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Hey Slinky, that's the page. I remember really loving that pencil drawing of the Ambull. There are some goofy critters on those pages, Astral Hound... maybe my next sculpt should be one of those clam things? Oysters anyone?

Anyway - I popped out last night's cast and the additional vents really made a huge difference. Both molds fill up to the top, there were a few other bubbles but nothing that can't be filled in. Now I've got to vacuum the resin before I pour it and I think I'll be able to pull decent-full casts out. I'll get pics on ASAP.

The one I got last night is good enough to be painted, so I'll try to prime it and get something going there as I proceed with more castings. Like I've written - my goal is to have a finished, based, painted herd of Ambulls shown on this thread.

Merry Christmas, Happy Christmas and Happy Boxing Day!

Cool, an astral hound could be fun to make, maybe you could have it half in and half out of warp space, like in the rouge trader book?

Razorwings also look cool, can't wait to see your new casts!

Merry Christmas and happy Hanukkah,

-Alex.

alexgm101: Sorry but, Chanukah had ended about 15days before you wrote that.

But thanks anyway, and be merry etc in if any thing you celebrate, even if it is just double pay day

All three casts shown together, top to bottom (in white). The third is the most complete and shows the capability of the mold to fulfill all cavities. I'll continue to generate these. Next step will be to trim away the flash and the vents (including the pour spout, which will require sawing, I should have engineered that slightly differently) and assemble a few finished models.

I may use the first few 'priming' casts for scrap arms to alter the poses. Conversions on the casts, as it were.

Looking nice! How many will you cast for a squad?

Good stuff Ambull

Awesome stuff.

If you plan to make a bunch of these or some additional creatures you might want to look at getting a pressure vessel. Curing the resin at 40 to 60 psi will take care of most of your air bubbles and give you a much better cast.

Personally, I'd like to see some ptera squirrels next

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_yQ0gnzU3SFk/SzId-d5tfnI/AAAAAAAAA7c/alrZKchnqXw/s1600-h/ptera-squirrel.JPG

Hi,
I really like your sculpt and because I will in future cast my own sculpts I was searching all over different forums for helpfull tips.
I found something which may be helpfull for you too.
http://www.amazon.de/Genius-31067-Timer-Vakuum-Dosen/dp/B000OM6P3A/ref=sr_1_6?ie=UTF8&qid=1293653839&sr=8-6

Those are plastic bins (?) which hold food fresh, they are equipped with a small ventil and a vacuum pump to suck the air out.
It is commonly used in casting for historical models as seen belov in this link:
http://www.modellversium.de/galerie/2-ausstellungen/4335-pmc-suedpfalz-ausstellung-2009-teil-1-verschiedene-hersteller.html

Its only in German but the pictures are good enough I think.
The trick is to put the silikonmould with the freshly poured resin into the bin and pump out the air out of it.
It will "suck" the airbubbles out of the resin, it is only important that it is not a very fast curing one.
I know it is far from professional casting but it may improve your results.
Im sure you will be able to find some at you local store or Amazon or Ebay.

This may have allready been covered but why is there so much flash?

I just love the flash - naw, it's a clamping thing, not too much of a concern, most of it is wafer thin and flakes right off when touched.

Again, this is not really the right way to go about any of this, but it's simply my way of getting some copies of this guy. I worked with a home-made vacuum chamber some years back and it really works well.

If anyone has not seen the casting work of Sersi then go get a huge portion of whatever food it is that you enjoy, beverage as well, tell everyone that you are ill and won't see them for a few days and look at this: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/235930.page

There is a lot of practical guidance for pressure and vacuuming and dealing with air-bubbles. Like I wrote, I have to see a man about metal casting. I anticipate seeing them next week.

A pro quality sculpt ridiculously faithful to the artwork, great job! My only problem, and it's a big one, is why the ambul?! It's gotta be the dumbest looking alien in the RT brb, i mean even the Jokaero look alot cooler and they are space orangatans... Will have to wait for 'sculpting a Jokaero in greenstuff'....

I thought the warp-hound thing was dafter by far - or the mega stoat. I like the ambul - It does slightly have the character of a B-movie monster but that was the style back then

the ambul is the personification of retro, in a good way...

Yeah, gotta love the b-movie styling of the ambull, ptera-squirrels now..or the bouncers - although they get bonus points for the DarkStar ref

Hey how about casting up some Catachan face-eaters next?

