though, diluted with Pronto
For the test I used Citadel Enchanted Blue
I quite like the result, with highlights it would look splendid.

Conclusion: Blue works as expected, and gives a very nice result

Rating: very good

To sum it up

Vallejo washes are a cost effective alternative to Citadel ones. They are slightly more viscous, and should not be diluted with water. Future or matte medium works fine though. The glazing effect of the washes is nice, but they keep to recesses perhaps very slightly less than Citadel washes do. The gradients the washes create are very nice. Red and green are way too saturated and light for my taste.

The range does not have a purple, and it is a shame, for purple is quite useful at times, but the revolutionary pale wash is a very good trade off. I'm quite happy that I bought the set, and advise all of you the same.

For the price sensitive ones will be delighted to hear that 200ml bottles are also available for £6.52.

For Vallejo I'd recommend to sponsor a professional painter, or a blog to help people to use their products most effectively. I still have no idea how to use VGC Smokey Ink (thick brown paste with flakes in it, no ink at all), VMC transparent smoke, the Skin Wash (not Fleshtone) or basically any of their inks. Up until that day it is trial and error, unless someone does the testing, or writes tutorials. But I think it is most easily done by those who designed these products.

That's all folks, I hope you liked it. Stay tuned there might be a wash comparison one day (including home made wash recipes!)

Tyranids for SALE

2010-07-20T22:35:00.000+02:00

Hi Folks,

a friend of mine asked me to help selling his army as he plans to move to WFB.
The following is a rough list, there is some more (+5-10%) , so I'll update later. All of the minis are mostly unpainted, most have even no primer on, a lot of them still on sprue. Assembled pieces are made nicely/prepared for painting (de-flashed etc).
The seriously interested should drop me an e-mail.

What the army includes

1 Hive Tyrant
1 Hive Tyrant OOP
44 Termagaunts
45 Termagaunts on sprue
12 Hormagaunts on sprue
72 Genestealers
20 Genestealers on sprue
13 Warriors
24 bases of Swarm
3 FW Areal spore mines
8 Hive Guards, 2 in box
6 Carnifexes
2 Converted Carnifexes
1 Tyranid Trygon
1 Mawloc
1 Bivore
3+6 Spores
2 Lictors

Teaser pictures (assembled minis only):

Scout paint scheme

2010-07-17T16:58:00.002+02:00

This week I was thinking about the best colour scheme for the scouts, these are the trial pieces:

The right one of course resembles the Sentinels' colour scheme more closely, whereas the left one for some is more pleasing. Which would you rather chose? Or perhaps a variation? lighter tan or darker grey? Please comment!

I also thinking about the chest eagle. Just have seen an excellent blood angels tutorial over All Things 40K and got totally hooked on that shoulder pad. Do you think that a chest eagle like this would look better? Please ignore the paintjob, I spent just about 5 minutes painting the whole thing.

Homemade decals - Astartes numerals

2010-07-10T10:55:00.001+02:00

My first homemade decals are finished, in the last two weeks (apart from a small holiday) they were my primary project.

First I started with the drawing board and Adobe AI. Thanks to my earlier designs, the first draft was created rather quickly. After this the proper sizes for the individual designs were determined and checked against actual minis and shoulder pads. There are multiple sizes, different for scouts and terminators and vehicles.
Once I was satisfied with the result I printed the vector design on decal paper.
Please understand that these are not real decals, and therefore they have limitations. Firstly I cannot print white without access to an ALPS printer. ALPS printers are no longer in production, so buying one - even if buying one second hand is possible -combined with the increasing accessory prices do not make the business case viable. (other possibility could be screen printing, but for such small insignia, and so few copies it doesn't worth it.) So, since I cannot print white, I have to print on white. This means that to avoid a halo of white on the edge you have to print a halo with a colour matching the base colour of the mini or vehicle - in my case VMC Dark Prussian Blue.

For the best results after applying the decals the traditional way overpaint the edges with the base colour. This will crate a smooth gradient. By the way I almost always overpaint decals a little, so that they would look less uniform.

Secondly, professional decals come pre-cut. As I have no idea how it is done, so one have to cut out the decals usig a very sharp blade.

You know by now, that I'm a shameless promoter of my very own Sentinels, you can freely download the decal sheet in .pdf format. Please note that it is in letter format.

File Hosting Online Storage Backup

Since you never seem to get enough numerals on GW transfers, I also created my own number sets. As I previewed in my previous post, the numbers are fully vectorized. As making these astartes numerals was very time consuming, I won't give them away that easily... but they are of course available for all followers of this blog. Please e-mail me if you'd like the file.
Later, upon individual request I plan to produce custom decals, numerals in other colours, and even sell them in printed form, though it may take a little time.
I'm quite happy with the way the transfers turned out, but I was less satisfied with the Holi decal papers I was using. It was rather too thick to my taste. I have to find a different manufacturer for better results. Any suggestions?

Little teaser

2010-06-28T01:49:00.000+02:00

Recently I spent some time with Adobe's Illustrator, and made fair progress on some custom decals for the Sentinels.
I also made some cool stuff:

Yes. Real, proper vectorized Astartes numerals...
Decals are soon to follow.

