Big Bot Bash for Amateurs (Pasta Bot WIP)

A few years ago the YouTube Algorithm fed me the Bill Making Stuff channel when I was looking for terrain-building ideas.  The BMS channel introduced me to a number of other wargame-adjacent crafters, most notably Bill’s twin brother Dan, who runs the Dan Does channel.‡

Bill introduced the Big Bot Bash last March, and brought it back this year.  The BBB showcases a number of invited YouTubers, who each contribute their own unique take on the “Junkbot” concept exemplified by Bill Making Stuff.  As the name implies, a junkbot is a robot model scratchbuilt from “junk”, i.e. generally unrelated and repurposed objects.

The BBB challenge introduces a random element, by having the participants roll a d20 six times on the “Junkbot Generator”, found on Bill’s website for his own sci-fi setting, the Gutterlands.  Each roll on the Junkbot Generator assigns a specific aspect to the five different body areas and an overall robot “flavour”, with each die result vague enough to allow wide interpretation while still providing enough constraints and inspiration to prompt the scratchbuilder to start gluing.   

As a Patreon patron of the Dan Does channel (sorry Bill, money’s tight!), I have access to that channel’s Discord server, which hosts a slew of creative and lovely people.  A number of us patrons decided we’d unofficially join the BBB; while none of us run our own YouTube channel, we tried to stick to the same 28 March deadline that the pros were bound to.

***As an aside, you don’t need to be patron of either the Dan Does or Bill Making Stuff channels in order to join their respective Discord servers (Dan Does; Bill Making Stuff).  If you do toss them a few quid via Patreon however, you can get access to each server’s members-only section.  Either way, it’s a great way to meet like-minded crafters and I recommend it.***

A couple of the other Discord members made the deadline and their creations look awesome!  I’m truly blown away by the creativity and totally different perspectives and techniques everyone brought.  Obviously, based on the date of this post and its “Work-in-Progress” title, I’m way behind and still not finished with mine.  The build is done though and only the painting remains, so I feel safe enough to talk about it.  Posting now should hopefully give me some accountability to fully complete the build.

Anyways, let’s get on talking about my build.  I don’t feel too bad about missing the deadline, as I didn’t commit to making a junkbot and download the generator until around 15 March.  

OK, so anyone who’s seen this blog knows I like to build little spaceships out of pasta.  I’ve wanted to make other mechanical constructs from pasta for years and figured the Big Bot Bash was as good a time as any to try.  That meant, in addition to the constraints from the Junkbot Generator, I also forced myself to use pasta for a majority of the build.

Here’s my list of six rolls, followed by my initial thoughts/interpretations:

Section	D20 Roll	Result
Body	7	Heavy Smoker
Head	5	Hole
Arms	13	Fancypants
Hands	14	Two-handed
Legs	14	Centipede
Flavour	4	Beaten

I wasn’t exactly in love with a lot of the rolls but knowing the various pasta shapes I had on hand, coupled with Bill’s guidance to “Interpret the results how you like”, a few rough ideas immediately sprang to mind.

A “heavy smoker” body seemed easy enough, with all the tubular pasta shapes readily standing in for exhaust pipes.  I wasn’t sure what to do with “hole” for the head, so decided to come back to it.  I immediately decided that “fancypants” arms just meant overly complex, instead of frilly or ornate.  Hmmm, “two-handed” most obviously meant the robot bore some kind of two-handed weapon, but I rejected that.  Instead, I planned on each wrist ending in two hands.  I did not like “centipede” legs because it sounded like so much more work, a real pain.  I also didn’t like the idea of a long lower body with a lot of legs.  Turns out I went with the multiple legs configuration anyways.  Rolling “beaten” for flavour made me smile though, as that meant I could treat construction and painting mistakes as blemishes.

An idea formed quickly and I started gluing together pasta and wire in a vaguely humanoid shape.  I decided to make the overly-complex arms using three separate tentacles (each) that joined at a wrist unit.  The same wires for the arm tentacles passed through the body and splayed out into six separate tentacular legs.

