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Hey guys whats the difference between green stuff and milliput?

I need something for closing gaps and also for sculpting, any suggestions?

Thanks,

You can sand milliput when dry and it goes sloppy when wet.

Kneadatite (Green Stuff) is rubbery and easier for some tasks.

Play around with them! Buy GS as kneadatite on eBay and save many monies.

I've just started using Green Stuff to good effect for gap filling and seam smoothing. I'll go ahead and throw my own question into the ring though:

As I start to progress with greenstuff sculpting I am going to want to get some sculpting tools. Should I get metal, plastic, or rubber/silicone?

Does it make a difference?

The rubber/Silicone shapers are really useful for smoothing GS down but if you are starting out then unless you can get sculpting tools cheaply you might not want to bother.

You can get away with just an Xacto knife and whatever comes to hand. I have old screw drivers, punches, odd bits of plastrut etc. Whatever has an interesting shape to it.

I'd get some GS (its cheap!) and just play about with it. Once you are a bit familiar get a sculpting set and push on.

Thanks for the help! Already found the GS on ebay.. 5.95 for 6"

Clay Shapers / Color Shapers are AMAZING for GS sculpting. Way prefer them to metal tools.

Milliput comes into its own for smoothing gaps, reconstructing damage and tiny holes. It's great for resin work and subtle models.
Green stuff doesn't like being sanded very much, in comparison. They're just different beasts really.

Lubricant on your tools helps a lot. Some sculptors swear by skin oil (side of your nose and hairline).

mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

All hail the Lime green king!


Yeah you can mix the two to get the best of both worlds of soft workability with less brittleness after it dries.

There is also brown stuff for hard shapes too. and a WHOLE lot more different kinds all with different properties.

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

\

Seriously? Or are you trolling? lol

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

\

Seriously? Or are you trolling? lol

Absolutely serious. A lot of mini sculptors use all kinds of blends.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

\

Seriously? Or are you trolling? lol

No, that's a real thing.

A big part of sculpting well is finding a medium that works best for you personally. For a lot of sculptors, blending different putties together gets them that perfect mix of properties that aren't quite there in any single putty.


You can also tailor two-part putties quite a bit just by varying the quantities of each part that you mix together.

I use ProCreate, I find it easier to work with and holds its shape much better than Greenstuff.

Man I'm late to this party

JohnnyHell wrote:You can sand milliput when dry and it goes sloppy when wet.

Kneadatite (Green Stuff) is rubbery and easier for some tasks.

Play around with them! Buy GS as kneadatite on eBay and save many monies.

notprop wrote:The rubber/Silicone shapers are really useful for smoothing GS down...

Buttery Commissar wrote:Milliput comes into its own for smoothing gaps, reconstructing damage and tiny holes. It's great for resin work and subtle models.
Green stuff doesn't like being sanded very much, in comparison. They're just different beasts really.

Desubot wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

All hail the Lime green king!


Yeah you can mix the two to get the best of both worlds of soft workability with less brittleness after it dries.

True! Milliput feels something like clay, and cures hard. Greenstuff feels like chewing gum or sticky tack, and cures slightly rubbery. Mixing them is great. Milliput's also cheaper than even ebay greenstuff, though import pops the price up for American hobbyists. Though as Desubot says there are a lot of other claylike putties to choose from, which are also great, and sometimes a bit kinder on beginners. (Less sloppy, for one thing)

Suks wrote:I've just started using Green Stuff to good effect for gap filling and seam smoothing. I'll go ahead and throw my own question into the ring though:

As I start to progress with greenstuff sculpting I am going to want to get some sculpting tools. Should I get metal, plastic, or rubber/silicone?

Does it make a difference?

