Jim's Terrain Project Log

[JMGraham]

It looks very nice! The dye does make the pieces more attractive when they're bare; undyed resin blanches in the sun to an unattractive color. But if you intend to paint the piece, I've always found it to be an uneccessary cost.

 

 

Agreed re: the unnecessary cost if you're just using them for yourself. If your planning on selling them, though, the grey color seems like it would make a big difference.

 

Did you gap fill the master at all, or was there minor undercut in areas such as the iron support beams (cardboard pieces)? Also how many casts do you target out of a mold? I find that in a mold designed with minimal undercuts I can get ~100 casts before the quality loss starts to get too questionable. This is for things like 25-50mm bases. For a larger mold like the building with more manufactured details, I suspect the threshold would be much lower.

 

 

I hit it with a couple coats of polyurethane varnish, but no gap filling other than that. I glued down the cardboard strips for the iron supports before I carved the stones out of the foam, so they were just glued down to flat foam. No gaps to fill. Oh, I take that back! For the windows and doors I traced their outline with an xacto, then carved out the depressions. Those I filled with putty (I use Magic Sculp for my utilitarian putty) before pressing in the resin windows/door.

 

The undercuts are fairly minimal, but it's offset by the fact that the mold kind of peels off of the model, turning inside out in the process (like taking off a rubber glove). Not sure how long they'll last. I use plenty of mold release and talc, and I haven't had a mold give out on me yet. Never used the thixotropic additive before though, and that may shorten the lifespan.

 

Started working on some bigger ruined walls (no iron banding), but those I pretty much know how to cast. I really want to try a bigger hill. I've got it in my head that I can slush cast a couple layers, then paint in some thickened resin for strength. It'd make a hollow piece of about 1/4 inch thick resin. No clue if that'd work, though. Anyone ever tried the quick-set Smooth On resin? Smooth Cast 300Q, I think. It has a pot life of 30 seconds and a 3 minute demold time. Seems like it would be perfect for slush casting.

[fluger]

 

Hey Fluger, if you sculpted some sandbags, I'd cast 'em! 

 

Jokes on you!  I couldn't sculpt to save my life!  

[Raindog]

If those are ever for sale, let me know. I might have to buy a few of your products.

[JMGraham]

Cool! I reckon that I'll get to that point sometime, and when I do, I promise to spend any money you give me on more sculpting, molding, and casting stuff. :)

[JMGraham]

Not much progress on the terrain front, but I did get some basic ponds molded and cast - a large pond, and a small pond. I may add some more chunks of land in the middle and re-cast these as swamp features, and will likely experiment with sculpting water with bubbles for swamps, toxic pools, or lava. As it stands, they're designed to paint and then fill with water effects.

 

 

[Romans832]

Sexy

[dalmer]

Don't let my kid know those exist... he wants any excuse to make water effects.

 

Looks great!

[Swan-of-War]

PONDS!    Marry me now!

 

You might add some little details to the shoreline if you can - broken shield, frog, break in the skull-layer.  A half-submerged boat would be pretty cool, but why would you need a boat in a pond so small.  I'd buy these up for sure.  Add the top of a river-troll's head peaking out from the water too.

[splinx]

Hi Jim

 

If you have cast up any more of the church yard and house i'd be interested in grabbing them off of you for my village! 

 

Thanks

Sam

[JMGraham]

Sam - I likely won't offer this stuff for sale until closer to the summer. I'm trying to spend time experimenting with techniques and getting a variety of terrain pieces ready to go before going into production mode. If I end up selling any of the test casts to fund further experimentation, I'll be sure to let you know, though!

 

PONDS!    Marry me now!

 

You might add some little details to the shoreline if you can - broken shield, frog, break in the skull-layer.  A half-submerged boat would be pretty cool, but why would you need a boat in a pond so small.  I'd buy these up for sure.  Add the top of a river-troll's head peaking out from the water too.

 

Interesting ideas. I wonder if, when I do the swamps and what-not, if it's better to cast it in one piece, or just have the ponds and "upgrade kits". The swamp kit would have a variety of small islands to glue down before adding water effects and to give an impression of swampland, maybe a partially submerged corpse, or an alligator head sticking up to put somewhere. Or would it be better to detail and model one piece, and cast it as a single, no-fuss, no-customization piece?

[esperatus]

I vote for customizable.

I am a little crafty but get daunted by the time/effort to make quality terain from scratch. Most people who are too busy to do any crafting at all don't play these games anyway.

It seems in this niche of a subculture I might share the voice of the majority. It will be interesting to see how people weigh in.

[JMGraham]

Shameless cross-posting, but I made this Nurgly Aegis Defense Line for my own army, and will likely eventually make it available through Worldsmith Industries.

 

 

I've been plugging away at getting a webstore ready to go. It will hopefully be ready in a week or two. Getting set to order some more resin and stuff to play with, including some quick-setting resin and some resin thickener, to try out some better slush-casting and back-fill methods.

[JMGraham]

Put some paint on a couple of the pond casts so I could try some different water effects. I need to blow the static grass off the surface of the pond, but you get the idea. Figures shown for scale.

 

 

I'm working on some other area terrain, and have a couple of swamps and a plowed field ready to mold, though I'm going to try and sculpt some cabbages to make the field more of a garden plot. Also working on a minefield, and have an idea for a modular piece of area terrain (for forests, rubble fields, and the like) that should be pretty cool.

