Build it and they will come

It’s been a busy few weeks at 6mil Mansions working on three new models starting with the RV/Motorhome above made by the talented Crouchie. It’s an iconic vehicle most recently associated with the “Walking Dead” series, although my commissioning it was driven by only recently seeing “Breaking Bad” which I enjoyed immensely. If you’d like one, and we’d really like you to buy one, there’s more details here. Folk in the U.S. can get one from Brent at Company B. Brent has a great forum presence over at LAF being always willing to share how to do things and he’s greater to work with. Even before he had received the first shipment he’d produced some decals for this model, including both US and UK number plates. What a star!

Secondly here’s a set of city ruins, inspired by Akula’s need for some govermental looking ruins for his “Planet of the Apes” project which we’ll see at Salute 2013. I hope they’re good enough as his project is quite stunning in it’s scope including as it does the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial and a Subway station complete with rusted wrecks of trains. His only problem is finding enough figures as he’s using out of production Eureka apes via forums and ebay. Should you know anyone with any for sale please get in touch. These ruins can be seen over at the Slug Industries site.

Finally the pentultimate Hesco piece in the shape of this command bunker. It’s a massive piece and the mould only just fits in my vacuum chamber. It’s hollow cast to keep the costs down, which is a wise move as there’s been an out-of-the-blue price hike in resin.  The roof lifts off this little beauty, and has an interior ripe for detailing. Not that I’ve had time to do that yet.

Not a Tankless Task

A great weight has been lifted off the shoulders of the workers at Slug Industries seeing as we’ve finally got our latest, and hopefully greatest, model finished. Not a simple one this, with around forty hours on the build alone, seperate moulds for components, and the hot weather mucking up the paintjob on the first cast, but only after full highlighting. In other words a bit of a pain.

Here’s the first paintjob shortly before a lot of the surfaces simply started to crack. A few attempts at repair later and other cracks and flakes appeared. Casting another and painting that proved to be quicker.

The rear door which shows the riveting quite well.

The armoured radiator, which looks flat although it’s made of semi circular tubing, and the Dambuster style headlights. The idea being that they’re adjustable, so you could set a rang to them and when the merged lights lit up a target it’s at the predeterminde range. Probably worth a +1 on any dice roll – if it’s at night.

The first wheel layout. Ending up putting two extra pairs in after Orkdung over at VBCF quite rightly pointed out how it looked under powered. Figure gives a sense of scale.

 

Sanger a Song of Sixpence

One of the most different things about making models for casting rather than just the tabletop is just how much longer it can take. Whereas I can have a model like the one above table ready in just three or four days for casting from it takes at least double if not triple the time to make a master. Thankfully I’ve evolved beyond making masters which get trapped in the mould, so I’m delighted with this one.

It started with single Hesco blocks. First laid was the first layer, then the second above it, the planking with scribed woodgrain and finally the steps.

Next came the lower half of the roof, or the table as we came to call it. The only real detail being the woodgrain underneath which you hardly ever see. Well I know it’s there.

Next was the corrugated roof, but that’s not really protection enough from Terry Taliban’s mortars, so it has to be sandbagged. So a line of sandbags went on, which has to be filled before the next line goes on.

It starts to look like this but very very slowly…

Finally got to throw the masters into rubber and lo and behold here’s the very first cast which worked perfectly… phew!

As did both sections of the roof. A peak of euphoria was reached in 6mil mansions.

I did take the roof out a little early hence the curve, but married together a neat piece which I hope others will be interested in.

It’s quite agreeable painted too, although I’m never happy with my drybrushing of the Hesco itself. It takes ages, look passable when it’s inches from your eye but looks a bit scratchy at a distance. Well it does to my hyper-self-critical eyes.

I’m looking forward to seeing this on the table, it’s big enough to hold five figures or a larger heavy weapons base of figures, and very tough – although my Eureka rocket launcher is on the workbench.

This model is now availble, unpainted and sans figures, from our humble Slug Industries.

At a Slug’s Pace

Despite the name our humble Slug Industries keeps producing more gaming goodies at a reasonably fast pace producing as it does a model a month on average. The latest is the Art Deco House above, which I’m glad to have finally finished as it’s been a slight horror show from begining to end. Being designed to fit into our old vacuum chamber with just milimeters to spare was difficult enough, but the original idea was for the windows to be cast thin enough to be poked out, however with such a thin mould wall this proved difficult when combined with the actuality of casting resin a milimeter or less in thickness. After a bit of discussion of this over at GWP the general feeling was how this wasn’t really needed. So I thickened the walls, made new moulds and here’s the result. All that remains is to go and mention it on all the best forums, but I imagine on LAF I’ll suffer some random thread derail which will make it all worthwhile.

We just noticed how our humble Fred wasn’t ever listed on the Slug Industries site so we’ve sorted that out, a surprising oversight especially as we’ve sold quite a few of these.

The complete and total guide to casting

First get some of this stuff and mix it together at a ratio of 1:1

Then chuck in some of this grey thing at around 25% of the total mix.

Mix it all up really quickly with a wooden stick.

Pour the mix in some of these rubber things partially filling them.

Pop the moulds into one of these, turn it on, lift one lever up, and push another down. Wait until it gets to a certain number, press a timer, when the timer goes beep turn it off.

Fill these up to the top and wait for them to cure.

Show what you’ve cast to this bloke and have him laugh at you if you got any bubbles in them.