The robot started to take shape and it screamed “mining bot”, like some piece of titanic but mundane equipment in a Chris Foss painting.  The “hole” result for the head could be the robot’s gaping maw, occupying its entire face (making for an easier build).  And a mining robot doesn’t need delicate hands, so the wrist units could feature claws.

Other than the wire armature and much baking soda accelerant, the entire build was, so far, various pastas held together with CA glue.  I started bulking it out using standard office paper and some vinyl sheeting, creating flat and smooth surfaces for later greebling.

The nature of those greebles caused me a bit of consternation.  I feel using anything other than found objects violates the pure spirit of a junkbot build.  The junkbot generator even states “no 3D prints”.  If you know me and my feelings toward 3D printing, you know there is no danger of printed parts showing up here.  Yet, I had to trash all the contents of my bits boxes in our recent move.

My second most favorite scratchbuilding technique, after gluing pasta, is casting my own greebles and nurnies in homemade, often single-use, impression molds.  I even took up valuable luggage space and weight during our move to hand carry my mold clay and casting plaster.  Still, I was reticent to use this technique, as it seems like an analog version of 3D printing.  I made peace with myself though, as I was doing all the mold creation from simple found-object shapes.

Keen-eyed readers will note that I strayed from the Junkbot Generator prompts in a few areas, most obviously the hands.  I wanted desperately to meet the (non-existent) deadline, and started cutting corners.  The first thing to go was the two claws per wrist idea. 

So, here’s the bot now, covered in greebles, secured to a base, primed, and waiting for paint.  Unfortunately, my airbrush set-up also stayed behind with our big move, so this guy will be purely brush painted.

‡All ideas from the Dan Does and Bill Making Stuff channels are the copyrights of their respective creators, used without permission, and with no intent to challenge.  I hope by featuring links to their channels/websites here, I can convince the reader to go check them out and maybe even support them on Patreon.  Thanks!

Scratchbuild Spaceships: Super-Chunky Style

Chunky, exaggerated details should be easier to paint

I'm still working slllloooowly on the spaceship I started months ago, as I last talked about here.  It's coming along nicely, but I wanted to explore a new idea.

I made a bunch of various-sized stamps, using Super-Sculpey again, like the one pictured here.

Stamp

If you've read this blog you know how the story goes from here.  If not, here's a quick summary of the technique: mash the stamps into a block of modeling clay, then pour resin in the resulting cavity.  You then have one half of a spaceship.

Heavy shadows to show detail

At first I wasn't in love with the results, but the look is starting to grow on me.  It kind of looks like a spaceship with warts, but then again you can see the details from across the board.

Although it's only half a ship, I'm going to hit it with some primer, ink it, then dry-brush it.  I bet the details will really pop out.

Scratchbuild Spaceship WIP: Resin and Apoxie Sculpt

I've been doing impression molded spaceship miniatures for a few years now, and despite the flat featureless bottoms I've always been happy with the results.  Out of curiosity however, I decided to try producing a miniature with both a detailed top and bottom hull.

For the top hull I used the 85mm resin cast featured in my last post.  That cast was used to define the outer boundaries of the impression mold for bottom hull, which was then cast using the same method.

Once the bottom hull was complete the two were joined by sandwiching a thin layer of Aves Apoxie Sculpt in between.  The epoxy putty was then used to slowly sculpt the join between the two hulls.  The sculpted portions can be seen in the in the pictures below: the epoxy portions are the white color while the resin casts are cream.

I really like this putty.  Unlike Pro-create or Kneadatite it doesn't stick too much to the tools, nor is it too springy.  And like Milliput, it smooths very well with water.  Like all epoxies I've used, Apoxie Sculpt hardens a lot quicker with the help of a heat lamp.  It's very similar in many respects to Milliput Super-fine.  I find the Milliput SF gives generally smoother surfaces and takes detail just slightly better, but also sticks a lot more to my tools and my fingers.  Also the Milliput develops a "crust" that I have to cut off before mixing, which wastes a portion of the putty.  I think the Apoxie Sculpt's packaging (little plastic tubs) is what prevents it from crusting up; I'll probably therefore transfer my Milliput to similar containers if I find any.

