youidiotkid wrote:I also picked up a small packet of Brownstuff from P3 at my
FLGS, and it's a lot of fun to work with.
Blimey! There's still some of it about?
The bad news, as you might guess, is that it's not easy to come by these days. A couple of years ago the manufacturers (same as green stuff: Polymeric Systems) sent out an email to stockists, telling them that it'd only be available through special orders - orders too large for most wee hobby shops and distributors to bother with.
Take a look. The effect is that it's effectively discontinued.
So, yeah, it is good, and it was very popular among pro and am sculptors for sculpting weapon edges, mechanical objects, and other sharp details, as you've discovered. Also good for mixing with green stuff, to reduce it's 'memory'. (The springy, smoothing-out property that sometimes makes sharp details difficult to make and keep.) But don't get used to it.
The good news is that there are plenty of other epoxy putties to try, and just about all of them barring green stuff are as good or better for sharp details as brown stuff. The other good news is that - while I know some people who would grumble at the perceived faff, inconvenience, and complication of the practise - mixing putty is
BRILLIANT. I'm not sure where to start... one of the biggest advantages is as mentioned: mixing a softer, sharper-detail putty into
GS to make it easier to push and tease.
Procreate can be useful for this. Procreate's an all-rounder that was developed specifically to mimic green stuff, brown stuff, and a mix of the two, depending on what ratio of Procreate's resin to hardener you mix. Personally, I don't think it's quite as sandable as brown stuff or other putties, when you mix it to be a 'brownstuff-alike'. There have also been a few problems with getting it to stick if you don't whack it on straight away, and with curing if it's not properly mixed or if the mix ratio is skewed too much; but these are fairly small complaints in the grand scheme, and it is an excellent putty. Soft, malleable, easily smoothed and almost intuitive. I'd recommend it for any new sculptors or converters.
The two types of Tamiya putty are also good in their own right, if you happen across any. Those five (
GS,
BS,
Pc, 2x Tamiya) I call the 'elastic putties', because of the slight similarity in consistency to chewed gum or sticky tack. In short: they stretch when you pull 'em.
The other category is 'claylike putties'. These handle more like earth clay - one of the manufacturers calls them 'synthetic clay' - being soft; slightly water-soluble; having a slight grain (tho not to say they're
gritty); tending to tear if pulled; and turning rock-hard. They generally take sharp details very well, and are very receptive to sanding and scraping (compared to the slightly rubbery texture of most cured elastic putties), particularly for sharpening those details up a bit more.
Milliput is an example. Andy Foster, in that brown stuff link above, isn't a big fan of milliput, but
others like it just fine. There are five varieties, and the standard yellow-grey type is probably one of the top three putties that most hobbyists will have heard of or tried. The other four aren't too bad for modelling, but are geared towards specialised applications - it leaves them with foibles that not every mini sculptor might like. (Both black and white can be difficult to see when you're fiddling with tiny details, just for starters) I like milliput myself, but even the standard version has a certain 'character' that might put people off. Used to be I
didn't like it, myself. It's a little bit smelly, sticky and messy on your fingers, tools, etc. Though if you can get used to that and work around it (often involves vigorous hand-washing after mixing and after sculpting, which is a good idea for any epoxy putty anyway) it can be quite responsive.
The other options, a bit cleaner to use right off the bat, are a collection of putties under different brand names, but which behave pretty similarly in my experience. These are Magic Sculp, Apoxie Sculpt, and the
UK product Asculpt. They're softer, finer, a little less water-soluble than milliput, and a little more 'waxy' in feeling, which isn't a bad thing; though not as strong, slightly translucent in the standard colour, and sometimes a little
too soft*. (Apoxie sculpt is part of the Aves Studio range, which also includes the softer Fixit and Apoxie Clay, which skews a little towards milliput)
There are also a few 'A+B' putties (Rezolin A+B and Kneadatite A/B in the US, Sylmasta A+B in Blighty), though I haven't tried them myself and only knew one other guy who did. Still, his results, and the pics on the Sylmasta page, speak for themselves.
*One problem,
IMO, is that most claylike putties are a bit too soft for sculpting tiny wargaming miniature details, just after mixing. It helps to let them cure and firm up for a while, but this is where mixing different putties comes in again. It's a two-way street: while claylike putties soften green stuff and allow it to take marks more easily, and make it easier to sand, the firmness and elasticity of green stuff helps to bind the claylike putty together for fine work. It's a sliding scale too: you might just add a little bit of e.g. magic sculp to take the edge off green stuff, or you might add a touch of
GS to e.g. milliput, if you're building and bulking out the core of a sculpt.
And yeah, you can use other elastic putties with claylike putties, but it seems to work best with green stuff. Possibly because other elastic putties are, as mentioned, already softer and more easily marked. Green stuff seems to allow a wider sliding scale.
Here's an article, part of a series, that is
IMO a great introduction to green stuff, claylike putties in the form of apoxie sculpt, and how they are when you mix them together. Also, I beg a little indulgence to peruse part of my
Dakka gallery.
The Gentleman Bat was sculpted with a mix of green stuff with a little magic sculp (came in very handy when I had to cut that cloak down to size) and the Man Who Grins with a mix of procreate and a little apoxie sculpt. (
TBH with a few crumbs of black putty in the darker bits, 'cos sometimes even the neutral grey is a bit too light for my eyes.)
Lastly, and a bit more on-topic: I was digging through the lead pile earlier and found an ooold cult magus mini that whispered 'paint me!', so I'm especially interested to see what you do with yours.
