Resin Casting: more Rebel Grot molds

Several Got Away.

After finding a host of old GorkaMorka Rebel Grots, and converting one of them, we wondered which to convert next. To make this easier, I decided to make some simple one-piece cut molds so I could create resin copies of the models. I also decided to create molds for the recent Chaos Cultist and Rebel Grot conversions. In short order, I was able to cast a variety of grots for future projects!

Resin Casting: Red Gobbo Conversion

Third Side of the Moon.

Throughout May, I have been doing a lot of mold making and resin casting, including creating some casts for Nemessos Miniatures and creating a casting gate for future molds. Having recently converted the Red Gobbo, they were the perfect opportunity to create a new mold using one of the gates we created with the frog skull logo. I attached the Red Gobbo conversion to one of the gates, along with adding some pins to different points on the gobbo to ensure all of the details would fill with resin properly. The mold turned out quite well, although some of the very fine details, like the barrel of the gun, can easily be damaged when pulling the model from the mold. Ultimately, I was able to make a variety of casts of the Red Gobbo. Each will need a little cleaning, but it is relatively minimal, and much less than would be needed for an original metal GorkaMorka model. I hope we can paint a copy of the model soon!

Resin Casting: Between the Bolter and Me Casting Gate

We created a gate for attaching to future resin casting projects!

We started creating silicone molds and doing some small scale resin casting recently for our friend Nemessos Miniatures. One of the most important parts of creating a successful and consistent silicone mold is to attach the piece you are casting to a substantial gate, ensuring that enough resin is poured to completely fill the mold. In the past, we have used discarded gates from Forge World models we had in our collection. We realized it would be fun if we created our own gate that had our logo on it for future casting projects. To do this, Adam created a wedge of modeling putty and sculpted our logo onto it. We were able to create a simple one-piece mold to make copies of the new gate, and quickly made a series of copies that we plan to use in future casting projects.

Resin Casting: Molds for Nemessos Miniatures

I am back to silicone mold making!

Over the years, we have experimented with creating silicone molds to create resin copies of some of our conversions. Eventually, we shifted to creating single-piece molds due to their simplicity and have used them to create copies of some of the tiny firearms we have converted in the past. Recently, our friend Brian of Nemessos Miniatures inquired whether we could help him create resin casts of a series of heads he designed for an antiquity-inspired elf army, which he could use across various game systems. Having always been impressed with his careful conversion work and attention to detail and scale, I enthusiastically agreed to help. It would prove to be a great way to dust off my casting equipment and start creating resin copies of conversions again!

Resin Casting: One-piece cut molds

One-piece silicone cut molds are a relatively easy way to cast miniatures in resin.

Six years ago we ventured into the world of resin casting to make copies of some of our conversions. It took a lot of trial and error to get something that worked consistently, but we found making a pressure pot was essential. All of the molds we created over the years were two piece molds, which are quite labor intensive. After watching a few YouTube videos by Miscast, where he talks about some of the imaginative models he converted and cast, I started to think about the prospect of creating molds again. What interested me most was trying to make single-piece cut molds, like Miscast favors. These are molds where you pour the silicone all at one time, creating a solid block of silicone surrounding the model. You then use a blade to cut the original model out of the silicone, taking care to cut it just enough to release the model and remain as a single piece. Robert Tolone has some excellent YouTube videos about the process that I encourage you to watch if you are interested. In one of his videos, he used one-piece cut molds to cast some characters from the excellent board game Root. In it, he attaches the models to small plastic cups and pours the silicone into them. This seemed like a relatively straightforward process, so I decided to give it a try, making molds of some old metal Games Workshop models I hope to use as a basis for conversions in the future!

Conversion Corner: Dreg

Wyrdstone is well know to corrupt, but might it also draw out and strengthen elements that are already present? Perhaps those wretched dregs of humanity, invisible in life, traveled to the City of the Damned to become something greater, only to find themselves more soulless than they were before? - Naewen, savant of Thrax

The last model we created for the undead warband for Mordheim 2019 explored the idea of emotion given intangible, yet lethal form. This closely paralleled some of the anomalies present in the novel Roadside Picnic. Diverging from this, we also wanted to show how wyrdstone might affect the wretched human inhabitants that have persisted in the city all of these years. Perhaps after persistent exposure to the corrupting influence of wyrdstone, some gradually lose their hold on reality and begin to disappear? Having learned how to make silicone molds for resin casting, we decided it would be fun to try to convert a downtrodden inhabitant of Mordheim and cast them in clear resin to represent them becoming invisible.

