W.I.P. Howling Hounds a.k.a. Manshee: Weapons

Work in progress pics of the weapons for the Manshees.

I used Kneadatite Brown/ Aluminum Expoxy Putty (aka Brown Stuff) this time to sculpt the weapons instead of the usual green stuff I work with.

It is much more harder than green stuff when cured and is much more suitable material for carving, scraping and sanding; green stuff tends to be too soft and flexible.

I find it much easier to get sharper edges and crisper shapes with this material.

Happy Chinese New Year!! 2012 Year of the Dragon

Kung Hei Fat Choi!

 龍年行好運

    

May the Year of the Dragon Bring you all joyous prosperity!

More adventures in Casting: Shoulder Pads

The first cast with this mold:

The bottom of the  two part mold wasn't clamped together tightly enough. This made the resin leak out the bottom and failed to cast one of the shoulder pads entirely.

Fortunately, enough of the resin got through the mold to cast 3 of the 4 shoulder pads.

There are still some holes from air bubbles but they are fine overall.

I should of injected water into the mold to see if and where it leaks. I'll be sure to test it first from here on.

Here's my second attempt:

I'm fairly pleased with the result :)

 

Needs some clean up, particularly the goofy balls in the eye sockets, but otherwise it's a clean cast with only one air bubble hole in the lot.

More Adventures in Mold Making: Shoulder Pads

Here's my attempt at casting shoulder pads.

I got careless and forgot to spray the release agent before pouring the second half of the mold. 

I had to cut it at the edges and tear it apart by hand; with any luck I should still be able to get usable casts.

Further Adventures in Casting

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Another attempt at casting:

This time I managed to get the resin to travel through the mold and out the top.

Lots of air bubbles in this one. But at least I have a miniature figure of sorts :)

The figure with the arms is missing her left hand and all the faces and helms suffer from air bubbles.

So I cut more vents into the mold to let the air escape, with the following result:

It is better than the first cast but there are still too many air bubbles.
 

I used green stuff on one of the figure to fill in all the holes left by the air bubbles. The air bubbles on the heads are particularly problematic since it disfigures the face. I had to re-sculpt the nose and mouth.

I made several further attempts at casting with similar results. I tried vibration, rotating and talc powder to no avail :(

I think I got too ambitious with getting all the parts in a single mold, resulting in a mold that doesn't allow proper flow of  resin (and air) through it.

I ran out of the mold making material since I wasted a lot of it during these lessons. When my order arrives I'll I'll try making a simpler mold that is more optimized for air flow.

Wish me luck!

First Cast = Epic Fail :(

Saturday, Dec 3, 2011

The finished two part mold:

The first cast!

Epic fail! :)

There wasn't enough pressure for the resin to push out the air and flow through the mold.

It all back-flowed out of the top instead, leaving me with a mess of plastic resin :(

At least the resin is easy to clean up once it hardens; you just need to pry it off.

Next time I'm going to enlarge the sprue area to allow for better flow and use a syringe to inject the resin.

My First Try at Mold Making

Wednesday, Nov 30, 2011

I finally got around to trying my hands at mold making and casting.

I used the Pourable Silicone Starter Kit from Smooth On for this:

 http://www.smooth-on.com/Pourable-Silicone-/c1217/index.html

Here are the figures placed into the clay up to the parting line for each of the parts:

Close up of the parts:

 

Added vents for the resin to flow through and release air:

Front side of the mold done:

Backside of the mold poured:

I apparently took too much time before pouring since the mixture started hardening as I did so. It resulted in a lumpy surface on the outside. With any luck the actual mold surface inside is fine.

I must not have mixed the two parts equally since the front and back side of  the molds are rather different in color. One is a lighter blue and other more purplish. I wonder which one is the correct color for a proper mixture?