Land Speeder Redux

2010-06-24T00:42:00.002+02:00

Some old time followers might remember one of my first posts back from January; it was about a Land Speeder, full of details that later turned out to be unnecessary. The paint scheme changed too, and as I became involved With my Land Raider Mk1 the work on this little one has stalled. Until last week, when I finished it :-)
Actually it is not finished, as the magnetized parts may get some transfers and freehand, and still need to be weathered.
The model is fully magnetized, all the doors/accessories/weapons can be removed. I'm a big fan of magnetization, both for versatility and portability.
The base is made of a standard AOBR base and a piece of carbon fibre rod, as I dislike GW flying bases.
The junk on the ground are made of plasticard (heated up and bent over fire) pieces of tin sheet and resin parts.
The scratches on the bumper and the hull are the weakest part of the paintjob, hell, next time they will turn pout better. The speeder was given a little coat of dust pigment (dust, dusty green and sand) as I felt that as a flying machine stronger weathering would be out of place.
As always, feedback is welcome.

Typhoon variant with multi melta (some sooth will be applied)

Tornado variant with heavy bolter

Engine glow

Things from the past - My absolute worst

2010-06-07T21:23:00.000+02:00

Going through junk in the basement at my parents' house I found some remarkable items.

These are 1:72 Revell Normans I painted in 1989. This is my second ever paintjob. This crime against humanity was committed with some very poor quality glossy enamel paint. Miniatures were impossible to get in Hungary back then, as far as I'm concerned. I had no idea how to paint minis, and it shows.

Those days I was - as so many of us - obsessed with AD@D, and I was given a copy of the Battlesystem rules. I was very excited but found no suitable minies. I even considered making my own of pewter, but at the end of the day these 1:72 ones were the only ones I could put my hands on, apart from some brass knights from Kinder Eggs.

My very first time -I mean with paints and toy soldiers - was somewhere around the mid eighties, when I abused some crude plastic soldiers, and painted them with gouache colours and applied a very heavy glossy enamel coat. At the time I was quite influenced by the "Dirty Dozen", that I was allowed to watch on TV for the first time. This set luckily seems to be lost saving me the embarrassment.

Man, it was a long time ago... I was about ten then.

My Celestine

2010-06-01T22:10:00.000+02:00

This is my version of the Living Saint. She serves no purpose in my would-be army, I just happened to come into the possession of the model and painted her just for fun. I won't keep her though, but I'll give her to my wife as present. I hope she'll like her.

Riveting - a mini tutorial

2010-05-26T16:42:00.033+02:00

There were multiple requests lately to write a mini tutorial on my recipee for riveting, so I therefore comply:

Tools you’ll need (well, including optional ones):

Superglue
A pin or something similar (in my case a sculpting tool)
Pin vice with a thin dril
Ruler and compasses with pin in both ends (optional)
A scapel or an engraver tool (optional)
Something like a metal rod with a blunt end
Micro beads for nail art

And the way it is done step by step:

Step 1.

Drill small holes in he surface you work with. Optionally you can draw a line and mark the rivets with compasses with pins in both ends. Sometimes I skip this and just drill the holes using eyeball Mk1.

Step 2.

Widen the topmost parts of the holes with a scapel or an engraver’s tool.

Step 3.

Pour a drop of superglue on someting, and using a pin or something similar, put some glue in the holes

Step 4.

Using the glued pin, find a suitable piece of bead and place it into the hole

Step 5.

Using the handle of the scapel (or something similar, this case the bottom end of a file) apply a little pressure ont he bead. Pushing them into the hole a bit makes the bond much sturdier. At this point you might want to sand the excess soperglue from the plasticard

This is the end result

Some remarks on micro beads

Micro beads are used in nail art and are available over the internet (eBay) or –like in my case – around the corner in the local nail art shop. Small pleasures of living downtown. Anyway they come in different colours and sizes. Unfortunately the beads –especially the small ones - are not perfectly uniform in size or shape, so you have to select them all the time. They are made of glass I think, so they are quite hard. One more thing: and the colouring is diluted by superglue – don’t worry they will not melt.

The biggest advantage is that they are dirt cheap, a small vial sells for about €0,8, and that amout will last you for about 50 years if you rivet Baneblades every day.

Good luck riveting!

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 8.

2010-05-25T00:40:00.008+02:00

It is complete. It took me two and a half months and about 150 hours to get this far. Thanks for all the support and the inspiring comments I received all along. This was my first ever attempt at scratch building, so while there are tons of things I'd do differently if I started today I'm quite happy with the result.

While the vehicle is meant to be plain old school Land Raider, I allowed myself a little freedom for further developments; therefore I magnetized quite frequently. The driver options are magnetized (please note that arms, heads etc. are missing as that is my painting method), so are sponsons, the hunter-killer missile/ cosed hatch options and the bush cutter. The antenna with the small flag can be removed too. These not only enable me to elect to make a crusader/redeemer variant later if I so wish, but make transporting the model so much easier.

So that is it folks; I think I stop here and stick to painting for a while, but I'm positive that this may be my first, but not last project.

Stay tuned for the primered pictures soon, and the painting project later this year when I buy an airbrush.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 6.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 7.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 7.

2010-05-16T23:43:00.001+02:00

Tonight I proudly present you the newest addition to the project, the side sponsons. This is how they look like:

The lascannons are made in similar manner as as John from Santa Cruz Warhammer made them on his marvelous Death Guard Land Raider. Perhaps this beauty and Ron's gorgeous Deathwing Land Raider gave me the greatest inspiration during the project.

Back to the cannons, I cut the upper one to make it longer and added extra plating to the guns. I think they came out quite good.