Only the port side of the ship is complete.  I still need to do the entire join on the starboard side, as well as create a nozzle section for the stern and then blend the join there as well.  Since I'm currently swamped with take-home work, I expect this project to continue very slowly.

Resin = cream color; Apoxie Sculpt = white

Bottom hull: incomplete starboard side plus flight stand interface

 

85mm Resin Scratchbuild Spaceship

The title of the post says it all.  I used scrap plastic to push a rough shape of a ship into modeling clay, then detailed the impression with polymer clay stamps I made some time ago.

I'm very pleased with how this came out, because  I really needed a ship this size.  You see, I was rebasing all my other resin scratchbuilds and with the whole fleet lined up I realized that nearly every ship was 55mm long, +/- about 5mm.  That kind of uniformity makes it hard to distinguish which are the heavy battleships, which are the medium cruisers, and which vessels are the light corvettes.  I plan on focussing on making small and large ships for a while, since I have a plethora of medium craft.

The pictures below show today's ship fresh from the mold, with only some soap and water clean-up.  I still need to take a knife and sandpaper to the edges, and of course base and paint.  Before the paint however I will use polymer clay and epoxy to sculpt the exhaust nozzle section.  I find that the ships look about 300% better with a nozzle section added.

85mm now, but will grow with nozzles added

Cheap Spacecruiser Scratchbuild Tutorial (Resin)

I know I've done a couple of scratchbuild tutorials before, but as the picture of the primed spaceship miniature above shows, I'm experimenting with techniques that produce a slightly different look.

The ships I've been creating with my polymer clay stamp method have some intricate panel lines, as shown in the last post.  Not only do these look good (to me), the panel lines are super easy to paint by using inks.  The only problem is that if the miniature is really supposed to represent a 300 meter long ship, panel lines would be hard to discern.  The ship pictured above however, really gives the impression of being big; the regular shapes make it look mechanical and vast.

OK, on to the tutorial.  The real reason I wanted to do another how-to post is so that I can really focus on the frugality and simplicity aspects.  My polymer clay stamp method is easy, but requires Super-Sculpey and the oven to bake it in.  This adds time and another layer of complexity.  This new method allows one to make super-cheap ships like the one above using only resin and modeling clay.

Materials needed are Alumilite Super-Plastic (or similar possibly, but this is the only resin I've tried), and a block of Van Aken brand Plastalina modeling clay.  The resin's advertised price is $30 and a pound of the clay about $3 to $4 (get about three pounds).  With some savvy shopping you could get these materials cheaper, paying about $25 for all you need.

For the first step, a shape must be created to press in the clay.  Fold a piece of scratch paper in half.  Take a straight edge and draw one half of the outline of the ship, as depicted below.

No prior planning, just started sketching

Keep the paper folded and use a sharp hobby knife to cut out the shape, pressing hard enough to cut through both layers of paper (use an old phonebook or something underneath so as not to scratch your table).

Pull out the shape and unfold; you should now have a perfectly symmetrical ship outline.

Symmetric ship outline

Find some very thin plastic.  Some suggest buying "For Sale" signs and this is a good option, but I find plenty of thin plastic (especially polystyrene) in food packaging.  I mean very thin plastic, not like bread tabs or hotel key cards.  Use CA glue to glue the ship outline to the scrap plastic.  Once the glue is dry, carefully cut the ship from the plastic, using the paper as a guide.

On the paper side, gently and repeatedly score the ship directly down its longitudinal axis (its spine).  Don't cut the ship in half, but score into the plastic deeply enough so that the ship can be folded up like a "V".

Flatten out a fist-sized ball of modeling clay on a clean surface (paper).  I use a rolling pin to flatten the clay, and stacks of hotel key cards to get a uniform height.

Take the plastic ship outline and place it on clay.  Use a pointed tool (I use a sharpened chopstick) and press along the spine of the ship so it sinks into the clay a uniform depth.  Only press it in 1 or 2 mm, just enough to leave a faint impression of the ship.  Now, press the stern of the ship deeply into the clay, maybe 6 to 10 mm.  This will cause a ramp effect, giving the illusion that the main hull of the ship has a lot more volume.  As you press down on the spine of the ship, you'll find the plastic shape folding up like a book, leaving a deep wedge impression.  When you have the depth you want for the ship, gently press out on the wings, unfolding and flattening out the impression.  Remove the plastic shape to reveal the shape as pictured below.  Roll up some more clay and repeat the steps in this paragraph three or four times so that a whole squadron of ships can be constructed at once.

