Legion Rising

[shabbadoo]

Very nice. I always like to see how others scratch build stuff. Always good to see true modeling in practice. Edited December 24, 2011 by shabbadoo

[Excessus]

I have a ton of old metal termies, and really love the way they are detailed more than the current plastic ones...though I have always been put off using them because of their smaller size!

 

In the future, I will promptly steal your terminator idea...if I may... :P (strange, asking for permission to "steal" something, haha)

 

 

It's looking awesome so far, keep up the good work!

[Grimtooth]

If GW produced vehciles like this, they would be worth the price by far. Amazing plastic work, both on the extra decorations and the extra armor.

[Cain Tiberius Kondrad]

This is the first I have seen this thread, so skipped 75% of the text... But I have to say your plasticard abilities astound me! I am extremely impressed and will definatly be watching this blog. :tu:

 

I appologies if you have been asked this. But, how do you cut your plasticard with such fine detail with such neatness an accuracy? I use plasticard alot myself, and make so many mistakes and accidents, it drives me nuts some days. ^_^

 

Looking forward to more.

 

CTK

[Grimdarkness]

Just keeps getting better and better.

[Dark Apostle Thirst]

Love your approach to painting, very similar to my own. Great for those of us with less than steady hands ;) Only you seem to have much more skill than I, at least B)

[The Prophet]

Great plasticard work!

[Subtle Discord]

With the holiday season winding down, I've finally been able to return home and to my 'troll's cave'. My casting supplies also arrived while I was away, so I'm encouraged to get some stuff done. Before I start trying to make copies of the jump pack engine I built, I wanted to get the new Havoc Launcher finished so I can try doing it at the same time. This is what I finally came up with...

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_03.jpg

Chaos Havoc Launcher Mark 2B - Manufacture in progress

 

I actually built the first design that was shown earlier in this thread. It worked out well enough, but there were a few things that needed to be changed, and this was the final result. It still needs to be finished (rivets, trim, and missiles) but this gives a good idea where it's going.

 

Thanks as always to the positive comments, and to those who are curious about my methods, please keep reading my updates to this thread and my blog. I will be talking about my technique more, and showing step-by-step photos. My process is actually simple enough, but somewhat labour intensive, so it will take some effort of write up a break-down of how I build things like this. Sooner-or-later I will get around to it.

[The_Chaplain]

Oh my word, that havoc launcher is amazing. Please let us know how it turns out if you decide to resin cast it (and/or its availability for purchase *wink wink*)

[subtlebrush]

By the dark gods.......

That Havoc Launcher is beautiful!

 

+++Mr.M+++

[teku]

Damn you did an amazing job! Once again!

[alex567]

Hey, Alex here, I like the design and "simplicity" of the havoc launcher you have made, it looks nice and would look evan better mounted on a tank I recken, the only thing I dislike about it, well dont like as much as the rest I should say, is that it looks to loyalisty, nothing realy sais, look at me I'm chaos, mabe add something to it to give it that little "in yo face"-ness? some of that superbanding that you made would look nice although it would be realy difficult to make banding that small to fit in with the rest of the tank, i suppose. But yes, it looks nice and I am envious, if I ever do a chaos army, this will be the first thread I look at for ideas and help (and most likely the last!), keep up the good work.

[Subtle Discord]

Ok, I'm hooked on resin casting. Getting better at this is going to be fun.

 

As I had mentioned, I want two of the scratch built engine I made. I purposely constructed it with a few undercuts and details that I wanted to test. They could be filled and simplified with some greenstuff/milliput, but I wanted to see how well the mould would perform.

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Mould_01.jpg

The mould is a bit crude (and thick since I mixed a little too much rubber) but its performing well even with its flaws.

 

One thing I did notice was the few bubbles that did creep in to the mould made flaws that were actually very easy to remove from the final casting. A light cut/scrape with a razor, and they pop right off. A very good thing, and pleasant surprise.

 

I also choose to place the mould spit in a place that would be easier to clean, versus easier to de-mould the item. I'm happy that it worked out, and the part actually pops out very easy after a bit of twisting to break the seal.

 

After three failed tries pictured in the bottom, I had a technique down to avoid the bubbles that ruined them. By the fourth time, I was feeling confidant, and wanted to add some colour. I added a tiny bit of Black pigment, expecting it to dilute and turn Grey, but nope, the pigment is strong and I was pleasantly surprised by how Black it was. Oh, and it tuned out as close to perfect as I could hope, until I dropped it and managed to chip an edge. Oops. Oh well, I can make another. ;)

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Engine_05.jpg

I always like the steps that 'unify' an object (priming, major cleanup, and now add casting to the list), because you get to finally see it all come together.

