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.