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Hey

So I'm trying to green stuff some armour plates on to my grotesques, and am failing dismally. Can anyone give some advice on how to do this please?

I'm struggling with getting the shape to hold whilst remaining pliable enough to manipulate the gs round arms and legs.

Thanks in advance

How exactly are you going about it? Squishing on a blob of GS and trying to form it into armor or sculpting the plates flat then trying to curl them around the model? Both are viable methods, of course, with the more appropriate depending on the desired look, underlying surface, and your own personal preference.

If attempting the latter method, my advice is simple: Let it cure longer. Even fully cured GS is rather rubbery. Reasonably thin sheets can be bent into pretty tight curves without failing, although they're liable to spring back if allowed to. Working mid-cure gives you the best of both worlds - the GS is relatively firm, leaving details intact (with a bit of care), but lacks the memory of a fully cured sheet, allowing you wrap, curl, or drape sheets as you please. You'll likely need to rely on superglue glue for attachment, though, as it will have lost much of its tack. The exact timing will take a little experimentation, on your end, as both the mix ratio and ambient temperature affect cure time - when working with sheets (whether for cloaks, armor, etc.), some people wait 30 minutes after rolling the mix out, others an hour, and some even longer.

If sculpting directly onto the surface (which seems less likely, given your wording, but for the sake of thoroughness...), the key is to work in layers. Waiting for each little step to cure before moving on slows down the process considerably, even with expedited curing, but is the only way to guarantee you won't muck up one area while working on another. By sculpting directly on the model, pliability isn't ever an issue - you're always working with fresh (or near-fresh, depending on your preference) putty, which you can push around easily, depositing and smoothing a curved face instead of trying to force a flat sheet to bend into one. Once your basic form is bulked out and set, you can move on to subsequent layers of detailing, without any distortion of the basic shape.

Thanks for the reply man.

So far I've measured out the area that I want to cover, and cut a template from the only materials I've had available: paper, a cardboard box & the plastic clam shell that GS comes in lol.

I've wet the GS and the surface that I'm working on (paint pallete), flattened the GS out, laid my template over the GS and used my modelling knife to cut in to the relevant shape.

The problem that I have is that it wants to stick to the pallete, so comes away either rough or the wrong shape.

Would it be better to sculpt straight on to the figure? I'm trying to model 3 interlocking V shaped panels, and would hate to have this trouble with doing 36 of the fethers.

Or will I simply be better leaving it to cure longer as you say? Which methods most user friendly and forgiving?

I prefer to sculpt directly onto my models. And i don't know how those 3 panels should interlock but i think that in most cases it would be the best to sculpt each panel alone and wait for it to cure before adding the next.

But if you want to keep your approach i'd try to let it cure slightly for a few hours and then add it to the model. And adding a drop of glue will strengthen the bond.

Also water isn't the best for what you want to archive. You need something that isn't as easily pushed away and will stay between the surface and your details. Vaseline for example would be an option. Although you should be carefull and add the detail with the non vaseline-side to your model.

Yeah so far I've been trying to do each panel separately. I had wondered about doing them as one unit though I'm sure they'll fit better if I do them individually.

I'll give it another while if I have time when I get in tonight, I'm sure I can procure some of our lasses vaseline for such an important task, she won't mind

I'm surprised that GS needs so long to cure though, didn't expect it to need so long

When doing armour peices off the model for application to the model I draw it on a thin piece of plasticard ..(say 0.2 or 0.3 mm) and build the armour plate on the lightly sanded side of the plasticard (this allows the GS to adhere to the flexable plasticard) then at mid cure i adhere the plasticard to the model and shape with finale detail after its in place ..