 

Now, the Black colour is a mixed blessing. It really unifies the piece, and makes it look nice, but it also hides any bubbles under the surface. I know I'm going to have a few no matter what, but if they are in the right places and easy enough to find, and easy to repair. Until I can pressure cast to virtually eliminate bubbles, I'll stick to White.

 

Beyond that, I'm very pleased to see all of the fine details I constructed, including undercuts, turned out perfect with my final 'vibrate the hell out of it' technique. The only spot that's being a pain are the rivets. Only once did the majority of them turn out well, and even the last Black casting has several with bubbles. Strange considering they are on the bottom of the cast, and bubbles should rise out easier. I'll see what I can do.

 

Now that I've tested a bit, I'm confident at trying my hand on the Havoc Launcher I'm working on...

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_04.jpg

It still has some final greenstuff gap filling and rivets to get done, but it's coming along nicely.

 

If I ever build a 'missile pod' like this again, I know to build the rack of missile tips 'from the back'. Making a simple press mould to reproduce identical missile shapes was actually much easier than I expected. Getting them the same length is driving me insane. Even using a piece of metal tube as a jig didn't work as I had hoped. They are all very close, but not as close as I would like. And a few are crooked. I might need to file by hand. *Sigh*

 

Next time, I build from the back of the front plate before assembly, and I don't need to care if the 'stumps' look like crap on the back. They get enclosed and hidden. But, beyond that issue, this little toy will soon be ready to cast. I'm really hoping they'll turn out well.

 

[alex567]

Hey, Alex here, Just one thing....WOW, the havoc launcher looks EHPIKKKKK, It kinda reminds me of the kinda thing that you see on a futuristic plane where it opens out from under a wing from previously being hidden only to rain hell upon an enemy! It makes me want to convert a valkarie soooooooo badly, but yeah, nice, real nice, keep up the good work for evil? Always a pleasure to read your blog!

[the damned artificer]

I have lurked your thread for a while, and I must say I am very impressed not only with how awesome your black legion looks but your craftsman skills are so great, consider me a very big fan!

 

I love to see how much joy you're getting from casting, I myself have had tons of hobby pleasure from casting stuff in resin. As such I will share my perhaps best advice with you, instead of using a release agent on your moulds (which actually isn't necessary if you're using silicone moulds, as silicone and resin won't bind) use regular talcum, the same kind used by weightlifters and in latex gloves. The talcum makes the resin flow better, so just dust them of in the talcum so it leaves a thin layer and make sure it gets into all the recess and I assure you getting the rivets to show up will be much easier.

 

I will be following this thread closely.

[daemonclaw]

seriously astounded at how cool your plasticard work is :( you must have the patience of a saint,i have tried dabbling and find it very frustrating to get things right.

plus your ideas for the look of chaos creations is very inspiring i hope GW take a look at your vehicle designs if they ever get around to our codex (or even just updating or giving us some new stuff....even if its just some new running legs :) sorry rant over)

will be watching regularly to see what else you can dream up

[PsychosisPC]

Great looking work...love your stuff.

[jimmimellows]

Hi there brother. That launcher is looking very nice. You have the mouldmaking nailed by the look of it. You've built your mould the way our mouldmakers do them at work, including the little reliefs to lock both parts together. You get a knack for adding vents to the right places eventually, although it looks like your doing well so far. The damned artificer was spot on with the talc suggestion too, mould release can be a pain unless its a very large mould so that may help with the bubbles. A trick we use is to build our moulds into a box with an open top and a small hole in the bottom (so you can push the mould back out of the box with a pencil or something similar). We double sided tape the box to something that vibrates (so it can't fall off the vibrating object) once the mould is poured to encourage bubbles to the surface. We use a bobbin sander and sit our moulds on that for an hour whilst they cure, but a washing machine or similar may work just as well.

 

Ive been exploring the lasercutting and im still looking for alternatives to styrene, im going to ask one of our suppliers about it tomorrow,although it may be that we are limited to just acrylic. This is still fine for flat designs and to build up patterns for a mould to cast rhino sides etc, using the technique you have already, or even a simpler open topped mould if the sides are really thin. You can also, to some extent, bend the acrylic around curves a reasonable amount before it will snap. Hopefully i can demonstarte this on something soon.

