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.
No comments:
Post a Comment