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That's just press moulding. Here look press-mould master scibor has a guide here...http://www.sciborminiatures.com/en_,sculpting.php?id=571

Although you'll actually find a lot of that stuff is done using cad machines to make the moulds.

Wow, well that explains how to make intricate fine detail...thanks for the link whatwhat.

Anybody any advice on how long to leave putty before shaping it. For example...I have managed to make some half decent straps for my Ork Kommandos out of Pro-create but found the best way was to leave it till it was beginning to harden, cut it into strips then gently stretch it and press into place on the model.


This picture shows the strapping I made holding the Kommando's respirator and knife in place



More kit held in place. Not fantastic but it did the job.

Cypher871 wrote:Wow, well that explains how to make intricate fine detail...thanks for the link whatwhat.
Anybody any advice on how long to leave putty before shaping it. For example...I have managed to make some half decent straps for my Ork Kommandos out of Pro-create but found the best way was to leave it till it was beginning to harden, cut it into strips then gently stretch it and press into place on the model.
This picture shows the strapping I made holding the Kommando's respirator and knife in place
More kit held in place. Not fantastic but it did the job.

It looks fantastic actually, give yourself some credit!

How did you make the straps btw? some sort of gray stuff? ( green stuff variant? )

Lunahound wrote:
It looks fantastic actually, give yourself some credit!

How did you make the straps btw? some sort of gray stuff? ( green stuff variant? )

Thanks Lunahound, I am really a sculpting newb so using putty properly is a bit of a hit and miss afair for me, hence my plea for direction
The 'greystuff' is called pro-create...I thought I would give it a try.

Cypher871 wrote:The batches of GS I have made up have hard lumps in it too...I am sure there is something wrong with my pack!

Not so much something wrong with your pack, specifically, as a general problem with green stuff sold in ribbons. Where the blue and yellow meet it will often partly cure, which forms little hard lumps.

You can buy tubes of green stuff that have the blue and yellow packaged completely seperately. They're not quite as convenient to work with, as you can't just cut an appropriately-sized piece off the end to get an even amount of blue and yellow like you can with the ribbon, but they last a lot longer and don't have the same problem with lumps. And they work out a lot cheaper than GW's little blister pack...

I (and I bet loads of others) would love to see a guide on mixing proportions for different projects, how long to leave it starting to cure before using it etc. How to build up layers and model fine detail and so on.

To be honest, a lot of this comes down to individual sculpting style and exactly what you're making. I don't mix in different proportions... If I want harder edges, I just use ProCreate, or let the green stuff set and then slice it into shape, rather than messing about with green stuff component quantities.

Likewise, while a lot of sculptors let the putty partially set for certain jobs, I don't have the patience.

Fine detail... that's really down to the specific detail. Something that I'm hoping to cover more of in future tutorials...

Thanks for the advice Insaniak...I have spent most of my evening trawling the net looking for some good general advice and found some useful tidbits. I also bought a couple of the rolls you mentioned but had to get them on ebay as no-where in the UK sells them (at least not that I could see). Cost me £29 including shipping...bit steep but oh well.

Seriously looking forward to more of your tutorials.

Where can you get these rolls of GS, the Warstore?

ATTENTION! AWESOME SCULPTING TUTORIAL FOUND!

http://www.miez.nl/putty-n-paint/tutes/sculpting_tut01.pdf

Lots of cool things in here. Found it doing the same thing, cruising around on the net looking for stuff.

Thanks for the links Bursley and Whatwhat,I also wanted to try start sculpting these tutorials will help alot.

Heresy Miniatures have the separate tubes of GS:

http://www.heresyminiatures.com/tools.htm

I still have about 30" of the ribbon style unfortunately. :( Will be buying the rolls next time though!

Thanks for the links guys...very helpful...I completely forgot about Heresy, I have bought some of their models before...nice sculpts.

Cypher871 wrote:Wow, well that explains how to make intricate fine detail...thanks for the link whatwhat.

Anybody any advice on how long to leave putty before shaping it. For example...I have managed to make some half decent straps for my Ork Kommandos out of Pro-create but found the best way was to leave it till it was beginning to harden, cut it into strips then gently stretch it and press into place on the model.


This picture shows the strapping I made holding the Kommando's respirator and knife in place



More kit held in place. Not fantastic but it did the job.

may not be a intricute green stuff sculpture... but that pack looks freekin awesome

There are actually quite a few tutorials about sculpting from scratch. I don't know that I've seen a lot dealing with conversion (except for tutorials about specific conversions).

The biggest problem people have is that they don't work with green stuff in layers.

Green stuff by itself won't hold a shape alone. It will bend in any direction that you press. So, for example, if you put a pile of green stuff where the head of a mini should be, you'll end up with something that looks like Quasimodo.

So, when you're doing the real detail work, you always need something underneath to sculpt from.

If you want to sculpt an arm, head, cape or something else that sticks out, you need to start out with a wire frame (or something underneath) and you need to bulk it up with a layer or two of green stuff before you get around to sculpting any actual details.

I guess I could go on, but there are quite a few very solid tutorials online. Google things like "sculpting green stuff minis" should get your results.

Thanks for the advice Odinsgrandson; appreciated!