 

I'll send you a more detailed PM soon, i promise. I have some pretty imminent deadlines at work for the next few weeks so my modelling is slowing down a lot (if thats even possible the rate i work at), ive only had a few hours to spare on here but dont give up on me.

 

Ill keep tuning in to this at every opportunity.

 

Well done and keep at it, you just keep getting even better.

 

jimmi

[Subtle Discord]

Wow... The LPC sure does have a way of stirring up activity. Wonderful to see. So much to look at, but so little time.

 

No rest for the wicked, however. It's been far too long since my last update, but I've been busy getting a new piece of equipment setup to help with my new resin addiction. A bit more on that later, but right now I want to show off the finished Havoc Launcher prototype that played lab-rat for my experimentation.

 

After doing a little research, with this piece I'm going to add to my fluff and start naming my builds after the Chaos Forge-World, Xana II.

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_05.jpg

Heretical Design: Xana II Pattern - Havoc Launcher - Mk 2

 

As I said before, I will never build a 'missile rack/pod' in this fashion again. Trying to get 12 tiny missile-tips even and loaded straight was a pain, to say the least. Next time, the missiles will be placed from the back and it will make it so much easier. Sometimes the order you do things has a huge impact, but having gotten this far, I finished it while learning a lesson. Needing to use super glue for them made it very unforgiving to make adjustments once I started placing each tip in its hole. A few are ever-so-slightly off, but it's hardly noticeable from any reasonable angle. Beyond that, I'm very happy with the final piece.

 

So, with this little bit all done, I set to making a mould, and trying some resin casts, with some very encouraging results. Unfortunately the white-on-white of the resin washes out some of the detail in the photos.

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_06.jpg

Yep, making a cast of something has a wonderful way of bringing it all together. So very satisfying.

 

I try to be very careful with my seam lines in the moulds, and it seems I'm on the right track. Most of the early casts had very acceptable mould lines, but there was the odd exception. I think more careful placement of the 'locking pins' in future moulds will make for even fewer miss-alignments. Time will tell.

 

One thing I had a very hard time with were bubbles. My work tends to have a lot of rivets, and they just love to hold air bubbles. Switching to Talc to dust the moulds as a release agent make a noticeable improvement. Vibrations and 'pinching' the mould also helped dislodge most major bubbles, but the little ones in the rivets remained no matter what I tried. Ok, so my designs might need just a little more help, but I was really close. So, I started researching pressure casting.

 

With pressure casting you pour the resin into the mould and place it in a pressure canister. From there you add 30+ PSI of pressure with a compressor while the resin sets. Between 40 and 50 PSI seems to be the most accepted sweet spot. Liquids don't compress nearly as easily as gas, so trapped air bubbles are 'crushed' while the resin sets, unable to expand once it's hard.

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_07.jpg

After this first pressure cast of the launcher, and seeing every single rivet formed perfectly, I was very happy with the difference.

 

The catch-22 with this technique is that you need to also create your mould under pressure to shrink the bubbles that might be trapped in the rubber. Otherwise they collapse during pressure casting, and cause 'pimples', spikes, and other oddities on the surface of an otherwise perfect casting. Looks like I need to make a new mould, and half of it is already curing in the pressure pot as I write this.

 

Another issue that cropped up was with the top-down pour gate at the top of the mould. Doing it directly into the top (Err.. well, I cast it upside-down, so the bottom is the top) has a habit of trapping larger bubbles in some places. Especially the missile-tips. Pressure can shrink bubbles considerably, even completely 'dissolving' little ones, but it takes massive pressure (That I can't do) to crush larger bubbles. By switching the pour gate to go under the item, and fill it from the bottom, I should see less trapped air. Once I have my new mould done, I'll show exactly what I'm talking about. I think it will help get the last tricky bubbles out.

 

And for those who are interested in the Daemon Prince project that started me on the road of resin addiction, here's where he's at...

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Chaos_Prince_01.jpg

With the metal Daemon Prince model having such a deep bent at the knees I feel adding a jump pack really adds an 'about to leap' look.

 

This little idea has turned out to be a bit trickier than I had first thought. Some have suggested that I should put the engines closer to the body, but in the end, it would have called for major changes to the 'bone-spines' that I wanted to keep. Also, as I started to add the arms, clearance started to become an issue. I don't want to make any other major changes to the pose of the model, so the engines will need to stay 'up-and-away' to make room.