Metal. As mentioned, clay shapers are great for smoothing, but in my experience the flexible rubber has too much give for most of the shaping and marking of firm putty, gradually getting firmer. Putty can be difficult to manipulate as it is - you want something that won't put up with any nonsense. Also, the rubber edges won't be fine enough, even on size 0 flat and angle shapers!
I'd say ignore GW sculpting tools. The snazzy new set has worse edges than clay shapers, although this time GW decided to round them off a bit. I'd also say ignore the sets from GF9 or Army Painter etc. too, or sets on ebay that give you a dozen or so for a couple of quid/bucks. They have the advantage that you can choose which particular tool you like best, but by that token you'll largely ignore the others. Also, in my experience the heads and edges on cheap sets aren't always so well machined and polished.
The fine, dental-quality versions of these tools - wax carvers - can be had on ebay or from certain retailers for what might be surprisingly cheap prices. That's the case on ebay UK, anyway, with dental wax carvers as little as £3-4. IMO the most useful types have some kind of pointed 'blade' (cutting, fine marking, spreading) and 'miniature finger' (rounded, slightly convex, relatively blunt-edged, for pushing, smoothing, and less fine marking). And they all have names, so you can check out just what the different types are like! The ones I like, that match my description, include the zahle (the popular 'wax #5'. Add 'wax carver' in searches to avoid results about the lebanese city), the lecron, the hylin and the vehe. There are slight variations of each, but they follow the same basic shapes.

That said...

notprop wrote:You can get away with just an Xacto knife and whatever comes to hand.

True! Tom Meier, one of the most legendary names in mini sculpting, has a toolkit consisting of a hobby knife with a filed, rounded point; a bent needle with a slightly flattened tip; and a home-made wire loop tool. My own main sculpting tool is an old GW sculpting tool filed right down to something useful, and I also use needles, pins, ball-tipped paper burnishers, etc. Some items of bamboo and other types of wood (skewers, chopsticks, toothpicks, dowel...) can be fairly easily carved, sanded and sealed, are popular in some corners, and have a couple of articles about. Check 'the craft' articles on the Reaper site.

Desubot wrote:There is also brown stuff for hard shapes too. and a WHOLE lot more different kinds all with different properties.

Unfortunately brown stuff was discontinued some time ago. Well, it's now only offered by the manufacturer in huge orders, which has the same effect. Fortunately it's effects can be replicated by other putties, particularly the mix of greenstuff with milliput or some other claylike putty. (apoxie sculpt, magic sculp, asculpt, sylmasta a+b, rezolin a+b, etc.) Procreate - another elastic putty like gs - comes fairly close to brown stuff's properties, compared to green, but IMO still needs a little boost with apoxie or whatnot to get all the way there.

Buttery Commissar wrote:Lubricant on your tools helps a lot. Some sculptors swear by skin oil (side of your nose and hairline).

True, though personally I find it a bit off-putting. Since epoxy can have a sensitizing effect, potentially causing allergy-like reactions, wiping implements covered in epoxy residue over your face seems like tempting fate, too.
Other sculptors get their oiliness from vaseline or baby oil, though it needs washing off between putty layers. Others use plain water. I do okay with that, though too much slopped over your tools and putty can be problematic, especially with milliput. I use a piece of damp sponge in a dish, to control how much water goes where.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

\

Seriously? Or are you trolling? lol

Check it!

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

 queen_annes_revenge wrote:
mix them together 50/50. voila: super sculpting putty.

\

Seriously? Or are you trolling? lol

hell no. its a bit of a pain mixing them, but you get the good properties of both, plus it generally dries faster aswell. i use it for pretty much all my true scale sculpts.

Really? Iv never had issues mixing them.

Take 1 globs of each part of the same size. make a clover, twist mix and kneed.

 Vermis wrote:
True, though personally I find it a bit off-putting. Since epoxy can have a sensitizing effect, potentially causing allergy-like reactions, wiping implements covered in epoxy residue over your face seems like tempting fate, too.

It honestly never occurred to me that people might do that. Eek.
For clarity I was not suggesting you put your tools on your face, people. Rub your fingers on your nose and hairline and then rub the tool with your hand.

Good enough for Kev White, good enough for me.

 Desubot wrote:
Really? Iv never had issues mixing them.

Take 1 globs of each part of the same size. make a clover, twist mix and kneed.

I meant more the prep work of having to mix both parts then mix together every time

I mix all 4 parts together at the same time

You can use instant mold

Thats a lot more expensvie then green stuff and I sure shipping to the US wouldnt be pretty. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Now the question is which Milliput do I picK? I see: Superfine, Terrecotta, Silver Grey, Standard Yellow-Grey, Black

I like to use greenstuff and milliput in a mix, but sometimes I feel that mix is grainy and not as easy to work with as green stuff. Lately I've been using just green stuff by itself but I'll go back to the other way to test.