The guns are attached to a mount by a joint. Both the joint and the gun mount is affixed by magnets, so they can move freely though they seem to be quite sturdy at the same time.

Unfortunately this last picture is not very good. Anyway I made a prototype of the gun mount and then I cast it in resin using the plain and simple open mould technique to have exact copies. Please note that the mounts are actually two piece each as the center part is separate. On the mount I used (it cannot be seen unfortunately) a new microdetailing technique, that I believe is my genuine idea. I'm quite happy with it, so I will write you a tutorial later.

I see the end of the tunnel now.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 6.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 6.

2010-05-09T17:47:00.001+02:00

My little one is on track. Literaly :-)

It took me a week to finish the tracks, but now that I'm done, I'm getting close to the finishline. This is how I made it:
First I made the master links from plasticard. I needed two naturally, one for ordinary links an one for the 12th links.

Once they were ready I made a one piece mould as I explained earlier, (ok it is a simplification, I made two, first one for an ordinary single link, and I used the resin casts as ingredients for mould two, that has one single link, one three-link piece and one with an aquila on.) and cast enough for the whole track on both sides.. Around 60 links, unfortunately not 36 links per side. I was sloppy and did not plan properly and therefore on the bottom the 12s don't match, but I don't really care. All right, I may be a perfectionist, but not that much.

Attaching the bits to the chassis was pretty straightforward, as you would imagine, though I had to trick a little to get the perfect fit. Where it was needed - in angles - I applied a bit of green stuff to get the joint correct.

What is left is to make the gun mounts (I will remove the 25mm bases) and some minor detailing, and the finishing touches with GW bits.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 5.

Quick update and a question

2010-05-05T10:33:00.000+02:00

Hi, I'm almost finished with the tracks, but the 12th link - the ones with the aquila on - is quite a hard nut to crack. I'm ready with the aquilas themselves and decided that the letters E T (Eperor of Terra) will be added to fill out the empty space under the wings.
And here comes the dilemma: what do you think, should the letters be positive or negative on the tracks? If they are positive they read correct on the vehicle, if they are negative, they look correct in the dirt. While I'm tempted to chose the later alternative, as the purpose of the 12th link is to mark the soil in the name of the emperor, I'm open to your opinion on the matter.
Anyway, stay tuned for a tracked update in a day or two!

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 5

2010-04-26T21:50:00.000+02:00

It's been a while, but steady progress has been made. Superdetailing the hull area was VERY time consuming but a lot of fun. Now the scratchbuilding process is almost over: only the tracks are left plus I plan to remake the gun mounts on the sides. So, slowly I'm getting there. Naturally the work will be finished with GW parts like the round hatches, ribbons, symbols, purity seals and other tank accessories that will make a fine addition to the overall picture. I also plan to magnetize the model on key areas, just in case.
And now the pictures:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 4

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 4

2010-03-23T13:03:00.000+01:00

Just a quickie to keep you entertained with the progress:
After finishing the tread bay details (OK, 80-90% GW bits not attached yet, weapons neither) the hull is shaping up slowly. Some pictures:

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 3

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 3

2010-03-17T23:28:00.003+01:00

Time for an update. The outer sides (not the ones mentioned in the last post but the other two) of the tread bays are shaping up slowly, I reckon I'm at 50%.

And some details:

After I finish the side doors and some more riveting, plus a little more detailing I will move on to the hull. I'm still not sure how I want to deal with the sponsons and the lascannons. One painful question is solved unfortunately; the side doors will be permanently closed. I'm afraid it would be too risky to cut an opening now, should have thought about it earlier. It is a bit lame but I will live with it.

Scratchbuild - Land Raider MkI project part 2.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 2

2010-03-13T01:23:00.003+01:00

Hi Folks,
time for a minor update. Detailing this beauty proves rather time consuming, but I'm still quite satisfied with the outcome, if not the progress. I have just finished the inner parts of the tread bays:

a little more detail:

To tell you the truth I started this phase with a huge mistake, I glued on the outer walls of the tread bay, and I had to find out a complete different approach to the detailing. I was quite angry at the time, but I'm okay with the way it came out. It is not 100% finished, there are minor details missing depending how I finish the hull.

Scratchbuild - The Land Raider MkI part 1

2010-03-09T22:12:00.002+01:00

I have always had a soft spot for the old MkIs. Lately it struck me that the Sentinels just cannot live without one. There must be an ancient, venerable MkI serving as the chapter master's personal command vehicle, spit and polish but deadly. Pimped up with superdetail and modern weaponry.
This is the plan, and I almost succeeded, when I was the leader on the latest eBay auction, up until the last 10 seconds when someone sniped me. C'est la guerre, one might say, but I took it as a sign.
Though my last effort with the Mate pattern whirlwind turret was not met with great applause, I enjoyed building it greatly. This is the reason why I decided to put together my own Land Raider. I acquired the necessary plans from here (the BWC-Archive is also a good place to start -join if you are not a member already) and started to work. It was clear from the beginning, that the plans are not detailed enough for my taste, and truth to be told these early models are not very high detail in the first place. I'll need to spice things up a bit with extra stuff and a bit of kitbashing. I will love it.
First I started working on the tread well and bays:

Cutting 150+ plasticard circles for wheels make your fingers sore, but I'm happy with the results so far

This is the detailed tread bay before attaching the outer wall

Here I am now, after day two, hope you like it. More to come

See also:

Scratchbuild - Whirlwind turret - Mate pattern

Coolest birthday present

2010-03-09T22:04:00.001+01:00

I just turned 36 and see what I got from my stepdaughter Viki:

Cool, ain't it? I was wandering why she borrowed one of the little guys...

