Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

Hello all.

So I started painting up a few Necrons last year and decided to follow my gut and steer clear of the green standard scheme and instead go for blue. I liked how cold they would look in blue. Calculating. Then I discovered that there was en entire dynasty that was blue in the Thokt. And I like their fluff. I especially liked the reasons why they have blue energy due to the local elements that have been absorbed over time. So here were my attempts (spoilered for space):


Sadly the warrior's gun rod doesn't come through in the photo, but it is a blue Lego lightsaber piece cut in half and sanded down with smooth sandpaper.

So then I got a bit hooked. They are lovely to paint. Then I wrote my own background fluff and it all started to make sense.

On the bases I have cut shards of lightsaber down and used as a squad marking, so for a different squad there would be two/three/etc crystals on the base. I bought enough off eBay for that not to be a problem to continue, but then I wanted to try something basic for the latest LoER (which I haven't officially entered yet) which would really benefit from crystal patches like this:


But they are painted. Bleh! Crystals are translucent. Surely that's possible I thought. No moulds out there sadly, and I want the freedom of whatever crystal formation that I fancy. So how can I make resin crystals that are blue? By experimenting!

So here is experiment 1:

Clear Resin
Play-doh (daughter's rejected tub)
Allan keys of varying sizes (wife's ingenious idea)
Tub to mix
Mask (wasn't needed in the end, but why risk it?!)
Droppers to get right volumes
Blue wash

The play-doh is probably going to cause this to go wrong, but it's free in our house, so worth a go.


Method:
1 - I shoved the Allan keys in to the Play-doh, and checked that along the length of the indentation, it appeared roughly smooth
2 - Put on gloves and mask. The gloves come with the set which also talks a lot about skin irritation, just do it!
3 - Measure out 1 part of the hardener (5ml for this size) using a pipette and put in mixing vessel. Use a different pipette to measure out some wash, add to hardener...
4 - ....and then add 2 parts of resin (10ml in this example). The resin is too viscous for the pipette, so the enclosed measuring device was used. Add to the hardener and wash mix
5 - Mix gently with the enclosed wooden spatulas
6 - Then panic. The wash does not diffuse in to the resin mix, instead it is suspended. This is not terrible, but not perfect. The final product will need to be reviewed to see how this ends up looking. I suspect failure so far because the wash is water based, but I have not given up yet. Well I have, but I'm putting on a brave face
7 - pour in to the play-doh container ensuring you pour slowly over the holes so that you don't get air trapping.

And so due to the drying time of 24hours (), at 22:00 GMT on 20/01/16 I will have a better idea how the experiment went and what the final crystals look like. My worries are that the play-doh will react with the resin, that the wash will look stupid or that the shape did not hold in the play-doh. If this fails, I buy silicone mould putty to make some permanent crystal shard moulds to allow me to make these in a more consistent fashion.

Until the results are available then .....

oooooohhh - now we gotta wait 24 hours......dammit......open it now, open it now!!!

It's like Christmas!!

OMG I Love it!! soooo hope it works!!!

Funnily enough for my son's necrons I'm doing sorta similiar lol not casting though, I stuck with opaque crystals =/ however, and this is what's funny, I ordered blue lightsaber lego bits hoping they'd fit the barrels LOL Nice to know that'll work When they actually get here...

Ooh I hope it works for you ugh waiting is tough! <crosses fingers>

 Guildenstern wrote:
OMG I Love it!! soooo hope it works!!!

Funnily enough for my son's necrons I'm doing sorta similiar lol not casting though, I stuck with opaque crystals =/ however, and this is what's funny, I ordered blue lightsaber lego bits hoping they'd fit the barrels LOL Nice to know that'll work When they actually get here...

Ooh I hope it works for you ugh waiting is tough! <crosses fingers>

Finally another blue Necron army. We will be in the minority you know.

Would love to see what you've done for your son's, have you got pictures up on here or a thread?

The lightsabers are a slightly larger diameter and there isn't the slight lug at the end that GW mould in to their green ones, but measure carefully, cut them right, glue in the least visible position with super glue or PVA and (I think) you wouldn't notice. Once you've cut the length for the barrel, you can cut up the remainder in to smaller pieces and using fine sandpaper make a more hexagonal cross section and a point to make crystals for the base. Most people use sprue, but I reckon this is better IMHO.

I'm hoping there will be pics tonight of the first test results (also crosses fingers)


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Ok. So the results are in.

The base of the resin was still a little tacky surprisingly so it will probably benefit from another 24 hours to fully harden.