[generalripphook]

I vote customization that way you could use them on bases too.

[Yarbicus]

I'll take one of each.

[JMGraham]

I vote customization that way you could use them on bases too.

 

Ended up deciding to go the non-customizable route, largely for ease of casting and convenience. I've got a large swamp and a small swamp boxed up and ready to mold!

[andozane]

Jim, that Nurgly Aegis Line is PUTRESCENCE IN ACTION...which in the case of Nurgle, means YES CAN I HAVE ONE :)

[AJAX]

Very cool stuff.

[JMGraham]

Been getting alot of work done, but there's some stuff I want to save to reveal when I launch another Kickstarter (July? August?). In the meantime, here’s the process I’ve been using for a lot of this terrain. Colors are the same. First, I prime with Krylon Black Primer.  Next, I do a thick brush of Ceramcoat Burnt Umber. Nice and heavy, though with a bit of black showing through in the recesses.

 

Next, the same thing with Ceramcoat Autumn Brown. This time a touch lighter.

 

Again, this time with Craftsmart Terra Cotta. I find that the red hue in Terra Cotta gives the brown a nice, warm, vibrant feel. 

 

Last (very light) dry brushing with Ceramcoat Trail Tan provides that final highlight and tones down the Terra Cotta a touch.

 

Next, I hit the rocks and the larger pieces of rubble with Ceramcoat Black.

 

Drybruch the stones with Ceramcoat Hippo Grey.

 

Final drybrush highlight with Ceramcoat White.

 

There’s some different schools of thought on water effects. For my part, I went with the underpainting + ttransparent water effects. I like the effect, but still want to experiment more. I paint the recesses with Citadel Loren Forest and stipple the depths of the pool with Black/

 

Finally, for the water, I used Envirotex Lite with some Citadel Green and Brown Ink mixed in. To finish it off, I used tufts cut from a cheap chip brush for the reeds and GF9 Static Grass (Dead Grass). 

 

[JMGraham]

Pictures of the finished pieces

 

The large swamp (with some figures for scale)

 

The small swamp (+scale shot)

 

The gravestones (with figs)

 

The gravestones with some broken stone walls for a dilapidated little cemetery/

[JMGraham]

So, in a fit of sadness over 7th edition 40k's murder of my exploded vehicle markers, I decided to make some objective markers for 40k. Depending on the mission, you either need them numbered 1 to 6, or numbered 1, 2, 2, 3, 3, 4. Or, perhaps numbers don't matter. I made a set of 8 to cover all of the eventualities. They're 40mm round, and about 2 or 3 mm thick.  They're designed to lay flat, so models can go on top of them without any balancing issues. I used Roman numerals to go with the 40k pseudolatin, and to give them a different look.

 

 

With a Necron Warrior for scale:

 

 

 

I'm planning on selling them for $12 a set, and will ship any number of them to the US for a flat $6 (so, order in bulk with locals to save on shipping!). I'll make production molds of them in a week or two, but if anyone wants to pick up some casts from the master mold over the next week, let me know. I'll be heading to North Carolina for 10 days in a couple of weeks, but don't mind casting some up in the meantime if folks want some sooner rather than later.

 

In case you're wondering how I made them, here's the process I used. I made the original shapes out of dollar-store foamcore (the best kind!) and cereal box cardboard (I belive it was Puffins from TJs. They looked delicious, but I wouldn't know because my kids inhale any sweet cereal we get before I ever get a bowlful... *grumble*)

 

 

Then I made a mold of them to cast them in plaster. I was using Smooth On Mold Max 14NV here. Great stuff!

 

 

Then, I set to the plaster casts with a series of rasps, files, sandpaper, scribing tools, and knives. Carving plaster is very satisfying!

 

 

From the simple, rudimentary plaster casts of the rough forms, I got the master models of the markers. A quick spray of gloss coat to seal and strengthen them, and they're ready to mold again:

 

 

While I have some nice acrylic moldboxes made for making platinum silicone molds, I tend to use cheap dollar-store foamcore for quick mold boxes like this (if I'm using a tin-cure silicone).

 

 

Moldbox is hot-glued together, and ready to go.

 

 

And here with the silicone poured.

 

 

Initial test-cast, with the resin poured and scraped flush.

 

[Justjokin]

Cool work man, love to see the step by step.  Envy on your carving skills.  

[Romans832]

Awesome

[Sammy]

Looks great! I like the process of using concept molds to get the general shapes and then working with the plaster to refine the design. It's also an inspired way to get that recessed look without having to chisel it out yourself. Very inspiring techniques!

[JMGraham]

Thanks! I've been doing the plaster-models-and-then-refining thing quite a bit lately. Ever since I messed up a mold on a wall (destroying the original foam model in the process) and saved it by re-working a plaster cast, I've been doing it on purpose. The pieces from the Nurgle Aegis line above were done the same way, and the gravestones were plaster casts from some laser-cut MDF gravestones I previously designed. I've also discovered that working with plaster casts of rocks for terrain and bases is easier than working with actual rocks (easier to file flush where needed).

 

I'm honestly surprised I don't hear about more people using plaster as a carving and modeling medium. My stuff and your Lizardman bases are the only real mention I've heard of it.