Scratchbuild - Whirlwind turret - Mate pattern

2010-03-03T22:47:00.002+01:00

First a little explanation for the relative silence: I started a few projects simultaneously that come slowly into fruition.
Giving away a bit of spoiler information, I developed an urgent need for a few Land Raider and Predator bits, so I started to ask around in the local gaming community for spares.
Máté came for the rescue and showing him my gratitude I spent a few hours on this Whirlwind turret. Máté is preparing for a tournament this coming Saturday and all he needed for his killer list was a Whirlwind. Since he has a spare Rhino and I happened to come by the missile part of an oldschool turret, I decided to help him out. It sounded like fun; and it really was. By the way this is my first ever scratchbuild attempt. There is plenty of room for improvement, but for now I'm pretty satisfied with it.

Stay tuned for more!

Painting - Final decision

2010-02-18T21:43:00.006+01:00

All right, you know I've been undecided on the final colour scheme, time to decide once and for all.
Now I'm down to two options:

The light option

Shade: VGC Dark Prussian Blue
Midtone: Royal Blue
Highlight: Enchanted blue
Extreme highlight: VGC Pastel Blue

The darker option

Shade: Black primer
Base colour: VGC Dark Prussian Blue
Highlight: 33% Enchanted Blue, 66% Royal Blue
Extreme highlight: Enchanted Blue

I love both versions but it is time for the right choice. Please spare a minute to comment!

See them face to face:

Painting - First go on the Sentinels

2010-02-13T00:35:00.003+01:00

Tonight I managed to finish my first test paint of the Sentinels. It is a five marine combat squad and a lone assault marine. They are still wearing the original paint scheme, I'm still not decided weather to go for the darker scheme or stick to this one. I fear that this is a bit ultramarie-ish, but apart from that I'm pretty satisfied. The guys are purists, no extra purity seals, tabards, squad numbers, the regular ones will have all of this, but modestly.
Instead the new converted backpacks they are wearing old style ones, because I'm running low on backpacks and I'm going to give these first ones to friends anyway.
For the bases I had some arid, rocky steppe in mind.
So here you go:

Earlier:
Painting - Quest for the perfect highlights

Subject for tutorial wanted

2010-02-11T23:00:00.009+01:00

Hi Folks,

I promised you to make a new tutorial on two piece mould resin casting. And I ask for your help to make it happen.

Since I don't want to mess with GW, or promote the unproper use of intellectual property, to make a tutorial with a GW model as a subject is out of question. This leaves me without a proper master.

I built a mini or two before, but they were all given away when I switched to different armies. It would take me weeks to put together something decent, but I don't really have the time and motivation for that.

Now this is where you can help.

If you have a scratch built mini, a small vehicle, a special bit, a weapon or something interesting that you would donate for educational purposes, I'd be happy to use it as a subject of the tutorial.

The subject

Should not contain any copyrighted device or material, or should not be derivative of anything that is somebody else's intellectual property
Should be relatively small, fit in a 5cm side cube
Can be multipart, but ideally no more than 3 pieces
Should not be extremely 3d. You all saw GW sprues or metal minies; the more complex ones must be cast multipart. Working with green stuff is one thing, but casting it is something different.

In exchange for the master I can offer a few copies of the original or perhaps the finished mould if that is more desirable. I will never sell copies of the subject of course

If you are interested, drop me an email and send a picture of the proposed master.

Of course all credit and gratitude is granted :-)

Earlier on resin casting:

Designing a chapter Part 4. - Resin cast custom shoulderpads

Designing a chapter Part 3. - Resin casting your insignia

Designing a chapter Part 5. - Custom backpacks

2010-02-08T00:21:00.005+01:00

Last time I manufactured my own chapter shoulderpads, hope you liked it. This time I continue working on the special flavour I wish to create for the Sentinels. Custom backpacks will give a small, but smart enhancement to the brew.
This is quite an easy conversion. I chose symbols of the right size from the resin cast pieces of insignia I made in an earlier post, sanded their backs to make them thinner and glued them on standard GW backpacks. Of course the plain ones are the best, but also the other types once you get rid of the original symbol with a sharp knife. Depending on your insignia you may have to remove rivet heads or trim the upper part.
Anyway, here is what I achieved

Primer and paint them the usual way:

Slowly the visual chapter design is taking shape and I'm quite happy with it. Of course not all of the marines will have these converted backpacks, I keep the standard ones too for variety. Hopefully these little things will help to make my boys unique and professional looking (after I learned to paint properly of course).