Here's the gloop that came out, which annoyingly is 2/3 the height I wanted it to be

After a bit of picking off of Play-Doh and running under a tap to wash away residual Play-Doh this is what you get:

The colour is not as bad as I thought it was going to be, but it isn't a diffuse colour. The Play-Doh is clearly not the best material for a mould because the crystals are not the right length or smooth enough.

The Allan keys are probably too narrow and therefore prevent the resin mix flowing down in to the end of the indentation. A carefully chosen pencil would probably do for "stand out" crystals with some Allan key ones being used surrounding the large core one.

Not a loss though. This is science after all! Also the lump of resin I'm left with will meet a hammery end when it's fully hardened to produce some shards so no waste.

Experiment 2 will be held off for a little while because Buttery Comissar is kindly sending me some pigments to try, which I will use with some rubber mould putty which I will buy over the next few days.

The experiments continue......

I'd be tempted to get some easy to carve material instead of allen keys, then just slice it at angles. A carrot maybe? Then boosh that into silicon or composimold or something.

Bummer about the playdough, I hoped for so much more!

those are awesome! like somethng you'd find in a dark deep cave. I think they worked out great. The way the colour diffused really works imho. looks so much more natural. I'm putting experiment #1 in the win box

@KB - I can see where you are coming from. I want looong lengths, so something like a pencil would be want I'm thinking now. That way it's time efficient and economical when I am doing the resin mix. I'd like to be able to pour one load of resin and come out with enough to last me a while. Like the carrot idea and will bear in mind - who knows, maybe it will be one of the experiments in the end. I'd hoped Play-Doh would do it, but sadly not (for this - I may buy a Monolith at some point and that vortex piece and top crystal could work with Play-Doh because they are larger)

@Jan - yep, I was having the same thoughts. I stylistically want the "perfect" crystals from the bases pictured above, but these do have that gloomy feel to them which is more realistic

Keen to see how the pigments go now. Any more suggestions for experiments will be seriously considered

Oooh kay that's COOL!!

I could really see doing something like this for stalactites and 'mites as well.

I don't have a clue about casting resin =/ You might be able to find a few actual crystals to use, quartz is fairly common - but also usually pretty wide and not necessarily as long as you would want. Depends what's available in your area I'd suspect. Or you could carve a piece of wood I suppose just have to sand it.

Anyway, can't wait to see what else you come up with!

Oh put up an image for my bases:



Need to take a new one, they're further along then that now (they're the sprue crystal idea). I'm still working out a colour scheme for his warriors (how much/where to put the blue).

Thanks for the advice about the legos btw!

Okay, so blue on an ice world. Like it. Like those bases too. The back story sort of writes itself a bit, mine sort of goes a lot more in to an acceptance that they are blue because of the cosmic energy and my main story points are that their dead worlds are being disturbed and they are waking up. And of course they are very very cranky

No problems re Lego tips, hope it helps

With the blue colourings on them, I looked a lot at the codex images and pretty much ignored all of the ones that had colours on shoulder pads. They end up looking like American Football players. My take was blue wash over the metal and anywhere you see a green edge highlight on an official GW image, I swapped for blue. I'll be really interested to see how you choose to go. If you want to brainstorm about scheme I'm happy to help if I can

Oh man - get two bits of sprue, glue them together back to back - boom, hexagonal casting masters

You have a point, like your thinking

I'm Straya, we don't English much good

Ok, this looked interesting enough i had to pull myself out of lurking... i have not worked with clear resins, but i can advise against playdough or the like...but youve seen that problem already. Still. For something more effective, try sulphur (sulfer?) Free modeling clay. The cheap, non drying reusable stuff youd give to a child for play works fine. It is smooth, easy to work with, and allows free pour of most resins... not sure if this might be useful info. In any case, youre results and lessons will be interesting!

Thanks for the tip mhraen and will log that away in the plans as a possibility, grateful for you stopping by.

Those look pretty great to me! Actually a lot more natural and convincing than the ones in the OP.

Hmmmm. I shall think about this. Maybe they aren't appealing to me because they aren't clustered and in rock. I'll give it a go befor I make any purchases then

Hopefully you find something that works!

its fun and all but

https://www.etsy.com/uk/listing/237158535/blue-rainbow-quartz-points-polished-raw?utm_source=google&utm_medium=cpc&utm_campaign=shopping_uk_en_gb_b-craft_supplies_and_tools-jewelry_and_beading_supplies-beads&utm_custom1=ada333b3-47f2-4bd9-8e44-8240aa1cde9d&gclid=CjwKEAiAoIK1BRCRiMqphvnlwlwSJAAOebPMMWdNEFiDQPb-rAr-fra4Kw268qR-8x45Bv6JNQpdAhoCDcPw_wcB

might also work.

(But really looking forward to see how the experiments go.)