Topic: Pandemonium Multi-PLog (update: out)

[Von Kurst]

I may just scale down to a few figures using all one-off sculpted bits.

I recommend Mordheim as a game system.  Have you seen this site?
http://libermalefic.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rules

One of the warbands is Lords of the Marsh...

Great job on the Dwarf gun. 

[ZeroTwentythree]

I am in if you are looking for volunteers

You were among the people I thought might be interested. 

I quite like the idea of playing a wargame without knowing all the rules and stats, it becomes more like a role-playing game and less like chess.

I think I've been reflecting on a few different experiences like that. One was a AD&D game I played the one and only time I went to GenCon, sometime around '89 or '90. The game had two GMs and two parties of adventurers competing against each other. We were separated in two different booths. It played a bit like a skirmish game. We were confined to an island area, and the GMs had a common map to keep track of where each party was at any given time. But it was double-blind, so we had no idea where they were (until we ran into them) and only the vaguest of ideas what their specific stats/abilities were.

Similarly, I remember playing some tabletop games (I remember a Wars of the Roses Game, for example) and quite a few computer wargames where the "fog of war" was represented by that sort of uncertainty about things.

I may just scale down to a few figures using all one-off sculpted bits.

I recommend Mordheim as a game system.  Have you seen this site?
http://libermalefic.blogspot.co.uk/search/label/Rules

One of the warbands is Lords of the Marsh...

Great job on the Dwarf gun. 

Thanks! For both the compliment and the link. I will have to explore that further. I didn't see the warband immediately, but will have to look into it more.  I think if I ever try to get some non-gaming friends into playing something, something Mordheim based would be a good "gateway." 




So I worked to get the stars to align so I could do an initial test mold & casting and...



The silicone was totally solid in the jars. So... waste of money, waste of time. Getting frustrated ready to give up.

Also (finally) finished a 120mm hoplite for a friend. Can't get a decent pic, and I although I'm generally happy with it, I screwed up the composition of the design on the hoplon. I don't have the time nor patience to repaint the whole thing, unfortunately. So... no pics.

But I do have this little guy for the Oldhammer forum's chaos village...



Everything seems to be going wrong lately, just trying to keep from sinking into a funk.

[Sixt]

Don't give up!

Worst comes to worst, pm me and i'll cast them if you want to mail them out.

[GamesPoet]

May your bravery in facing what's going wrong be balanced with what is going right, and your hobby and painting continue with slow and steady progresss, even if it drifts from one item to the next, like mine, knowing that not all will be perfect, yet good enough for those who view your work with pleasure, and may that itself bring you peace and joy.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Looks like resin's back on the table, boys!

After spending too much time and paying more than I had planned, I got it, I did it, and it worked pretty f'ing well. I really needed this boost of confidence.



I figured it would be a hassle trying to mix just a single head worth of resin, so I mixed extra and poured an old mold I had from a casting class I took a while ago. (I had been thinking about using some these as some weird terrain bits, so it won't go to waste.)

Going to make molds of the rest of the heads. I had been wondering if the single piece block mold would work well enough, but it worked beautifully. So I don't think I need to so two-piece molds for these heads at all. I still need to decide whether to do them individually (like this one) or whether to "sprue" them together in one or two group moulds.

I'll mold & cast up some of this first round of heads, but my plan is to still work on refining the sculpting. I also need to get the tails right. I've been experimenting, but I'm really having trouble getting them right. But it's good practice. And I'm eliminating a lot of bad ideas.

[Gankom]

That's half the game really, just experimenting. I started leathercrafting a few years back and I can safely say the first dozen or so projects where a series of terrible errors because I just didn't know the little trick for this or that. Practice really does make perfect.

Your stuff there is looking fantastic.

[Shadespyre]

Back on track! 

[Zygmund]

Looking good there! 

Out of interest, did you check any mold-making how-to-do's in the web, and were they any use for you?

-Z

[ZeroTwentythree]

That's half the game really, just experimenting. I started leathercrafting a few years back and I can safely say the first dozen or so projects where a series of terrible errors because I just didn't know the little trick for this or that. Practice really does make perfect.

Your stuff there is looking fantastic.

Thanks.

Years ago, when I first learned to play Go/Wei Chi, I was told, "Lose your first 100 games a quickly as you can," which was then amended with something along the lines of, "so you can have a better idea what you're doing when you lose a lot more after that." As far as skills that are both manual and creative, I agree. It's not just "knowing what you're doing" but getting a better feel for handling the tools and materials.

Looking good there! 

Out of interest, did you check any mold-making how-to-do's in the web, and were they any use for you?

I did. Some of them were a long time ago. About a year ago I also took a one day molding & casting class with a local artist, too. That's where the mold on the left came from. So I got to see it all happen in person, and do some of the set-up for the mold, pour some resin, etc.

I'm using a Smooth-On starter kit right now, and their instructions & videos are pretty good. It came with a DVD, but they've also got videos online.

This is the kit I'm using, video link on the right: http://www.smooth-on.com/Getting-Started-Po/c4_1217/index.html

[ZeroTwentythree]

Prepping the rest of the heads for mold pouring (probably tomorrow) and still trying to get some decent tails. I'm on the tail fail trail.