See also

Designing a chapter Part 4. - Resin cast custom shoulderpads

Painting - Quest for the perfect highlights

2010-02-02T02:18:00.014+01:00

Finding the perfect colours for the Sentinels proved rather difficult. Since there is an army to be painted I had a few principles in mind before I started to select:

A shade a base colour, a highlight and an extreme colour must do, there will be no more levels
No drybrush on the armour - on smooth surfaces I never seem to get it right...
Layering is preferable - Because that's the way I like it
No full-body washes

I had dark blue in mind, and since I'm a great fan of Regal Blue, originally chose the following colours on my trial marines:

0th variant - Original
Shade - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Base - Regal Blue
Highlight - Enchanted Blue
Extreme highlight - 50% Regal Blue- 50% Ice Blue
I thought that it was going to be fine, but it turned out rather lame. The highlights were too crude, and I didn't like the result at all. So I went to the bits box for my leftover metal torsoes and I knew I have some serious testing to do.
Please note that I did not aim even at TTQ on the samples below, only wanted to find the most suitable colours using minimum time and effort. Here are the results

1st variant
Shade - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Base - 50% VMC Dark Prussian Blue - 50% Regal Blue
Highlight - Regal Blue
Extreme highlight - Enchanted Blue

Actually I liked this variant, it had contrast without too extreme highlights

2nd variant
Shade - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Base - Regal Blue
Highlight - 50% Regal Blue - 50% Enchanted Blue
Extreme highlight - Enchanted Blue

A little disappointment. While I like regal blue, this combination was a bit too low contrast.

3rd variant
Shade - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Base - Regal Blue
Highlight - Enchanted Blue
Extreme highlight - VMC Pastel Blue

.... as this one is too much. Pastel Blue is a tad darker that the Regal Blue -Ice Blue combo I used earlier, but still too light.. At this point my wife being the one person jury chose the first variant for further improvement.

4th variant
Shade - none
Base - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Highlight - 66% Regal Blue 33% Enchanted Blue
Extreme highlight - Enchanted Blue

5th variant
Shade - none
Base - VMC Dark Prussian Blue
Highlight - 50% Regal Blue 50% Enchanted Blue
Extreme highlight - Enchanted Blue

Since the base colour is very dark as it is, I dropped shades, and used only the highlights, which is good since it will speed up painting a bit. Perhaps I will use black liner or Badab Black ink, we shall see.
To cut a long story short Patricia and I agreed that the 4th variant looked best. Not too harsh highlights but exciting. a bit crimson fist-like look. Or Dark Angels in blue.

Do you have any tips on how could I further improve this scheme before I start painting my first tactical squad?

Designing a chapter Part 4. - Resin cast custom shoulderpads

2010-01-26T19:52:00.002+01:00

Last time I showed you how to make simple open face moulds and how to cast custom made insignia with them. Now it is time something a bit more challenging. Shoulder pads and one-piece moulds.

Reading the previous post is of course by no means necessary but there are a lot of details explained there that I will not repeat.

I have to confess I’m not very good at drawing. Somehow I lack the ability to draw too well, and even if I sometimes am able to produce a neatly painted mini, I cannot dream of producing enough freehand shoulder pads in constant quality and quantity. Perhaps decals would do, but I want the key symbols white, and unfortunately I have no access to an ALPS printer, the only thing I know to print white (offset would be overkill). So, given my discovery of laser engraving I opted to go for perhaps a more subtle solution: custom embossed shoulder pads.

The first step is the same as before, carefully cut the symbols from the rubber core. This proved rather challenging for me as the chapter symbol is in a thin circle, and it required a lot of concentration and a fresh blade to do properly.

Once the symbols are cut, I superglued them on standard issue space marine shoulderpads from the bits box.

This is pretty straightforward, but not easy at all; the pads have a curved surface and superglue tends to stick to everywhere. Be prepared to lose some of the more delicate symbols. Luckily you can salvage the messed up shoulderpads with the help of a small piece of grade 1000 sanding paper.
As usual there is a trick that may help: I glue only the central areas of the symbols first and place them properly on the shoulderpad. Once the glue sets and the symbol is fixed in place glue the edges with a toothpick and position them. In general it pays not to use the super glue jar on small pits and pieces.
Anyway here you see the outcome. I'm pretty satisfied on this point.

Next I cut a thin strip of 1mm pasticard, around 1mm wide, and glue it on it a piece of balsa wood. I use Balsa because it is easy to cut with a hobby knife. This bar will serve as the excess basin for the resin.
On the top of the wooden piece fix a tin strip of plasticard, 1 mm wide ad roughly the same of length as the balsa piece and glue it on the wood, on it's side.

Now glue the shoulderpads on the strip of plasticard at even intervals . Calculate how much and what shape of LEGO basin you will need, and build it on the base. Your mould's wall should not be very thick, because it should enable you to remove the products easily.
Cut a piece of plasticard that fits exactly into the opening between the LEGO blocks, glue the balsa stick into the middle of the plasticard piece and you have just finished your master.

Place the master into the basin, and mix some latex. For one piece moulds you need good quality durable and elastic rubber, so for this purpose I always use the more expensive T-Sylox RP. Paint the surface of the shoulderpads with some latex. Be neat and make sure that every little recess is filled.

When you are certain, that there are no bubbles in the rubber on the surface of the master build up two or three levels of LEGO blocks so that the wall should be about 5mm higher than the top of the pads. After the wall is built, pour in the rest of the latex. It seems that tapping (described in the last post) alone is not good enough for shoulderpads, as the "domes" are perfect traps for larger air bubbles. This can be avoided if you take a toothpick and move it around the inside curve of all of the shouderpads. Further tapping will likely reveal an air bubble or two surfacing.
By the way it is useful to regularly blow the surface of the latex as it explodes the bubbles. Again you have to wait at least 6-8 hours before you can proceed with casting.

