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I am looking to dive in to scratchbuilding models, with as yet zero experience using greenstuff or generally doing conversions (beyond splicing two gorkamorka trucks together at some point in my distant youth). I have purchased a couple of ready made armatures to practise on more than anything but what I would like to end up with is a manticore for a chaos lord to sit on and possibly a troll king throgg (indeed if all goes well I intend to make his troll friends too).

Forgetting for a moment that the learning process itself will likely cost me a lot of green stuff, making scores of scratchbuilt models from greenstuff seems like it is going to get expensive and I am wondering if there are any close alternatives. I purchased a pack of greenstuff and as I hold it in my hand it seems like I might get half a troll out of it, but the main problem is I am now extremely hesitant to start using it, I am hoping to grab something from BnQ today that will at least allow me to make the bulk of a model that I can later detail with greenstuff.

So far I have read that milliput is good for less detailed moddeling and could be a good start for bulking out a wire foundation, if there is however something better suited/cheaper or indeed a close alternative to greenstuff that I can buy large tubs of for next to nothing (I guess this would be a best case scenario) then I would be grateful to hear suggestions.

Thanks in advance

First, where did you get your GS from? If you're buying the GW pack, you are right it is monsterously expensive (my experience leads me to believe that GW only really wants you to use it for gap filling and minor sculpting work on conversions). Try looking online: heresy has some in stock now I believe (http://www.heresyminiatures.com) or you could look at eBay. You can get tubes or ribbons of GS for ~£10 which are about 4-5 times the amount in a GW blister. You could also check out your local Hobbycraft as they (should!) sell the GF9 tubes of green stuff and grey stuff, BUT it may be more expensive than buying online.

For bulking out armatures you could try using milliput - it's cheaper, is water soluble (which makes smoothing it down really easy!) and drys rock hard so you can scrape/file/carve it into the shape you want.

I would also recommend getting some clay shapers. Size 0 flat chisel head and tapered head are probably the most useful to you initially as you can use them for both mechanical shapes (armour, etc) and organic shapes (faces, clothes etc). I assume you have some sculpting tools already - hopefully not just the GW sculpting tool! If not invest in a decent set (not necessarily the £25+ sets, but not the really cheap ones either).

Get yourself some reference pictures of anatomy, musculature, clothes - these are invaluable if you are trying to make a convincing, detailed mini.

Finally - PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE!!! I really cannot emphasise how important it is to keep trying. It is fairly unlikely that you will be brilliant at this immediately but the more you try the better you will become.

Hope that helps


Stuart

Procreate works just as well as green stuff imo and it is a bit cheaper as well.

Silent Spectre is on the money with his advice.

Heresy Miniatures is the place to go for putty and sculpting tools.

A six piece set of the steel tools and a set of the rubber tipped tools will be really helpful.

Milliput is great for bulk sculpting. You can put the fine details on with green, brown or grey stuff. All these putties are much cheaper from art shops or modelling shops than GW's green stuff.

Don't ignore the use of plastic card, and other 'bitz' for things which they are good for. There's no point re-inventing the wheel laboriously if you want a weapon or flat armour panels or something like that.

Hasslefree Miniatures do some lovely heads and weapons for use in 28mm modelling.

Only use green stuff for finition on top, it's too expensive for bulk work.

Make basic body armatures from rougher stuff : metal wire with plumber's cement over it or clay, plastilin or other stuff found in art shops.

Thanks for the replies, I am going to have a look in my local poores to grab wires and maybe some cheap tools if they look useful, and have a glance around for some putty before I order some from heresyminatures (thanks for the link!).

And yes I ordered my greenstuff from gw, until now I was not aware that green stuff was available from other sources.

Again thankyou

edit> screw it it's cold I ordered 3 packs of the white putty on heresy, wish me luck!

You can get super sculpy from Alec Tir anti(http://www.tiranti.co.uk/) to bulk out the basic shape, then use GS for adding to it aka -



Also squires in Bognor Regis do a whole lot of sculpting tools (http://www.squirestools.com/).
they don't have an on-line shop per sec but postage is free within the UK.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
also keep your GS in the freezer to keep it fresh.
Use clippers to break off small amounts at a time.