Quick Links: TableTop-World

Table Top World is a new resin terrain company creating fantasy buildings.  Not only do they have 3 three very nice kits to launch their web store, but their build style is completely unique.  When creating a stone effect, they literally use stone to create the model.  Read all about the method in this interview with the owners/sculptors on Cianty’s Tabletop Wargames. Additional images posted to photobucket.

Full Set Lava Bases

The new demon armies provide gamers the opportunity to play one set of models for both 40K and WFB.  The lava bases project is for a friend of mine who wanted a complete set of bases for an upcoming chaos army project.  All that’s needed is either a pinning or magnet system to flip an army from one system to the other.

The bases are green stuff/procreate over plastic bases.  Texture is applied with a concrete rock, then lava channels are added with a wire hook tool and a standard sculpting tool.  Hardest part of the whole project was mixing up all the green stuff – the bases used up a 30 inch roll of GS.  I spent more time mixing than sculpting.   FYI – don’t let your green stuff lay around too long.  The roll I used was stored in the freezer for 6 years, causing the yellow portion to develop a skin that mixed poorly with the blue portion.

The bike/cavalry bases are designed to go from square to round.  The square cav base slots into the open space on the round bike base.

40K collection

25mm round – resin bases

WFB collection

25mm square

Quick Links: Alkemy Jungle board

Fabulous 4×4 jungle temple board created for the Alkemy game.

Drop by the Alkemy forums for 27 more pics of this board, discussion in French. Work-in-Progress shots also on Alkemy. Discussions in English by the builder on Wyrd forums.

Construction appears to be mostly foam board shaved to fit with details scribed in pencil. Statues could be aquarium pieces. Figures in relief are gaming figures. All terrain items are modular – enhancing the playability of the board.

I particularly like this board because it would be so flexible to play on. Alkemy is a medieval fantasy game, but the board would work equally well for pulp adventure or High Seas with a eastern spin.

Update 12-3-2008:  updated forum link for the jungle board. Th original forum post was hacked.  Follow this link to see the rest of the pics.

Hex Nut Challenge: Clay Molding

Using art clay to mold and manufacture scale Hex Nuts.  Jedion357 threw down a challenge on TerraGenisis to create a DYI Hex Nut.  Colonel Shofer suggested a latex mold using 2 part epoxy as the casting agent.  Brain storming on the idea, I suggested using art clay as an alternitve mold material.  The Colonel asked that I follow up with the project.

Hex Nut casting using 2 part epoxy and resin as casting materials.  Resin on the left hand side, epoxy on the right.  Impressions taken from a 4mm hex tool head and a 1/8 square plastic rod.  The resin setup without bubbles and cleaned up from the clay with minor effort.  The epoxy suffered a 50% failure rate from bubbles and still seemed a bit rubbery 24 hours after casting.  The cleanup was a bit of a pain – the epoxy is clear & it is rather difficult to identify what material is the casting and what is flash.  I would recomend resin as the prefered casting material for DYI Hex Nuts.

Alien Drinking Hole 3

The Alien Drinking Hole is painted in a purple with red accept scheme.  Base coat was first a spray of black paint, then a spray of purple paint.  The rough ribbed base dry brushed easily, taking coats of paint with little effort.  As usual, I had a bit of trouble with highlights.  First efforts were done with purple mixed with bleach bone, but I was left with an underwhelming pasty color.  At that point, I added red as an accent & pounded on the high lights to bring the eye up the body of the terrain.  Final touch is a bit of two part water effect in the basin to add the “drinking” portion of the “hole.”  The water effect is tinted with a bit of orange, but the ink effect is very minimal.

 

Alien Drinking Hole 2

Sculpting for the alien drinking hole is complete. A standard one-piece mold was created to copy the base of the hole, but for the tusks – I was able to try out my first 2 part mold. Art clay worked like a charm to hold the master while the first layer of RTV was poured. I used Smooth-On’s Universal Mold Release to little effect, the RTV halves firmly bonded to each other. My only recourse was to cut the master out of the rubber. Fortunately, the RTV smoothly cut away from the master, giving me a functional mold. Four casts later & I have all the parts to complete the project.

   

Gear and Piston Base Kit

Gear & Piston Basing Kit for use with 40K, WarMachine, AT43 and other miniature gaming figure bases. Each kit contains 12 resin cast-basing pieces, which are applied ad hoc to manufacture supplied bases. Now each figure can have a unique presentation, adding character and interest to individual bases.

Gears

Gears are an under used basing theme in 40K.  Trying to find found objects with the large, stylized, cogs needed for hobby work is a tough challenge.  In this project, I’ll see about making my own gears for use in an objective marker.

Time to fall back on my stand by:  clay molding.  Way back at the beginning of this blog Scott asked – “how much detail will the clay hold for the plaster?”  The answer is, a whole lot.  I set about making my gears using several diameters of PVC pipe to shape the main wheel and a 1/8 square of styrene to shape the cogs.  The clay faithfully held all of my poking and prodding, even the square edge of the 1/8 shape.  Scott asked if a skull shape could be used:  unfortunately, the undercut from the roundness of the skull will be lost.  The one thing clay can’t do is snap back into place to hold an under cut, only directly vertical strokes will be captured. 

Resin is used to fill the impressions in the clay.  If cast in plaster, the small sized pieces will not have the strength to survive the demold if cast in plaster.  When cured, remove the shapes.  The resin did not release cleanly from the clay (unlike the plaster) and I had to spend quite a bit of time cleaning the product.  Over all, the process was too time consuming, although I did get a good feel for the shapes I wanted to create.  In the future, I’ll cut rounds from the PVC using a pipe cutter & glue on cogs from styrene.  The one item that did work well was the 60mm base.  The impression was clean & I now have a raised tile pattern (which is not something you see every day.

End product:  sealed with super glue, gaps filled with Apoxie sculpt and ready for the mold box.

New casting supplier in La Grange

Reynolds Advanced Materials acquired PSH Industries of La Grange, IL – or so says their advertising flier.  ReynoldsAM carries Smooth-On products, as well as a variety of other casting materials.  

Cool, a local distributor that I can drive to & pick up supplies.  My last resin shipment cost me $14.00 S/H, and that’s only going to get worse as gas prices keep climbing.   Even better, the on line catalog lists a full range of Gypsum products – excellent news, since my last supplier stopped selling Hydrostone. 

Gave the place a call and it all went down hill from there.  The business is still very much a work in progress.  They do have Smooth On ready to sell, but not much else – no casting plaster.  Office hours are 8:30am to 5:00pm M-F, with a show case opening some time in the next few months.  Not the most convenient, but I could manage to drop in if I took of from work early.

Over all, a very disapointing impression after the very exciting web site/catalog & the expense of buying my name & address from smooth on.  I’ll hang on for a few months and see if they get their act together.

Ruin Bases 3

The ruin/rune base project is nearly complete.  The RTV mold is finished, below are pics of the first round of resin casting.  All that remains is to get a batch painted up.