Above you see the mould as it comes out from the LEGO basin, only the bottom pasticard is removed. When you remove the master from the mould you'll need to use a hobby knife to cut through a thin layer of rubber between the shoulderpads and the strip of plasticard they are sitting on. It is quite easy, be neat.
Now this is how it looks like after a bit of trimming with pirated manicure scissors:

Prior casting you talc the mould similarly to the open faced ones. The difference of course is that you have to stretch open the mould and brush the inside with the powdering brush. face down tap out the

Similarly to the insignia shown earlier your shoulderpads are best cast by a syringe. Open the mould a bit, push the tube of the syringe into the openings, and inject the resin into them, and fill up the casting basin too. Tap the mould on the side and from under, and repeatedly open and close the mouth of the mold to let the bubbles out. This should give you perfect results.

It is worth leaving the pads a bit more time to cure, it makes them easier to remove and much less prone to deformation when pulled out of the mould. A little more than half an hour should do.

This is what become of it. Some are satisfying, others are not good enough, but it is not a problem, because later I will work on the pads and sand and hand-engrave them until I'm happy with the results, when all these are ready, I make the final moulds.

You can finish the shoulderpads by hand and make a new mould of them, since if you use a good quality latex and de-air it properly the new mould should be practically the same quality. These below are the first finished products, as I want to start painting tactic squads soon. I think they are rather good.

The trial painted them for fun last night to:

I'm not really satisfied with the painting of the chapter symbol, but I know now how I will do it when I start my assembly line painting.
To sum up, one piece molds are perfect for cylindrical or spherical shapes like heads or one piece torsos, as there are no mould lines. Unfortunately complex or very delicate items can not be duplicated this way. Fortunately two piece molds solve this problem, and I will do the best I can to help you to shorten the learning curve.
See also:
Designing a chapter part 3. - Resin casting your insignia

Designing a chapter Part 3. - Resin casting your insignia

2010-01-21T01:41:00.009+01:00

In the last part I wrote about laser engraving, which is a great step towards mass producing custom made insignia for your vehicles or troops. In this part I’ll show you how.

The aim is to create the symbols in various sizes so that I could directly glue them on a chassis or on a SM backpack. I hope they turn out good.

The method to duplicate the simple quasi two dimensional things is the most basic type of resin casting technique called open mould casting.

The first thing to do is to cut the rubber positives from the sheet. For bigger ones, you just cut the outlines with an X-acto knife or with something very sharp. Small and tiny ones are more tricky: the way to go is to cut the upper half off the rubber core. For this I use a plain old style razor blade. You don’t want to cut under the bottom of the symbol (given that you have a design that is not one solid piece, like a cross or something).

Usually the design is too deep for more delicate symbols, thus I cut them shallow, usually around 0,5mm. You have to cut cautiously, parallel with the bottom for best results. I found that this is done easiest by cutting the symbol from the mat and fixing it to some rigid surface like 2mm plasticard.

When all positives are cut they are glued carefully on a piece of plasticard. For open mould casting we need a perfectly smooth and level surface for the mold.

When you finish gluing you can start calling it a master.

Place the master face up on a big enough flat LEGO (actually I use an old cheap alternative, just I love LEGO too much still to abuse it like this) piece and surround it with blocks. You don’t have to build too high, this technique does not require deep moulds. Usually it makes sense to cut the plasticard piece of the master to fit exactly between the block wall, though it is not essential.

Now we pour latex rubber on top. Be careful, some stamp rubber materials stick to latex rubber and unless you use some surface treatment like vaseline they may end up inseparable. Worth checking in order to avoid nervous breakdown. I did, and fortunately my stamp rubber did not stick to latex at all.

Latex rubber comes in different varieties. I use two types from T-Sylox (a local brand, but they deserve to be mentioned here) RP is a super durable variety that is impossible to break, ideal for one part casting or deeper undercuts, while OXAM C1 is a much better flowing and much less durable material. Of course their characteristics are reflected in their price, RP costs about €30 a litre, while C1 only 10.

Tonight I chose C1 as this type of mould does not require much structural durability, and the lower viscosity is a benefit. The latex comes with it's own hardener oil, from which you need 5-7 mass percentage, so acquiring a digital scale is advisable. (and the use of gloves as well since the catalyst is harmful)

After you thoroughly mixed the latex base with the catalyst take a larger synthetic brush – ironically the cheaper the better – and using a little rubber mix paint it into the small recesses on the master. This is important, because the latex is quite viscous, and you want to avoid the forming of small bubbles, at least on the direct surface of the master. Of course if you have access to a vacuum chamber, it is worth trying for best results – unfortunately I don’t have the space for one in our flat (and my wife would not tolerate it anyway. there are limits...)

It is said that pouring the rubber from the height of 50-60 cm should eliminate most of the bubbles, but I haven’t tried it out yet. I usually shake the mould and tap and knock it from under vigorously. Being a persistent knocker I almost always have good bubble-free results.

When it is poured, leave the latex to cure overnight. In the morning you you can remove the master with ease and marvel at your perfect open mould.

Resin casting actually is quite easy.

Nowadays I use Sika Biresin G-26. It is quite good, but not perfect, I think when it runs out I try out something else, most likely Rencast. G26 sells for about €40 for a kilogram of resin and hardener each.

First pour the amount you want to use into cups. Usually I use 3 plastic cups: one for the resin, one for the hardener and a third for excess mixed resin and other junk. Biresin 26 is a 50-50% mass percent resin - which means that for each gram of resin you need a gram of hardener - but since the hardener is just a little bit lighter, if you use a little bit more volume of hardener than resin you cannot go wrong.

