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Next tutorial: Chains

Handy for draping over models, or for securing stowage onto vehicles, chains can take a little practice to turn out neatly, but the basic technique is really very simple.

First off, tools... You'll need some putty, a hobby knife, a sculpting tool, a pair of tweezers, and a spike of some kind (the one I have pictured here with the yellow handle is from a cheap set of soldering tools). You will also want some water for dipping your tools as you work. A little water on the tool helps to stop it from sticking to the putty.

You will also obviously need something to sculpt the chain onto. You can sculpt it directly onto your miniature, or do it on a flat surface like a tile or spare base and glue it onto the miniature when it is set.


Step 1:

Roll out a thin sausage of putty between your fingers. Try to get the sausage a fairly even thickness, although it's not a big deal if you don't, as it can be trimmed down as you go. Press this sausage into place on your miniature or work surface.











Step 2:

Flatten the sausage of putty down using your sculpting tool, to the thickness that you want the chain.










Step 3:

If your flattened sausage is a little too wide, you can trim it down to size with a knife. The width is really up to you... it all just comes down to how you want the chain to look. I would recommend trying a few different thicknesses and widths for practice, just to see how they turn out.










Step 4:

Take the tweezers and pinch the putty in regular intervals along the length of the sausage. This forms the upright links of the chain.










Step 5:

Using your spike, press a hole into the putty in between each of the raised links you have just created.










Step 6:

Now you need to define the links a little better. Take your knife and cut a small line into the putty along the edge of each of the raised links. This line should run from the centre of the indent in the side of the chain to the side of the hole you made with the spike, on each side and both ends of the raised link.









Step 7:

Now, take your spike and press an indent into each side of the raised links. You can push the spike right through if you like, although that can be tricky to do without seriously warping your links, and is generally not necessary on smaller chains. Shading in the indents when you paint it will be sufficient to look the part.

If any of your links are a little deformed, you can touch them up with the sculpting tool at this point. If the raised links are sitting a little too flat, you can lift them up a little with the spike when you make the indents by just pulling gently upwards.







And there you have it: one chain.

There's a pretty much infinite amount of variety you can give to the look of it by just changing the thickness and width of the initial putty sausage, altering the length of the links, and tinkering with the final shape of the links, making them square or more rounded.



Edit: a couple of minor tweaks for clarity

As always a very nice tutorial.

Agreed very nice. Always makes we wonder why there are not more chains and skulls in the 40k universe. JK Nice work. Thanks for posting.

Insaniak... I have no words. You manage to make all sculpting look so easy!
One of thees days I will try it, definitel!

Please keep posting more!


//Edge

this is perfect for my CSM, great as always!

More more more. Insaniak = sculpting tutor of pure awesome sauce.

dude, that is insanely awesome.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
(no pun intended)

Of course the pun was intended , no?'


//Edge

Cheers have been looking for a way to make chains for a while.

legionier alpha IV wrote:Cheers have been looking for a way to make chains for a while.

So have i

I so love this tutorial i have made some chains and leaves and rope myself and im very pleased with the result. thanks.

@insaniak
p.s. do you mind me posting some of these tuts on another forum???.

cheers.

The amount of new, good tuts here never cease to amaze. Thanks for another great one.

I must say, nice job, but what brand putty were you using? It looks very nice, and I am somewhat frustrated with the price of Green Stuff.

Sure looks like greenstuff to me... Anyway this is a nice tutorial. The only issue I can see is that only 1 side of the chain will be sculpted, which might be a problem for a hanging chain where you can see both sides...

Nice tutorial. should try it out, thanks.

nice tut

thanks, I was planning on making some chains and this just saved me some trial and error

Nice

Would a toothpick be enough for the spike you speak of ?

Great tutorial

You know what else could work. Buy real chains (small doh) but instead put them in salt water. Leave them for a month and they will rust.Then again this could work too.

micahaphone wrote:I must say, nice job, but what brand putty were you using? It looks very nice, and I am somewhat frustrated with the price of Green Stuff.

It's Green Stuff in the tute. You can get it much cheaper (and in bigger packages) than GW sells it if you shop around.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

gretar wrote:Would a toothpick be enough for the spike you speak of ?

A toothpick would probably work just fine.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Dreadnought96 wrote:You know what else could work. Buy real chains (small doh) but instead put them in salt water. Leave them for a month and they will rust.Then again this could work too.

Once you start them rusting, they will continue to do so. So ultimately not the best solution.

The main reason to sculpt chains instead of using real chain is that it can be a paint to get real chain to hang right and stay where you want it.

Nicee

I just made one and it looks awesome, Thanks for the tutorial.

Holy Crap Green Stuff Awesomeness!

wow you make it look so easy and i have all of these tools so ill be trying this for sure

Looks great! It gets really tedious to put them on Chaos Tanks though. UGH.

Cool Tutorial, and now i know how to sculpt a chain, thanks!

Chain Bases. Aces! IMO Chains are like skulls: You can never have enough.

Thats a nice tutorial. I'm definetly going to give this a try.

sillyboy

this is an amazing tutorial, it will help tying a lot of stuff together.. and its easier then the skulls from the skull tut, which is a good tut but i just cant pull it off