It's a good question - why choose a strange, obscure creature who is rarely even thought of these days? I had Rogue Trader on my mind, and quite honestly I miss the humor and the tongue in cheek nature of old GW material. I think it's too serious and it's lost some personality. The Ambull is simply a cool example of the weird style of the late eighties Warhammer stuff. I am already thinking about what humanoid to try as the next sculpt, but things are a bit up in the air as my workspace has been shifted around a bit and needs some re-organization.

I owe everyone here pics of an assembly of an Ambull, and I will post that soon.

How about the Grox or the oversized T-Rex?

I continue to be amazed great stuff man!

Outstanding work!

I've got a pair of the originals and just dug them out last night...was looking for what type of demand there was in the 40k environment for them as I don't play the game any longer and found this thread, you've done a marvelous job at reproducing the originals. Here's a shot of them for comparison for you.

That's awesome! Those old Citadel sculpts were really weird, this photo proves it, very odd proportions. I anticipate putting mine on round bases.

now that i see these old ones, what scale are yours by the way, i think we never saw a reference shot...
to tell the truth i always picture them a bit bigger than IGs...but now i guess there just average human size?...

vik

I have no clue what scale mine is, I made it to be a little bigger than an old-style marine. I'll get a ref pic up soon.

that would be cool, thanks in advance

vik

Ambull wrote:I have no clue what scale mine is, I made it to be a little bigger than an old-style marine. I'll get a ref pic up soon.

In that case, it'll be about the same size as a current Imperial marine. It'll probably be a bit wider though.


@absolute_d, would you be interested in selling one of them?

Seriously thinking about doing an astral hound, could be fun. Anyway - time has not been plentiful lately, but I've got this picture here showing a comparison in size to an old metal Rogue Trader era marine (painted about 15 years ago, maybe more).



and I've been casting more, good results, need to trim prime and paint, workspace is getting back in line:

finally a shot to compare them with genuine sms...i am rather glad to see the abull being larger than the SM as now i see they are fluffy to hell^^

great worke mate here

vik

Looking awesome, my vote would be for a Gyrinx or a Jokaro next

Just putting in what I think you could do next...

...a Imperial Minotaur...

?

Progress: I've got a bunch of casts that I primed with some garbage ancient primer but it will be enough to set up a few decent assembled Ambulls. That's going on and I'm still fighting hard to re-establish my work-area to get some more time in on this project. In the mean-time, I've decided to prepare for the finished piece by creating the basic base for these guys. A master will be created and then molded and cast. I know I could easily go and buy some ready-made bases but I'm a glutton for useless work.

1.5" sounds about right and measures up nicely against the figure. I'm going to carve (carve? how the hell... yes, bear with me... I'll show you how...) the perfectly round base from laminated sheet styrene.

Always keep a healthy inventory of scrap styrene around, because you never know when you'll need it:

Having seen the original sculpt and now yours to compare, yours is better, more true to the RT I think. Great work. I never cease to be impressed every time I check this thread.

Thanks Skalk! I appreciate it.

I'm going to explain how I've done the base, as succinctly as possible, over the course of a few posts. You may believe that I have lost my marbles when going to such a ridiculous extent to create something that can probably be had off of ebay for a tiny sum, but that is the risk I take when divulging methods.

Without styrene the proper thickness, I need to laminate thinner sheets together. I measure 2" squares and cut them out by first scoring along a steel edge and then cracking the piece away:



In this way I yield the proper stack for the right base-thickness:


But there is a crucial point that needs to be attended to when laminating pieces of cut styrene together: the burr that is produced while cutting. I've done these simple sketches to illustrate the problem:


this burr prevents stacked pieces from mating properly, because of the subtle gap produced (exaggerated for the sketch):


But this is overcome simply by scraping a bit off the edges, producing a bevel so that the pieces will truly glue together, surface to surface:


I choose to sand the edges of things being glued to create a 'tooth' for the glue to work its bond. A mild sandpaper will do the trick, nothing too rough though or the texture will be too strong:


Once beveled and sanded I apply a liberal amount of hideous smelling styrene glue (any type that dissolves the plastic to create the bond) to BOTH surfaces (in this case the three layers were done in stages) and clamp them together. I use a pair of decent hand-clamps with pieces of plywood to provide more uniform pressure.
Contents under pressure:


Sandwich:


More coming. Thanks again for tuning in.