One important thing: always wear gloves when dealing with urethane resin; though cured resin is harmless, the raw resin is irritant and the hardener is harmful, so you don’t want them on your skin.

I use a 20 ml syringe for casting: first I suck up the resin, wipe the tube and suck up the hardener. I let air into the syringe for that I can shake the components together with the air bubble, and also because if I don’t, some hardener will remain in the tube unmixed with resin, so injected it will not cure properly. Using a syringe instead of pouring allows you greater control.

One very important part which is often overlooked is that you have to powder the mould thoroughly with talcum. Pure talc - hydrated magnesium silicate (you can buy it in your local pharmacy)– works best and but any talc based commercial product will do. Do not use corn based products.

Talcum dramatically reduces surface tension within your mould, and helps you to avoid air bubbles.

Take a big brush and brush into the mould a generous amount of talc, then remove most of it, and blow away the rest. Only a very fine layer will remain, that enhances your casting results greatly.

I fill up the open moulds with the desired amount of resin, if I want a thinner emblem I just inject a bit less.

For open moulds most de-airing techniques don’t work, so the best way is to use a toothpick and scratch the surface of the mould gently so that small air bubbles that may form in recesses would leave the mould surface.

The cast resin cures in 6-7 minutes, and can be removed from the mould in about 20-30 minutes. The product stays somewhat flexible for an hour or two.

I’m pretty satisfied with the results, all of the insignia is good for something, some of them could be primed and painted right away.

In the next part I show you the one piece mould technique when I make and duplicate some custom shoulder pads for the Sentinels.

See also:
Designing a chapter part 2. - Chapter insignia

Designing a chapter Part 2. - Chapter Insignia

2010-01-20T02:08:00.003+01:00

As I mentioned in my last post, the main feature of my Sentinel's ethos is the guarding of something. Based on this I chose a key to be the chapter symbol.
I made a few sketches and started working on the designs. For the best results I decided to go for a vector image, since later it will allow me to make the best quality prints.
To create this you will need a good vector editor. I used Adobe Illustrator - as I'm lucky enough to have access to it - but any editor will do, if at least EPS format can be created with it. Inkscape or DrawPlus are said to be good free alternatives. You can either create an image from scratch, find a good quality raster image and convert it into vector (needs some skill, requires quite a lot of refining) or find a suitable free vector. Free or GNU vectors are all over the internet, but I found the heraldry section of WIKImedia Commons exceptionally helpful. Most of my Bretonnial heraldry comes from there.
After a few hours of work I finished the initial design:

This might be confusing but I explain later. You may notice three main versions: the most common is the single key in a circle. This will be used by the majority of the troops. Veteran troops will use the single key in laurel wreath. Elite troops, champions and the like will use the crossed keys in laurel wreath. Also there you see the "hand of warning" symbol, that will have some significance, though I haven't yet figured out what to use it for.

The different sizes and layouts are there because this image is meant to be laser engraved into rubber. As you know I go for a professional appearance, that I could not hope to achieve with green stuff, especially not in constant quality and solid quantity given my mediocre skills. Therefore I plan to custom make my own insignia shoulder pads and the like from resin.
Laser engraving is a very cool thing and is a great prospect for the creative mind. Basically it is about moving a tiny beam of carbon dioxide laser over the surface of the carrier material, vaporizing the unneeded parts. It cuts and engraves most materials, but ABS, acrylics and rubber are the most widely used, the later being the most common material, due to stamp making.
I also go for rubber, for it is flexibility, which is a good thing when I attach it on shoulder pads and because of the smoother finish. Acrylic is also good, but as it is quite hard and dense, the beam makes flat parts rougher. The process is not very fast, (depends on the output of the device) a 10W machine engraved my 12x8cm design on 750 dpi in little over an hour. The printing costed about €10.

The results are good, but not great, and this is my fault; I forgot to delete swatches, and therefore the design is not as crisp as it could be. Anyway just wait to see these beauties on the side of a Rhino!
Possibilities don't stop here; on the vector graphic 16 colours can be used, and for each a different output strength and beam speed can be defined, and thus 16 different levels of engraving depths can be achieved. Quite a gradient!
More about laser engraving
If you have any experience with or cool tips about laser engraving or vector graphics, please share it with us!

Next I write about the most simple form of resin casting, and we begin to multiply these emblems.

See also:
Designing a chapter part 1. Chapter essentials

Designing a chapter Part 1. - Chapter Essentials

2010-01-20T00:58:00.004+01:00

Colour Scheme

I think the first thing to decide is perhaps the colour scheme. Take pride in your colours; for my would be space marine force aesthetics are first priority. Well since it is unlikely that my boys ever make it to the gaming table, at least let them look cool.
Using Bolter&Chaisword's superb color scheme designer I came up with this:

This is Brother Altus from the 4th squad of the 3rd Company. The company colour is indicated on his right kneecap, the squad number will be indicated on his left kneepad and/or his right shoulderpad, with the tactical symbol. On his left shoulderpad he will proudly display the chapter insignia.
The colour scheme is dark blue, dark red and white with steel aquila.
Now meet Veteran Sgt Br. Sardius from 2nd Company 2nd squad.

His veteran status is indicated by his white helmet, his rank by the blue stripe on it. Should he not be veteran, his helmet would be blue with a white stripe.
Assault squads will wear red, devastators sand or tan coloured helmets.

