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

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

1. 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. 
2. White glue
3. A punctured piece of 1 mm plasticard
4. Static grass - in this case Noch's wildgrass - mittelgrün
5. A piece of sheet copper, brass, aluminium etc. shaped like on the picture
6. A piece of plastic foil, sturdier than a plastic bag or foil wrap
7. 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.

Riveting - a mini tutorial

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!

Designing a chapter Part 2. - Chapter Insignia

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