Sunday, April 5, 2009

Quick Notes to Myself: Resin Casting and Chaos Stuff

This post is mostly for me, but I'll write it out in case my thought process piques anyone's interest:

To be honest, I've been getting bored with my Iron Warriors a bit. So I've started looking around for some other projects to intetrsperse in my Iron Warriors. It'll break up the tedium of painting a million silver marines and give me a chance to play with some techniques I've had my eye on.

First up: the lists I'm interested in.

Haven't decided which one to start first - they'll both cost about the same taking overlap into account (3 Rhinos).

Not looking to go too crazy with conversions - just the big stuff. I'm trying to keep the cost down.

I already own most of the daemons I need.

Now, to the ideas I wanted to try out:

1.) Found a neat painting technique in No Quarter No. 18. Essentially, you paint with a series of washes over white primer. Tested it out a bit, produces interesting effects and moves pretty quickly. Also may give me an excuse to use my new hairdryer.

2.) Speaking of speed - I want to try my hand at getting an army to the table pretty quickly. After years of being painstaking, I think it's time to try something new - leave my comfort zone and all.

3.) Forgeworld is the bane of my existance. the Chaos Dreadnoughts they make are amazing and I've had my eye on the deathguard kit for a while as well.

4.) I've also had ideas for a nurgle defiler filed away for about 6 months now. I'd like to bust those out as well.

5.) As far as a paint scheme, this will give me a chance to fuck around with a lot of different ones. I'm not going to be too concerned with a unified color scheme.

6.) As an added challenge - I wont be using any metallic paint. Could be crazy.

Other Stuff:
These are tidbits of info and reseach that I've done so far while I think about getting either of these lists started.

1.) No idea how I want to base these armies - something cheap (so no ready made resin bases) and fairly simple (so no eleaborate milliput slate bases with water). Been thinking about lava bases. Found this tutorial on 'em.

Fun Fact: this guys thread about his own iron warriors on dakka got me started on my own guys. Pretty neat stuff.

2.) Looking at the mech list as well as the sternpod list for my Iron warriors, it's painfully obvious that I need a ton of combi-meltas, chaos meltas and chaos flamers. Not all that easy ot financially feasable to get that many of any of them. I've even looked into altenatives, and there's nothing I like too much.

This brings me to thinking about resin casting. I figure if I need 24 metlas, 12 flamers and 16 combi-meltas, then maybe the money would be better spent on just making them myself. It would also be a neat techique to add to my repertoire. Based on what I've seen on the Smooth-on site, I wont be needing any vacuum equipment.



Links (for me):
The Chaos Lists;
http://yesthetruthhurts.blogspot.com/2008/12/chaos-space-marines-lists-mech.html

Lava Bases: http://www.coolminiornot.com/article/aid/750

The iron warriors army that inspired me way back when: http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/189538.page

Resin casting of parts:
http://www.b9robotresource.com/molding1.htm

The kit I want:
http://www.dickblick.com/products/smooth-on-starter-kits/

Smooth-cast homepage:
http://www.smooth-on.com/index.html


Lastly:
I'm looking to continue my "On Paint" series soon. Just wanted to throw this up for the time being.

Hmm, I should probably get off my ass and post some pics of recent work as well.

6 comments:

  1. I would love to see you put together the MC list. It might not be as competitive (not sure) but I think it would be amazing and fun. I'm sure it will still be fairly competitive also, as it's a stelek special.

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  2. Also, my father has been an avid (and HIGHLY skilled) aircraft modeler since he was a kid. He has a full resin casting setup at his house. He recently gave me permission to use his materials to cast some of my own stuff as well. It is probably very worthwhile if you have the time and you are making enough of the same thing to make it cost effective. Be prepared for a bit of a learning curve though, from what my dad's told me there is a bit of an "art" to it.

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  3. Just so you know, I followed that tutorial when doing my DH. I didn't like the results I got with it but in the end, none of the results I got...did I like.

    Wraithlord, a beta tester for the AB files over on the AB3 site, he makes lava that makes me cry.

    http://www.ab40k.org/modules.php?name=Forums&file=viewtopic&t=855

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  4. yikes, those are pretty awesome. Nice OSL, too.

    Now I have to figure out what he used for the lava to make it nice and lumpy.

    Thanks for the link.

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  5. hey, if you have a hobbytown USA or hobby lobby near by, they sell a resin casting kit made my alumalite (alumilite?) that works pretty well. i just did resin casts for three sets of forgeworld rhino doors, landraiders and icons... the small kit is 30 bucks with tax, considering i figured out with what i have cast so far i saved about 500 bucks doing it myself than buying it from forgeworld. you have to work quick with it... and it does bubble a little bit if you move too fast, nothing small green stuff patches can't fix though.

    also... i have now done 3 sets of rhino doors and front plates, 15 icon packs, and 4 land raider door sets, and i have used just over half of the resin they supplied.

    the only bad part is, they don't give you nearly as much rubber mold material as i would have liked

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