Have any of you used Magic Sculpt? It's super cheap at 5 lbs. for about $50. I use it to build body before doing details. It's much like milliput and can be worked after but isn't easy to use for tiny details.

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:
Thats a lot more expensvie then green stuff and I sure shipping to the US wouldnt be pretty. Thanks for the suggestion though!

Now the question is which Milliput do I picK? I see: Superfine, Terrecotta, Silver Grey, Standard Yellow-Grey, Black

I've used the superfine white and the standard yellow-grey and they were worlds apart for me. I love the superfine for armor work, but the standard I reserve now for sloppy terrain work, if that.

By the way, if you're filling gaps and such, Squadron Putty (the white stuff) is easier to use than milliput. It doesn't shrink, sands when dry, and is brittle. You can shape it a little while wet.

The Green squadron putty is way too hard, IMO. Like, when it dries, it's harder than a metal mini.

If you're filling air bubbles, or if they're microscopic gaps, liquid green stuff (which really has nothing to do with greenstuff) is not bad. It's biggest problem is that it shrinks, so it's useful for bubble filling, but not, for instance, to fill a crack between 2 pieces, unless you've got it already sanded down to nearly perfect. Oh, it's also useful for filling in building terrain pieces, where you don't need a gap actually filled, just filled enough that light doesn't pass through.

Buttery: yup! But I think I'll stick to me water-inna-dish regardless.

Tydil wrote:I like to use greenstuff and milliput in a mix, but sometimes I feel that mix is grainy and not as easy to work with as green stuff. Lately I've been using just green stuff by itself but I'll go back to the other way to test.

Have any of you used Magic Sculpt? It's super cheap at 5 lbs. for about $50. I use it to build body before doing details. It's much like milliput and can be worked after but isn't easy to use for tiny details.

Yes. I find it similar to apoxie sculpt and (UK) asculpt, and taken all together - like I mentioned - they're a bit easier on beginners than milliput yellow-grey. Not so sticky, not so water-soluble (cuts down on mess), softer and easier to mix and push, slightly waxy in comparison, even; although I agree that they're a bit soft for details without waiting for them to firm up, or mixing them with another putty. The link in my last post shows off what apoxie in particular is like, and how well it reacts with GS.

Zefig wrote:

 Snoopdeville3 wrote:

Now the question is which Milliput do I picK? I see: Superfine, Terrecotta, Silver Grey, Standard Yellow-Grey, Black

I've used the superfine white and the standard yellow-grey and they were worlds apart for me. I love the superfine for armor work, but the standard I reserve now for sloppy terrain work, if that.

I agree. Superfine white can be worked ridiculously smooth before and after curing. However, despite my reply to Tydil, I prefer yellow-grey for a lot of work. I find superfine white firmer and sometimes a little tough to mix and push compared to y-g (while y-g is firmer for details than magic sculp etc.), and the really bright white can sometimes be difficult to look at while sculpting.
True, y-g is a bit grainier, even when mixed with green stuff, but as with magic sculpt it holds it's shape better after curing for a while, and it's more opaque than the uncoloured original versions of the magic-type putties. Also, the milliput:green stuff mix ratio is a sliding scale that can be put to good use. Initial shapes and bulking can be done with softer, cheaper, stronger milliput, with a bit of green stuff stuff added to help bind the graininess together; then changed in one, two or more steps so that you're sculpting details with mostly firmer, elastic green stuff, with just a bit of milliput to soften it and reduce springy 'memory', and make it a bit easier to scrape or file afterwards.

