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So when I have bits of extra Green Stuff after I make something, I'll either stick it onto the bottom of someone's base for extra weight, or cover up tiny bit or detail on a close at hand fig to make a little mold. I wanted to try out an idea I had for improving on my plastic melting/molding technique so I went with the later option. I think it turned out well. Now all I need is to make up Inquisitor or something wearing a Fedora.

that is FRIGGING AWESOME.

I have to agree, that is 100% dead hard. Now I'm trying to think up reasons to do a squad with green, light-up heads. Maybe Immortals? Great stuff.

What was the method breakthrough?

That is awesome. How did you do the back of the head though? Did you have a second half of the mold?

Instead of trying to melt the stuff in the spoon like I was befor, I just got a longer rod of sprue, melted the end, and pressed it into the mold.

No mold for the back of the head, there's no detail back there. I just left excess material back there and dremeled it down to the round shape.

Oh, a further note if anyone thinks they want to mess with this kind of thing. Remember that everyone's getting their new 5th edition sets next month that comes with the sprues of templates and counters. It's probably the same or very close to it plastic as the Necrons use. I know I for one will be asking everyone for their sprues once they take the important stuff off.

how did you get it to come out of the mold? you should do a tutorial on this for sure, its the coolest conversion idea i've seen in a while.

that is FRIGGING AWESOME.

is it Necron green, or Brown and Green Tree Green? I figured it was the latter.

now having said that maybe you could get some kind of cheap plastic at a hobby store.

Very cool!

Just remember to do this in a well ventilated area, especially if you're working with large quantities of plastic.

It's the clear green plastic that comes with the Necrons.

Cover up a random bit or cool surface detail with green stuff and let that set for awhile. Hold a piece of plastic sprue over an open flame (i use my gas stove and a pair of pliers) till it's good and soft. Don't put it IN the flame or it will blacken. Then just shove it into the mold as much as you can, run it under cold water for a few seconds to solidify it, and pop it out.

that scarab is very cool,

have you made any attempts at using a larger quantity of plastic other then for small parts?

Last night I filled some gaps on my demon princes and I had this big lump of GS left over. I looked around my desk, could think of NOTHING to do with it (my ogres have all the gut magic tokens they could ever need :S) so I squished together a rough torso shape to go with the grinning head I made with the previous night's leftover putty ...

... and all this time I could have been making little molds of useful things. Dammit

- Salvage

Have you had any trouble with things sticking to the greenstuff and distorting the mould or being hard to remove? The only times I have done greenstuff moulding I added a small bit of vaseline to the greenstuff mix which stopped it from sticking to anything but itself, making it a lot easier to make a mould, but you have not mentioned having that problem?

EDIT

Who's he selling them to? In the US pretty certain that's the clincher.

- Salvage

Illegal as in he could get arrested, or fined? No.
I doubt that he could sell these on Ebay without GW throwing a fit, and he probably couldn't use them at Games Day, but that is about it.

EDIT

LEGAL DISCLAIMER JUST IN CASE -- Boss_Salvage has not authorized nor condoned the casting of complete Warhammer miniatures for personal use, even when explicitly not intended for resale or personal monetary gain.

- Salvage, who has heard of it done though, generally with certain resin miniatures if you get his drift

Okidan_Champion wrote:so you are telling me I can make full casts of my marines, termies, as long as I dont sell them or play in a tourney?

ok... never buying another GW product again.

I think there's a degre of common sense to be used here. Obviously they can't control what you do in your own home, and secondly a small amount of casting to make conversions is generally accepted of modellers by manufacturers. If people model more, they sell more, the hobby expands. Many people make something new (say an embossed marine shoulder pad) and cast many for their army. That's rather different to recasting figures wholesale.

Ok there's a bit of grey, but then again common sense will see people through most situations.

Not to mention that casting whole figs is a giant pain in the ass and generally takes alot more time and effort than it wouild take to just buy them. You could make the money to buy the real figs, then buy them, and be done much sooner than if you were to cast them.

Not had any problems with stuff sticking to the molds with the exception of a tiny bit of area around the scarab eye, which you can see the gold pain on the mold. I attribute that to the scarab I used was actually a small conversion itself, where I had drilled out the eye and replaced it with a tiny piece of green plastic. He's the familiar of one of my Lords.

It would probably be a pain to do anything much larger, what with getting the plastic melted down good and then spread over or into the area you need it in the few seconds you have before it starts to harden. That same issue and more would keep me from trying to do this on any kind of large scale to make whole figs.

Still perfecting/learning tricks to this, as sometimes they'll come out missing detail, other times they won't, and I'm not sure what I did different that effects it.

DeathGod wrote:Not to mention that casting whole figs is a giant pain in the ass and generally takes alot more time and effort than it wouild take to just buy them. You could make the money to buy the real figs, then buy them, and be done much sooner than if you were to cast them.

Very true. The amount of work, and investment to make good looking casts is pretty serious. I have cast my own parts in the past, and enjoy doing so, but I havn't cast any designs that aren't my own because I can buy them instead for much less work.

i'm just excited about the idea of taking a new level of design to mini's. I've already started thinking of making shoulderpads like this for my veterans and giving them a wash with the new wash set.

okay your obviously a lot better at this then me. my attempts rendered some smoking plastic that fell onto the heatplate, and some messed up half skull things.

I remember an old water effects thing I found that worked somewhat the same way, melting little pellets and pouring them out. I wonder if GW's water effects with dye could give you a full range of see through plastic coolness.

What do you use to get the mold to release? I tried just water but ended up trashing one of my last chaos star shoulder pads when the GS wouldn't come off and I had to tear it off ... I hear vaseline is good but I didn't have any handy.

- Salvage

Normal hand lotion does the job well, too. That or whatever kind of lotion you have handy

Boss_Salvage wrote:What do you use to get the mold to release? I tried just water but ended up trashing one of my last chaos star shoulder pads when the GS wouldn't come off and I had to tear it off ... I hear vaseline is good but I didn't have any handy.

- Salvage

I used vasoline and it works great, also make sure you leave a little bit sticking out to grab onto. when you run it under cold water it should release.

I haven't used anything for a mold release yet. If I did, it would probably be PAM just because that's about the only nonstick thing I have.