Plastic shape-guide, clay, sharp pressing tool

Find a bunch of regular shapes, mainly rectangular ones, but also globular shapes and circles.  Examples of shapes I use are the ends of pens, beads, mechanical pencil lead tips, and scrap plastic cut into rectangles.  Take these shapes and press various features into the ship.  Try to keep the impressions subtle but vary the depths, making deeper impressions where you want the ship to have more volume (the bridge, main reactor core, etc.)

When you're satisfied with how the ship mold looks, mix some resin.  Do this outside and even then you may want to wear a mask (I do).  Mix the resin and pour into the mold of each ship individually.  It also helps the curing if you don't reuse anything involved in the resin mix.  I construct my own disposable eye-droppers.  Make sure to vigorously tap the side of the clay mold once the resin is poured to dislodge any bubbles.

The beauty of this technique is the minimal amount of material it uses.  The above ship is 50mm long yet required only 35 drops from an eye-dropper of each part of the resin!  Even that resulted in a lot of flash; I could have done it with 30 or even 25 drops.  As I've noted on this blog before, using such minuscule amounts of resin means I could theoretically make hundreds of ships.  As a side note, I purchased this resin in the spring of 2012, about 15 months ago, and it's still curing just fine.

The hardest part is the waiting.  Don't demold in 10 minutes, even if the resin package says you can in 3 to 5 minutes.  I wait 20 to 30 minutes.  Demold gently and use a soft toothbrush and warm soapy water to clean off any clay sticking to the miniature.  The picture below shows my example miniature fresh out of the mold (after cleaning and flash removal).

Mold and cast

Clean up the flash with sandpaper, files and hobby knife.  If you really want to finish the ship right, do a little "real" sculpting with another medium (epoxy, polymer clay, plasticard) to make the engine exhaust nozzle.

Finally, prime and paint.  Base as per your preferred rules (I use metal washers to enable magnetic storage).  The ships may be featureless on the bottom, but as this tutorial shows they are extremely easy to make.  I mentioned before that with smart shopping the resin and clay could be obtained for $25.  One would need only a few hours over a weekend to make a dozen ships.  That brings the cost per miniature to a little over $2 a piece.  However, I've already made twice as many ships, just through experimenting.  Once you get the process down, it's easy to crank these out, driving the cost down to less than $1 a ship!

Have fun.

50mm long

Scratchbuild Spaceships: The Shipyard Reopens!

I've managed to get a week off of work and before other commitments consumed my time I was able to get two new spaceships sculpted, painted and based.

I experimented with using acrylic white gesso as a primer and was disappointed.  Perhaps I didn't wait long enough for the gesso to dry, but when I went to apply the initial coat of paint the gesso primer flaked off in some areas.  I've never had a problem with spray primer sticking to resin, so I think I'll stick with that despite the nasty fumes.

I'm still not complete, but I wanted to get some pictures up before the good light is gone for the day.  The yellow in the nozzles of the squatty ship just doesn't work for me; I'll try changing it to a white-hot glow.  Also the basic color-schemes work for the ships, but they need some pep.  I'll probably use some decals.

The bases are 1" metal washers covered with a design I created on Powerpoint and printed on address labels.  The design has a place to write the ships name, six "pies" to show firing arcs, and six arrows to facilitate the movement rules for my solo game Able Spaceman.  The decal on the base is covered with plastic so that I can use grease pencils and alcohol pens to make turn-by-turn notes.

6mm Sci-Fi Tank Platoon: The Enemy

I was pleased with how my first platoon of futuristic micro-armor came out, and after all the encouragement I received on The Miniatures Page I decided to scratchbuild some more.