Dragged into Turbolasers Episode 39: How to start resin casting

A silicone mold for our Thorn Moon defenders.

This episode is centered around how to create a two part silicone mold for resin casting. We start by discussing why we learned how to make molds in the first place, before talking about the basic principles involved. We then talk at length about various ways to improve your molds and resin casts, focusing on methods to reduce bubbles.

Thorn Moons Crusade: Making a mold for the Defenders of the 73rd Moon

It's understood, we'll do or die.

A few weeks ago, we showed our progress on our remnants of the Imperial Army defending the Thorn Moons. Since then, I have disassembled all of the models and built a few more weapons and sculpted some arms, preparing to create a silicone mold. I am pleased to say that I made the first mold for the guard, and it was quite successful! I wanted to show you a few pictures of the resulting mold and the resin casts it produces.

Between the Bolter and Me: 2017, a year in review

Onward to 2018!

It is hard to believe, but 2017 has come to a close, marking five years for Between the Bolter and Me! Just like each year before it, 2017 proved to be quite different from the previous years. While 2016 was filled with attending collaborative events (the Pilgrym and Curse of the Alabaster), 2017 was much more introspective, as we honed our image of what makes a responsible and effective model (namely by examining female representation as well as logical anatomy). We also learned a lot of new techniques, including resin casting and working with non-acrylic paints. With this post, we wanted to recap all of the projects that we have been working on over the last 12 months.

Ways to improve resin casting: pressure and vacuum chambers

Using a pressure chamber dramatically improved my resin casting.

Getting into resin casting can be a difficult thing, with so many details to consider (what silcone and resin to use, how to create effective vents, etc.), that it is easy to get overwhelmed. I found one of the trickiest elements was determining how pressure and vacuum chambers can be used to improve the process. Both are used to reduce bubbles in the final product, but since they work in very different ways, each is suitable for a different aspect of the process. A vacuum chamber is used to physically remove bubbles from a material (and all the air from the chamber itself) by creating a vacuum, while a pressure chamber shrinks any bubbles present in the material via pressure. Because the mixing process of silicone introduces air bubbles into it, a vacuum is applied to the mixture before using it (pouring it) to create a mold. This is possible due to the slow curing time of most silicone (~5 hrs). Resin, however, solidifies much more quickly (~15 min.), making a vacuum not a viable way for removing the bubbles in resin before injecting it into the mold. Instead, the mold is placed in a pressure chamber after the resin is added, to shrink any bubble to a negligible size. Although using both strategies are not absolutely necessary for creating molds and using them for casting, from experience, it dramatically improves the final product. I currently use both, and they allowed me to nicely cast the true-scale Space Marine that I recently built. In this post, I wanted to talk about both vacuum chambers and pressure chambers, and how they were important for dramatically improving my resin casting abilities.

Building our first resin cast true-scale Space Marine

Thought begets Heresy. Heresy begets Retribution.

A large portion of my hobby time this year has been spent building a more anatomically correct true-scale marine, and then learning how to make two part silicone molds. Today I am quite pleased to reveal the fusion of both of these projects by showing you the first True-scale Space Marine that I created using silicone molds created. Not wanting the model to look too much like the original, which is still going to be turned into an Elder One for Iron Sleet’s Thorn Moon’s crusade, I decided to build an Astartes from Black Templar Chapter.

Making a two part mold: Casting resin models

I venture into creating silicone molds...

Having spent the better part of two months working on sculpting a true-scale Space Marine, it became clear that I could not continue to resculpt power armor each time that I wanted to make a new true-scale marine. I decided that the surest solution would be to make a rubber mold to cast additional copies of the armor. Although the process of making a silicone mold and using it to create resin casts is relatively straightforward, it was something that I had absolutely no knowledge about, so I was quite apprehensive about it all. After watching a YouTube video or two about the process, I decided I would give it a go, and ordered a starter kit from Smooth-On. Now that I have made my first mold, I wanted to share some of the things that I learned from the experience to hopefully encourage others to start creating molds to cast custom-made or sculpted components.