 

I will definitely be bulking out the connections between the engines and the model, and adding piping to help fill it out. I'm still experimenting with making pipes on-the-cheap, since I don't really need that much. Pipe making kits I've see leave a little to be desired for what they are charging. I'll wait for someone to come out with a larger variety for the same price or less. In the mean time, I have many gauges of wire and plastic rod at my disposal, and I think I've got a good stand in.

 

This is still just a poster tack mock-up of the placement, but I think I'll be adding some plastic shims and wedges in a few spots to tilt the engines back a bit more, before merging the engines to the model with greenstuff/milliput. The pose of the model is deceiving, and these parts aren't nearly as symmetrical as they seem. After much shaping, minor bending, and lots of filing, I was able to get the balance I was looking for. The twist and lean of the pose can make the engines seem... off, but the bottom right picture shows that they are actually quite close.

 

I will get back to painting soon enough, but this is turning out to be a really enjoyable and useful distraction. I'm really thinking my army would benefit form some cast ammo-drums, and combi-weapon upgrades (both vehicle and hand-held), and some unique Dirge Casters, and maybe some new Smoke Launchers, and ooooo... the possibilities... Being able to make one prototype and replicate it makes an 'army-wide upgrade idea' so much less daunting.

Edited January 20, 2012 by Subtle Discord

[dustermaker]

This is probably my favorite thread EVER!! Amazing job on everything, I really like the work you do with plasticard! This will truly be an army to see once it is done!

[jimmimellows]

Spot on stuff again, only just spotted the update. Glad to see you're getting the results you wanted from your moulds, the castings are looking sweet and it sounds like you are enjoying yourself. I should have mentioned a pressure caster before but we rarely need to use one with larger scale things we do at work, so it didnt even cross my mind. Im sure that will eliminate pretty much all your bubbling issues. Glad the talc helped too.

 

Prince is looking sweet, i like the sound of what you have planned and cant wait to see it.

 

I'm halfway through writing a somewhat lengthy PM to you. I had to hit save so i can go to sainsburys and get some tea but i'll hopefully finish it tonight. Im really sorry its taken so long, i cant begin to describe how busy ive been both in and out of work. I've hit my major deadline today so hopefully my hobbying and forum lurking can pick up again.

[Iago]

Awesome work. Keep it up!

[Subtle Discord]

Eureka! I think I've got it!

 

I managed to get the second half of my new-and-improved launcher mould poured and pressurized just before bed last night. By morning the mould was set and the ready to go. Changing a few things with this mould made all the difference, and the results are excellent.

 

The very first thing I noticed with the pressure cast mould is its total lack of bubbles. I trim the corner edges of the moulds to clean the thick flashing. On the older moulds there were many little bubbles that get introduced when you mix the rubber before pouring. Even along these thin trim lines I could see several.

 

The new mould has no bubbles, anywhere, at all. Very nice!

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Mould_02.jpg

Better safe than sorry, I keep making my moulds a bit thick to avoid deformation of the part.

 

Beyond moving the fill channel to go under and fill from the bottom, I also added many more 'pins' to lock the mould halves together. Adding a 'bar' to the flat bottom of the launcher also gave a place for bubbles to rise and get trapped in. After I pour the resin, I take 20-30 seconds to vibrate the mould and slowly roll it around a bit. This helps release stubborn bubbles and gives them a chance to get caught in the vent 'bar'.

 

There's something about how the resin enters the part-cavity, from the bottom, that I think is the major factor at play here. With a top down pour there are too many ways to introduce bubbles to the casting. When it fills from the bottom, it 'pools and swells' from the bottom up, avoiding bubbles that give the pressure step a hard time. Taking the time to build the channel (from old model sprew) was worth it.

 

http://i1080.photobucket.com/albums/j332/SubtleDiscord/WIP%20Thread%20Photos/Havoc_Launcher_08.jpg

It's an ugly looking contraption, but it does beautiful things.

 

The pressure finishes the deal, and brings out every rivet, corner, and missile. The only bubbles I could find in this cast are shown in the bottom right picture, and they are very small and under the surface. *In his very best Montgomery Burns voice* ~ Excellent!

 

Now I just have to do it a few more time so I can make sure it wasn't just beginners luck. *Fingers crossed*

[juiced]

That looks amazing, keep up the awesome work.

[StrayCatt]

Some other casting tips. If you have a vibration setup to help with the bubbles, set the mold on it as you pour in the resin, it will help as well. Also, for annoyingly fine detail, you can brush the resin into those details before assembling the mold. In that way, you can be certain the details are filled. Casting in 2 stages like this does work.

 

-Adam