My original intent was to create a platoon of four tanks, but I screwed up one of the casts.  If you've read about my technique for creating these, you know I use modeling clay as a temporary mold that generally gets destroyed when the cast is removed.  No dramas however; I removed these casts here very gently from their respective molds so that I can cast more if I need it.  But who knows, perhaps this enemy force uses a different organizational structure of three tanks per platoon.

Sci-Fi Micro-Armor Platoon WIP Update

I'm getting closer to actually finishing a scratchbuild project; namely, my futuristic tank platoon.

Yesterday I attached the undercarriages, and glued on wheels, which were discs punched from a styrene sheet with the Missus' hole punch.  Last night I attached the main guns (using angel hair pasta and epoxy) to each tank turret, then primed all pieces white.

Tonight I will hopefully have some time to paint each tank hull and turret and glue everything together.  Until then, here's some shots of the primed pieces of one tank (turret not glued, just sitting on the hull).

Starting to look like tanks...

I had a question from reader yojimbo regarding what I mean by impression mold.  I wasn't being entirely clear to the non-moldmaking public, so below is a picture of the impression molds used to make the turrets and one hull of these tanks.  Sometimes (like with these tanks) I just press the Super-Sculpey shapes into the clay to form the impression but other times on "bigger" projects, like an 80mm spaceship, I'll push a piece of polystyrene scrap into the clay first.  The scrap plastic is used just to make the initial impression, and is cut in the outline of the ship.  Then I'll use the Super-Sculpey stamps to detail the inner walls of the depression.  Final note, the mold clay is not polymer clay (like the stamps) but Plastalina modeling clay.

Impression molds, post-casting

Hope this helps!

WIP: Resin Cast of Milliput Spaceship

Yesterday I posted about my first epoxy putty scratchbuilt spaceship, a simple design sculpted with Milliput Superfine.  Today I went ahead and pressed the relatively flat design into a block of sulfur-free sculpting clay (I can't remember the brand name) to make an impression mold.

I detailed the mold with ball burnishers and other regular shapes, then poured some resin in.  I removed the cast and cleaned up the edges with a little wet sanding.  I'll still need to sculpt the exhaust section on the back and put an antennae cluster on the front, but it's coming along.  I plan to paint it tomorrow if I can get that detailing and the basing done.

Not as crisp as the master...

The resin cast is nowhere near as crisp as the Milliput original, as far as panel lines go.  The resin gives a number of advantages though.  First, with the impression mold I can add globular tank features that would be too hard to sculpt, as well as little greeblies to catch the drybrushing.  Also I can jam little pieces of plastic into the clay, extending into the cavity.  These end up getting caught in the cured resin and when removed from the clay jut out of the cast spaceship at right angles, forming easy and convincing looking struts, solar panels and radiator fins.  This little wedge ship has one such fin, but it's hard to spot in the picture.  Finally, the biggest advantage of the resin is duplication capability.  I easily could have pressed the Milliput master into four or five small blocks of clay today, and mixed up enough resin to fill all the impressions simultaneously.  A fleet in 10 minutes (well, not counting cleaning up the edges and detailing the back).  Hopefully the cast will take paint well enough to bring out the details; I really like the fast duplication possibilities of this method.

Scratchbuild Spaceships and Weird Resin Reactions

I had a four days off last weekend and decided to sculpt up a new spaceship.  I made two halves like I normally do out of water-putty and used Alumilite HS III to make molds of each half.  I tested out my jury-rigged agitator device to prevent bubbles in the water-putty masters, but honestly it didn't work any better than just tapping the air out.  I know it would work better if I attached the motor directly to the suspended platform and if I used less rigid springs.  Oh well; that's science.  I would try to improve the design, but honestly I'd rather use my spare time for scratchbuilding miniatures.

