Spaceship Scratchbuild Tutorial

A couple of posts ago Matgc, owner of the great My Ever Growing Fleets blog, asked me for a step-by-step explanation on how I make my little putty spaceship miniatures.  So without further ado, here's a tutorial.  Expect this one to be long...

A little over a year ago I was messing around with some Durham's Rock-Hard Water Putty (pictured below) and noted that when it cures the putty doesn't stick to plastic.  Since polymer clay is essentially microscopic pieces of poly-vinyl chloride (PVC) suspended in a plasticizer, the clay is really just mallable plastic.  I reasoned that I could therefore press things into polymer clay and then fill the impressions with water-putty.  Thus my first starships were born.  Before we can start making impressions in the clay, we need a basic shape to press into it.

The first step is therefore to model a shape to make impressions with.  I call this the initial master and I personally use spaghetti, along with other small cylinders like coffee stirrers and plastic sprue.  I spend as much time as necessary gluing the spaghetti together with CA glue so that it indeed looks like a spaceship.  Take a look at the picture below.  It might be just a mass of glued pasta, but I think that if I painted it gray and mounted it on a flight stand it would pass as a spaceship.

Once you have created a master press-shape, then get two fist-sized chunks of polymer clay.  I use Sculpey; I'm not sure but I think other polymer clays will work.  Knead the clay and use a roller to flatten each chunk out on a piece of paper, forming two pancakes of clay.  Ensure these pieces of clay are flat and larger than your spaghetti master.  My clay pancakes end up being at least 10mm thick.

Press the spaghetti into the clay until it's buried half-way.  Take the other clay slab and mash it onto the spaghetti, sandwiching the model.  This leaves impressions on the second slab of clay.  Pull out the spaghetti model, flip it over and push it halfway into the other slab, using the impressions as guides.  You'll now have two impressions, one of the top hull of the spaceship, one of the bottom hull.

Now comes the real "sculpting".  Take various shapes and press them into the impressions, forming suggestions of panels, turrets, fuel tanks, etc.  In addition to interestingly shaped junk like pieces of ink pens and scrap plastic, I have a number of custom tools.  I spend more time making tools than miniatures actually.  The picture below shows some of my most useful tools.  Plastic beads are great for big globular tanks.  My secret weapon is the ball-burnisher, which makes perfect tiny domes.  Another useful tool is a wooden chopstick with the end carved into a regular shape.  I have half a dozen chopsticks with various rectangles and squares carved into the end; these make great impressions of panels.

The following picture shows an example of the spaghetti master, the top hull impression and part of a bottom hull impression; the bottom clay slab was torn apart during demolding.  You can see the detailing in the impressions.

After you've pressed in enough shapes to make it look like a spaceship, it's time to pour putty.  Mix up one teaspoon of water to 2.5 teaspoons of Durham's Rock-Hard Water Putty.  Pour enough putty to fill one impression.  Pour enough putty into the other impression to fill it only 2/3 to 3/4 of the way.  Tap each clay slab vigorously for a full minute to dislodge any air bubbles.  I use a drumstick and hit the slab very violently, but not enough to distort the mold.  Cut a small piece of plastic window screen and place it in the putty in the impression which has been filled.  The window screen will keep the cast together in case it breaks during demolding. 

After 100 minutes very carefully remove the cured putty cast from the impression that was filled completely; the one with the screen reinforcement.  Since this is only half of a very small miniature, expect this cast to be very fragile.  I therefore cut the clay away in small chunks from the cast with a hobby knife.  Mix up some more putty and fill the rest of the remaining impression.  Press the cast you just removed from the mold into the wet putty you just poured.  You're bonding the two hulls, top and bottom, to each other.  Make sure there are no gaps; don't worry if it gets messy.  Use a cotton-swab to soak up extra putty overflowing at the seam.

Let the cast cure another 100 minutes, then remove the rest of the clay.  You will have a complete putty spaceship, albeit with a great deal of flash at the seam of the two hulls.  Water-putty can be carved easily in the first 6-8 hours, so just gently carve off all the flash.  The picture below shows my latest destroyer design for my homebrew game Greater Space Battles.  Take note of the large concave shape in the middle of the ship.  It was supposed to be a globular tank, but I didn't tap the mold.  Air bubble.  Oh well, at least it's symmetrical; maybe I can pretend it's a vent or shuttle bay.

That's it; you now have all my secrets.  This is how I make putty spaceships.  I didn't go into how I make molds and cast these ships in metal, but there are tons of drop-casting tutorials on the web.  That's how I learned. 

Enjoy!  What are your questions?