Clay Molding
What 40K gaming table is complete with out craters, rubble and trenches. A fast solution is to make a fast and dirty (pardon the pun) mold from clay and cast the mold in plaster.
Supplies
Clay - an oil or synthetic based art clay. Softer the better. I found a block at my local art store for about $8.00.
Rock - a sturdy piece of textured rock aka concrete to use as the main digging tool.
Assorted cast off pieces - Flat strips, squad bass wood stripping, textured plastic -any thing that can add a bit of distinction from the rock texture.
Flatten the clay into a rough square 4 inches by 4 inches by 1 inch thick. Right out of the package, the clay can be hard to work with. Spend some time kneading it like bread to get a softer consistency.
Dig into the clay with the rock or other primary sculpting tool. Rough out the basic structure of the mold. In this example, I’m aiming for a ‘C’ like hole to serve as a dug in, fox hold like, position.
The mold cavity is now about 4 inches long and 2 inches wide. After opening the initial hole with the rock, I used a flat tile to make like concrete panels with re-enforced beams created with a 1/4 inch square of bass wood.
Cast plaster into the mold cavity. Once the plaster sets, demold the product & check out your handy work. After a day or two, clean off the excess plaster and sand the bottom to get a flat base. Depending on how gentle you were demolding the plaster, you may be able to get a second or third cast out of the same mold. The clay is re-usable, go ahead and fashion a new obstacle & cast again!
Plaster, no matter the quality, is not the sort of thing you want to throw directly on the gaming table. A few options:
- Glue the cast to a small sheet of MDF or an old CD. Flock and paint to match the rest of the table.
- Use the cast as a master in an RTV mold. Switch to resin as the material of choice & cast up a whole battle field of terrain.
This is such a cool idea. I used to have some of that clay when I was a kid.
How much detail will it hold/ transfer to the plaster? It would be cool to make piles of skulls or somthing morbid like that with this method.
SK
Comment by Scott — February 2, 2007 @ 4:52 pm
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