That said, it's perfectly possible to get round milliput's foibles eventually and learn to sculpt with that alone. It's pretty popular among some groups and types of sculptors, especially some european sculptors who do work for Andrea Miniatures. Check it out. (Duro is what some call green stuff, thanks to some old relabelling thing years ago)
Also, some time ago Polymeric Systems - the manufacturers of green stuff - started recommending 1.5 parts of yellow to 1 part blue, or a 3:2 mixing ratio, compared to 50:50 or 1:1, or just adding 'a bit' more yellow. As someone who wasn't overly fond of GS's stiffness and memory, without mixing a bit of milliput or magic-type putty in, I have to say it improves the experience a great deal. It's a lot easier to push and spread around, and mark details in. I have to say I still like mixing in a bit of claylike putty, though.

Other types of milliput... silver-grey is a toned-down version of superfine white, or to be accurate, superfine white is a jazzed-up version of silver grey, released after customers requested it for porcelain repairs. As you might expect, it's slightly less fine and white. Still white, just not as dazzling.
I don't know if the packets of black and terracotta I got were good or bad batches, but I find black is finer but somehow more crumbly than yellow-grey. Probably still usable with practise, but probably even less useful for wargaming-scale details, especially with the dark colour. It's useful for darkening too-light putties, especially superfine white and silver-grey*, though you only need a little (it must have a lot of whatever colorant's in it) and if that's all you want it for, another black putty or even black paint will probably be more convenient. The terracotta was extremely flaky. I just have to assume that box was a dud, though I haven't bought another to compare.

* Gotta be honest, yellow-grey is a decent shade, but if milliput ever released a neutral grey version, I'd probably be all over it.

So, finally... out of the five types of milliput I'd say play around with yellow-grey first. Although you do have the options of the other claylike putties, even a US-based bog-standard plumbing repair putty like rezolin a+b (saw a guy sculpt an excellent 28mm Heath Ledger Joker with rezolin, though the pics are lost to time) and of mixing different putties in different amounts. (Though a claylike putty with an elastic putty is usually most beneficial) None are really bad, just different, and appealing to different tastes, jobs and techniques. I'd recommend a snoop around the different manufacturer's websites, tutorials and pics:

http://www.polymericsystems.com/epoxies-adhesives/epoxy-putty-tapes/kneadatite-blue-yellow.htm
http://www.kraftmark.biz/kraft.procreate.html
http://www.milliput.com
http://www.magicsculp.co.uk (there's a magicsculp.com site, but it ain't goin' for me)
http://www.apoxie.com
http://www.asculpt.com
http://www.aplusbputty.com
http://tamiya.com/english/news/event/figures33/making.htm (Tamiya epoxy putties are pretty good stuff, few complaints from me, but tend to be pricey on this side of the globe)
http://www.sylmasta.com/acatalog/Online_Catalogue_Epoxy_Putties_23.html (TBH I haven't tried their a+b or geomfix, something I need to remedy)

I picked up some of the superfine white and used it for the first time yesterday.

It said it hardens to "rock hard" overnight, but I find it's still easily cuttable with a razor and while it does sand, it seems to crumble quite a bit at the edges. I was hoping to be able to make sharp edges with it.

Would another color be better for the sort of boxy looks that SM vehicles have, all hard edges?

Since both parts of SFW are white, you have to mix, mix and mix some more to make sure they're thoroughly... mixed, for a proper cure. Common problem. Heck, it's sometimes a problem with procreate, which has white and grey parts; and apparently it's the reason greenstuff's two parts are coloured blue and yellow. (You can more easily see the blue 'n' yellow streaks in an incomplete mix)

Properly mixed SFW should be ridonkulously hard. I once made a rough disc about 8-10mm thick, to break up for base rubble. I had trouble doing more than denting it, whacking it with a hammer against a concrete slab. That said, it should still sand and carve fairly easily and very smoothly. Here's an axe head I made with the stuff, a few years ago. My 'engraving' wasn't too fine, but the milliput looked almost as smooth and shiny as plasticard, after a few passes with fine-grit paper.

 Nykidemus wrote:
I picked up some of the superfine white and used it for the first time yesterday.

It said it hardens to "rock hard" overnight, but I find it's still easily cuttable with a razor and while it does sand, it seems to crumble quite a bit at the edges. I was hoping to be able to make sharp edges with it.

Would another color be better for the sort of boxy looks that SM vehicles have, all hard edges?

I'd have to say try a blend of GS and regular Milliput.
You get just a little elasticity. Might be exactly what you need.