Anyways today I poured resin casts of each ship half and combined them.  A weird thing happened.  The top hull which I poured first cured perfectly with a normal off white color and no bubbles.  The bottom half I poured second and while it cured I set the top hull against it so the two halves would fuse together to form a complete ship.  I knew the edges would be a bit rough, but for some reason the bottom hull never changed from the dark brown color of the uncured resin.  The plastic solidified fine, it just didn't change color.  If anyone out there has more experience with resin and can explain why, I'd appreciate it.  I'm guessing maybe insufficient mixing?  Or perhaps the recently cured resin of the top hull touching the curing bottom hull caused a strange reaction?  I don't know, but I know once primed it won't matter.  I've still got a lot of work to do with file and blade but once I get the exhaust nozzle on the back of the ship and antennae cluster on the front, I think it'll look OK.  I am however going to give up trying to mash ship halves together like this.  The join line just looks too sloppy.  From now on my ships will be either simple one part mold casts with flat bottoms, or complete three dimensional sculpts with a proper two-part mold.

Bottom hull mold

Top hull mold

Top (cured normally)

Bottom (abnormal cure)

In addition to this ship, I also started on a new sculpt and am about 40% complete.  For this sculpt I'm experimenting with a totally new technique and finally taking a few timid steps into the world of two-part epoxy putties.  I'm using Milliput Superfine and so far I love its properties.  As you can see, I'm keeping the design very simple.

Deep panel lines to catch ink washes

Finally, here's a shot of some micro-armor I started way back in June.  The turret and hull have been completed since then but I'm working on the tracks slowly.  I hope to mold all the parts and have a platoon of four tanks done soon.

Homemade Molding/Casting Agitator

A long time has passed since my last post, my time having been filled with major work and life events.  Pretty soon I'll be starting a year-long school and will have to cease gaming and put this blog on hiatus.  So before then I'm trying to cram in as much scratchbuilding as possible.

I'm finishing the scratchbuild tank I started way back, and starting on another spaceship.  As I've discussed, I'm using water-putty to make the masters, silicone for molds and resin for the casts.  In each of these materials I have to vigorously tap the respective container to ensure air bubbles don't form.  I'm some cases, especially with the water-putty, I don't get all the bubbles out.  To remedy this I cobbled together a crude agitator, inspired by a blog post on the Ultrawerke site.

First I bought a 4x6 inch wooden picture frame for a US$1.00 at the dollar store.  I cut up the fiberboard backing to make legs to elevate the frame.  I cut the bottom out of a cardboard coffee bean  container, leaving a 30mm lip all the way around.  I suspended the coffee can platform from the frame using springs from the hardware store.  I then mounted a 1.5V motor to the side of the frame.  The motor and associated wires, switch and power source were all left over parts from a graduate course I completed last winter but could easily be purchased from Radio Shack for US$5.00 to $7.00 total.  I fixed a weight to the drive-shaft using epoxy putty and turned it on and to my amazement it worked.  It worked a little too well and the frame starting scooting across the kitchen table.  My wife suggested placing the whole contraption in a cardboard box, which worked beautifully.

I"m off to pour the top and bottom hulls of a new spaceship sculpt.  I think this agitator will go a long way towards making more crisp scratchbuilds.

Agitator

Proper Micro-Armor Scratchbuild

My rules suck.  Well, at least the tank vs. tank game I recently posted does.  I tried it out with a few proxy figures and found them to be clunk-tastic.  I tried to use my infantry skirmish game (which I've had a lot of fun with) as the basis for the fighting vehicle rules.  The action token mechanic works great emulating an individual trooper choosing between keeping his head down and returning fire or dashing around.  It just didn't work for vehicles though.

So I've scrapped those rules and come up with new ones.  My thoughts about communication being the most important aspect of the tank platoon still influenced my design, but the mechanics are fairly different.  I need to test these before I post them however, and that brings me to the point of tonight's post: I made proper micro-armor scratchbuilds.

I used the same techniques detailed last post to make the putty masters of the components, but this time didn't mess around with crappy molding or casting materials.  I applied the silicone mold last night and demolded after 16-17 hours.  I usually wait 24 hours but got excited; the molds didn't seem any less cured however, probably due to their small size.   I mixed and poured the resin, demolded the cast parts, trimmed them up, and assembled two tanks in about two hours.

At about an hour per tank this is a big time investment for a 34mm long miniature.  Luckily my new rules are based around an individual platoon of three to six vehicles, so the number of models is low.  And since I'm using something like 0.4 cubic centimeters of resin per component, I know my financial cost per miniature is miniscule.