Name and background

The name is the Sentinels of Folkmaar. This is a provisional name, might change.
One thing is for sure, these guys are guarding a terrible secret. Not like the Dark Angels, they are rather physically guarding something, a gate, an artifact, we don't know what. This is a reason why they are quite reserved, and rarely seen in action in greater numbers than 2 companies plus attachments. This much is enough now we shall enhance it later. Perhaps there could be a St. Folkmaar, a late imperial saint? Sounds cool to me.
I want them a pragmatic chapter, no hoods, too many chains or baroque ornaments; I want them fancy but perhaps somewhat purist.

Designing a chapter Part 0. - Preface

2010-01-19T23:37:00.005+01:00

Many people write tutorials about painting or sculpting, but I have little to offer on these fields. I know nothing original; only stuff I learned from tutorials myself or from other people.
I decided to find a different topic; I'll show you how to build up a brand new, unique chapter from scratch, and how to make it genuine and polished like the Black Templars or the Blood Angels.
My plan is that through my small daily victories or debacles I teach you a thing or two about chapter design, background building, vehicle scratch building, miniature conversion, resin casting and whatever comes along with.
I have to be honest; I will pretend that some of this stuff is not done already, but the physical realization of the plans is something completely different; all I have in my army is a WIP landspeeder... :-)

Of Citadel paint pots - get rid of them

2010-01-18T16:03:00.001+01:00

What I always really hated about Citadel colours is their impossibly awkward pots. I dilute my paints, and I like mixing them. And I hate wasting things. Don't get me wrong, it is not about being Scrooge, it is about control :-).

I have always wasted paint for drying, as the pots never really closed, and I hated taking paint out from them into the palette with paper clips, stiks or whatever, guessing the right amount and wasting half of it.
The solution was obvious - especially after I started my ongoing shift towards Vallejo - Eyedropper bottles. They come dirt cheap in the local pharmacy, HUF 300 for a dosen - about €1.2 . Only thing I realized though - and I hate to admit that this is pretty useless outside Hungary - is that you have to ask for sterile ones, for plain ones come in white colour. If you want neat clear ones, go for sterile ones.
The rest is pretty straightforward, salvage all citadel paints still recoverable, dilute them with matte acrylic medium and distilled water to the right consistency and pour them into the eyedropper bottles. For this purpose instead of a small funnel I used a small slide made of a discarded plastic cup if anyone cares.
Finally I painted the tips of the caps in the corresponding colours, as I do with the Vallejo ones.
Actually I use much more Citadel paints ever since, and the pots are put to a much better use, with blue tack on top they make the perfect WIP figure holders.

WIP Landspeeder

2010-01-18T15:41:00.001+01:00

This is my most recent; the interior of my new WIP landspeeder. It is aimed to be a good tabletop quality, with small enhancements here and there.

First I applied two coats of Valleyo's grey primer as usual, painted the base coat, extreme highlight, the highlight and the base colour again (regal blue, 50% regal blue-50% ice blue, enchanted blue, regal blue again). Sorry, I'm not good enough, I have to apply highlights the other way around. The shading for this model was made with 0,02 nib micro pens. I have a few of those, they sometimes make life so much easier.

When I was happy with the results I painted the details on the consoles. I added some extra levers and controls made from filed down pins and some superglue.

Shame that little of this is actually visible when the marines are sitting in their seats...

Of course it still misses a coat of Army Painter's no shine varnish - which actually shines a bit unfortunately or varnish it with Vallejo matte, still not decided.

First entry

2010-01-18T12:18:00.001+01:00

All stories must begin somewhere. My little affair with wargaming - or rather with miniature painting started in the mid eighties, when I gotten involved in serious roleplaying, and a I borrowed a copy of TSR's Battle System Rulebook. I was amazed. The problem was that metal miniatures were impossible to buy in my native Hungary, and we had to travel to Vienna even for a D20. (Fortunately we could at least travel, contrary to other countries in the Eastern Block...)

Since no suitable minis were available, I tried my best with 1:72 Revell plastic figures and awful enamel paints. Predictably the results were humiliating - I have them somewhere in the basement so I may show something to laugh at sometime.

Since my wargaming needs were not met with equal zeal by my friends, somehow the painter in me fell into a temporal stasis, where it stayed for the best part of the nineties and the early zeroes.

I fell back to business in 2000 when I painted some Blood Bowl teams. It was easier then, literature and the net was available, at least I had a basic concept of painting, and the results were pleasing at the time.

The real breakthrough came recently about a year ago. I work as a business consultant you see; and have 4 kids (2+2 technically, anyway) all girls. I think it is plain to all of you that obviously I need a hobby to kill stress... So, I paint, but I don't play, and it suits me right. My stuff usually gets assembled, converted, pimped up, painted, marveled by a forgiving wife, saved from eager two-year-olds, and carefully packed in boxes in the basement. May sound strange, but I love it this way.

Now of this blog. I'm the kind of the guy who likes to find the best method for everything; learn from other people, tutorials and the like. I thought, there might be others who think similarly, and I may have stuff that worth sharing.

In the days to come you will have tutorials and showcases in conversions, painting, decal and symbol design, magnetizing and resin casting. I do a lot of these, custom made shoulder pads, ornaments and the like, you will see.

I hope it is the beginning of a beautiful friendship... :-)