Federation Commander

I've been trying my hand at sculpting and casting recently for the first time. One mini I've always wanted was a fireball-like plasma torp, so I decided to give it a try. I used some of my kids toy jewelry as a base and worked from there. They are mounted on Litko flight stands with 1/8" diam. magnets. Flames are sculpted with milliput.







I'm letting the two-part mold set as I type and will try to cast them sometime this week. Let me know what you think. Thanks!

good job.

Thanks Bluebirds! I hope the casts turn out ok. I'll post some pics of those as soon as I have them and after I get some painted.

Look pretty good.

Looks good.

Molding disaster has struck!?! I didn't put mold release on the mini and the silicon rubber firmly attached to the porous clay sculpted fire. I pretty much ruined the mold and mini trying to get the stuff off. Back to the drawing board...

Oh, noooo!

Success! I finally resculpted my fireball plasma torps and successfully created a mold, this time using liberal amount of mold release in the process . I have been able to cast about 15 of each size with only one miscast. I'm going to try and find some time to paint some soon and will post pics.

cool great job.

Cool. Those should look great painted-up.

I know absolutely nothing about making molds or creating stuff from a mold, but this looks really cool!

At the risk of derailing this thread, can you briefly explain how you made the mold, and what material the final minis are made from?

Is there a primer website where I can learn to do this kind of stuff? How difficult is it?

I can't answer for Dr Tachyon, but one of the best walk-throughs of mold-making that I've ever seen is currently underway on this gent's YouTube channel:
http://www.youtube.com/user/darkuboot?feature=watch
(He's building a full-size filming miniature, but mold-making is mold-making and stuff like mold-release sprays, etc., are universal.)
He starts making the mold in video Clipper Build 16 (or thereabouts).

I'd say this video was most helpful, as well as a number of webpages, but this definitely helped:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZ_qwuxUrjw

I'll post a step-by-step if someone really needs it, but I the youtube videos do a better job than I ever could!

Dr Tachyon, where are you getting your resin?

How many minis can you pour before the resin begins to harden?

The resin I use is from Dascar Plastics and I can pour three flight stands at a time.