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Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Steal your face - the ultimate conversion

OK, the ultimate conversion MAYBE is a little overrated but you got to make people dream a bit... (and maybe when you see the final result you will find it ultimate).

What all of this is about is this : 


These were the 2 basic components of yesterday night's work :
  • The 2 blue and white putty boxes are known as Siligum (which sound like sillygum if you're 8 years old).
  • The paper bag beneath containning plastic bits from an online bits store.

First part  of the evening was used to prepare the bits (I just love doing it). There's nothing like annoying your wife and cats with the sound of a moddeling knife removing flashes from models when they're watching a bad movie or TV program...


Are some of you getting a view of where this is heading ? Nope?


Well let's move on to the second part of the evening...
Putty work. As you can see I'm getting very good at sculpting alternative heads for my favorite minis. This took me only 5 minutes to sculpt these very cool alternatives for some of my favorite models. I admit there is still some little smoothing to do here andthere but I believe ths shapes are here and the expressions are correct...
 
Pure mixture of old and new, fantasy and 40K
 OK, done with the gibberish here... This all about stealing the face of these models by taking siligum prints and casting resin copies. I'm only looking at taking faces here, no question about copying whole models (I wouldn't be able to anyway with such a method...). Another way to do this could be to pressmold them in GS but the details are too fine here and some of the models are already painted and I don't want to damage the paintjob.
Siligum is a 2 part putty that cures VERY rapidly to form a flexible print. It does take the shape very finely and very easily because it is naturally greased so it does'nt catch much air bubbles in the process. It also helps taking shapes from intricate models since you cans squeeze and bend it as you wish. 
I strongly advise not to make too thin molds for they could easily tear if the gum is not thick enough.

I then took the molds off of the models leaving grease I'll have to wash away so that paint adheres later on.
I cast a first batch of the faces and let it cure overnight so the final result will be for tonight when I get home...

Little quizz here : some of you already know the answer if you're following the olhammer forum, but for the others : what is the link between all the different models from which I took the face and how do they relate to the plastic bits I ordered?


On a side note, I was in Paris this weekend (for those who don't know Paris, it's the most beautiful dirty city in the world, or maybe the dirtiest beautiful city in the world, never know which way it is...)
 Anyway, I've lived in Paris for far enough time not to visit anything but my friends and hobbystore there (Starplayer for those in Paris). and a good thing I did ! I had excellent fun with my friends and got my hands on some loot. Just look at this : 3€ for an unpainted undead chariot on its sprue !



There was a complete painted 1st ed warlord titan for 12€ (and a phantom eldar titan for 20€) but it didn't strike me as a real barghain though not over-expensive...

By the way, I added some details on the chaos grav-attack too so there should be a interesting update here at the end of the week...

12 comments:

  1. It's all about the grinning masks right?!

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  2. This looks like it's going to be terrific! Really nice!!

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    1. It is going to be terrific Suber, but this will be because it's a 4 hand project. I will give some info about all this in a near future...

      Thanks

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  3. Sounds like a cool model shop if you can pick up old models like that. Nothing like that in Dublin unfortunately. Interested to see how those resins come out.

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    1. hum, well... looks like "asscasts" deserves its name...

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  4. Very interesting, Mr.ALMan, I am very curious to see the end product. Although, in staring at photo #3, I started to daydream about a warband/gang of guys with big blue glob heads! Yeah! The Blue Glob Head Boys vs. Confrontation Brats!

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  5. (rubs chin) Hum, confrontation you say? Brats yo say? hum funny thing you should say that...
    I'll end the tease tomorrow...
    Thanks Private.

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  6. One step up from mere press molding, look forward to seeing the end result. Oh and I now know your real name rather then Asslessone...

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  7. Well look at the results and you might consider it one step down =D

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  8. I'll be interested to see how they come out. I've seen some good examples of press molding and might give it a try.

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    1. Hum (cough cough) well, just look at the next post and you'll the (cough) incredible results...
      Definitely worth a try though...

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