As I was working on that stuff, I started thinking... "I should sculpt up a couple of State Trooper Landsknect bodies to cast up and make use of the bucketloads of extra plastic heads, arms, weapons, etc. I have from the old plastic kits..."

[GamesPoet]

That'd be cool!

[ZeroTwentythree]

Whether I'm capable of doing it is another thing... However, I won't know unless I try. (Nor will I get any better without challenging myself, as discussed above.) I'll just have to try fitting that into my increasingly large "to do" list.

When can I quit my day job and just paint, convert, and sculpt minis all day long?

[GamesPoet]

I know the feeling. For me, probably not until my retirement.

[Shadespyre]

When can I quit my day job and just paint, convert, and sculpt minis all day long?

Any time you like! 

Oh, you meant AND be able to afford food? Not so easy.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Any time you like! 

Oh, you meant AND be able to afford food? Not so easy.

I managed to do that while in college. I paid most of my food & rent by painting minis. But I lived in a tiny apartment, didn't have a family, and wasn't yet shackled with paying off the loans I took out to pay for the schooling itself like I am now (and for the rest of my f'ing life...)




I made two more molds of Fomorian heads, one with a single head, the other with the better four of the batch that has been sculpted so far.

My initial resin pull the other day must have been beginner's luck, because tonight I had a lot more trouble -- especially with that mold. In fact, it got a bit torn up from trying to retrieve heads from the cavity. I was having problems with bubbles at the small joint between the head and the "funnel" into which I pour the resin. I got better at avoiding this, but what really made the difference on the last two pulls was using a syringe to fill the head with resin.

So here's tonight's haul:



That's 19 good heads, four more that have small bubbles at the back of the head (simple fix,) and five bad heads. Of the five, I could probably reconstruct the back of three heads, or they may become the start of converted variants with some sort of headgear/hood. The other two are unusable for anything.

I'm still working on sculpting some decent tails. But for the moment, I seem to be on the tail fail trail....

I should start thinking about getting my hands on some more Reaper orcs (I only had the one) so I can see if I can sculpt & cast replacement feet, or whether I will have to sculpt them on each individual figure.

[Shadespyre]

23 out of 28 doesn't sound too bad a return 

[Von Kurst]

I will have to explore that further. I didn't see the warband immediately, but will have to look into it more. 

Yeah, its been so long since I downloaded the warbands that I forgot that it has to be by invitation on that site.  The author has a different sense of humor so the links are hidden inside of articles, in this case one titled "Knowledge Stays Forever" in the Narrative section NOT the Rules section 
 
Here is a link to the Fimir warband
https://dl.dropboxusercontent.com/u/9489887/14b%20Lords%20of%20the%20Marsh.pdf

[ZeroTwentythree]

Thanks! Downloaded all the rules I could find and will check them out.

After three months, my dwarf light artillery is done...



Not a great phot, unfortunately. And I already know... missed the mold line on the wheel...

[steveb]

we will forgive a mold line just this one time.  Great job on the dwarf battery!  steveb

[Zak]

wow

[Mightymatt88]

Lovely looking Dwarf guns 

[Zygmund]

      

After three or four years, my Stirland light artillery is still missing two of the pieces...

-Z

[GamesPoet]

Wonderful to see them lined up like that.

[ZeroTwentythree]

Thanks. I've had some of these figures for a very long time. I'm pretty happy to see them painted too. 



I was impatient to see what how the cast Fomorian heads look, so I quickly cleaned up and painted one of each head, separately mounted on a bit of wire.



On closer examination, they aren't as cleanly cast as they initially looked. I am doing all of this without a vacuum chamber or pressure pot (for now) so there seem to be some very minor bubbles in both the molds and a few of the castings. Given that this is my first time, and that they are so few and so small, I'm not at all disappointed. I only needed to do a quick bit of cleanup.

Painting them up also revealed some weak spots in the sculpting, which is helpful as I plan on doing more and this will help me recognize where to improve. I doubt I will cast more than a few of heads A & B. Head E looks a bit off -- I think the nasal holes were a bit mismolded or miscast, so I'm going to take a look at whether that needs a small repair before more casting. I'm pretty happy with C, D & F.


Should I share these heads?

When I first started, ac couple of people asked if castings would be available. I've been thinking about that. This is really just a personal project, and the quality of both sculpting and casting is still just an amateur/hobby level, at best -- and I'm still working out the bugs of casting for the first time, too! Besides, it's a niche interest within one corner of a niche hobby. But I'm considering doing a one time evening cast-a-thon, set aside what I need, and then making the remainder available for a small price (to help cover materials, postage, and maybe put a bit towards the phase...) or for trades.

I do plan on sculpting and casting a few more heads. And I'm working on some tails, and eventually I may try some cast feet as replacements for the specific figures I'm using in my project.

What do you think? Any interest? I'd like to get a feel for this before casting a bunch of extra heads. Should I wait until I get some tails cast too? (And feet?)

[Shadespyre]

Are you kidding? Of course you should! Once again, you underestimate your own talent I'd be very happy with any of those, even if head E looks a bit squished.

Feet would also be good: I think making feet seems hard too. And if you're doing tails too, well...