Figure basing - Whatever structure you want!

Hi all,
while making my TDQ-Figs, I had some trouble covering up those Slotta bases without making them even higher. I was breeding about this problem quite a while until I had an idea. You'll need some kind of silicone or other moulding stuff (instamould or sth. like that) and some acrylic filler that you can get in any DIY-Store.

First, drop some of your moulding stuff on the structure that you want to see on your base. Wait until it cures and pull it off. No need for a thick layer as you can see...

Than smear a thin layer of the acrylic filler on it and smoothen it with a wet finger. Let it dry and pull it off the moulding stuff carefully.
The filler will remain sticky for quite a while after curing, so be sure to prevent stacking or folding those layers.

Then make a straight cut that allows you to "wrap" the structure around your minis feet and cut out some place to stand

Like this:

Afterwards use some all-purpose adhesive to stick it to your mini. Since this stuff is very flexible, you can perfectly close the cutting lines and make a very tight fit around the feet of your mini. BUT!!! Don't cover the edging of the base like I did it in this picture. It'll collect the dust off your table ;) Cut it off clean around the edge.

I used cobblestones, wood-plank-floor and a stone wall as a master for these acrylic layers. Here's the result after a layer of varnish (which deals with the stickiness) and some ink.

In the beginning it's quite time-consuming, but after the 5th figure it was getting easier and faster :)


You can also use this method if you have some partial ruins like this...

...which covers only half of the house. I find this looks somewhat odd, so I will simply create the rest of the ruined walls with foamboard and add the original texture with an acrylic layer.



Hope you like it!

Best Regards,
Mojo

Casting Aid: Wacker Plate

Hi folks,
it's been a long time again! I was busy with several projects, but nothing is finished yet, so the only thing I could (and probably will) show you are WIPs.
But there's one thing I finished about a month ago and it has to do with casting.

If you ever did cast stuff in resin or plaster, you will surely know what can ruin your day:

Airbubbles!

These are minor and don't catch the eye much, but they actually stress me. One thing I learned from the Hirst-Arts website some time ago is that you can reduce the amount of bubbles by pounding on the table while pouring your cast-medium into the mould. Well the neighbour downstairs will be a lot happier with another solution I picked up somewhere around the web. I made a wacker plate!

This plate takes up to 8 Linka moulds and leaves enough room between them to cleanly scrape them:

Around the plate I assembled an edging to prevent the moulds from floating of it:

The Screw you can see above fulfills two jobs. 

1st: It's kind of a pivot for the spring-suspension of the plate:

2nd: It can be used to carefully level the whole board by 

turning it in the threading that was inserted into the wood:

To mount the Spring firmly to the baseplate, you need to make a skew cut into a washer.

This can hold the spring to the base:

So far, so well. This could already do the job. But since we all are kind of lazy,

we can sit back later if we invest a little more time now: Get your solder-irons ready!!

The two round black spots you can see above are the electric motors of two old computer fans.

They both have their casing and fanblades removed and are fixed to the wacker plate.

To create an imbalance, I glued a screw to each motor and coated them with duct-tape.

Just in case it breaks off...

Both fans are connected to a switch and from there to an old 12V power-supply that 

I took from a broken network switch.

I'll probably post a video tomorrow to show how it works!

Have a nice day!

Mojo

The corner shop Part III

After one more week of work I've eventually finished the cornershop. Almost.
I don't dare making the signs yet, I'll have to practice before ;-)

I ruined the paintjob of one house side an decided to cover it with plants...

The nicer side

 The garden

More scenic shots...

Two lazy Panzer men...

I'll be gone for two weeks now... Headin' to southern france :) Hello Sun! :)
I hope you'll all have a good time!

Regards,
Mojo

The corner shop Part I (Linka World Moulds)

Well, here we are again, back from Space, diving right into WW2 scenery stuff :)


It's been a while ago when I had the chance to get my hands on some moulds of a company called Linka (World).
One of my forum mates over at www.boforum.de sold some for around 6€ per piece and I got two of them.

Wait a minute. Whats Linka?
Linka World (website here: http://linkaworld.com/index.htm) is a company from the US, making moulds of modular wall- and roofsections for 20mm gaming or modelmaking. I've seen moulds on ebay whose owner wrote that the product would be 30 years old. Well that'd be quite a history for a company making stuff like that :)

Over here(Germany), the moulds are  pretty expensive with about 15€ pp., but I was lucky enough to find someone selling a bunch of 7 moulds for 50€! What an opportunity! But thats not enough. I suggested a price of 45€ (always trying, when possible), and he told me, if I'd pay the 50, he'd pack several hundrets of ready-cast parts in the packet. Allriiiight!

After an odyssey with a german parcel service which uses the name of the greek messenger of the gods (failed to give the parcel to one of my numerous neighbours 2 times...) the cast parts were mostly crapped...

Well this is what I got (along with the 2 moulds I already owned):

(Sorry, I was so eager for action that I forgot to take pictures before making the first cast... You might check the website above for better images and more moulds)
And this is the result of my first cast with 2x80 grams of stewalin (a very hard ceramic casting mass):

Pretty nice :) Unfortunately you still have to invest lots of time to deflash all the parts, especially between the teeth. If you don't, parts won't fit or even break while you're trying to fit 'em.
But thats not too bad: It's a perfect task while you're waiting between two World of Tanks matches ;)

Here's what I first made:

This is going to be a brick factory some day. After glueing the first parts together (using wood-glue), I realized how big this thing is going to become and decided to skip it for a while. I'd better start with something smaller...

So this is the beginning of what we call a "Tante Emma-Laden" (Aunt Emmy's Store):

I guess I might be back in blogging-bussiness now :) At least I hope so!

Last but not least: A warm welcome to my new followers. Damn, I can't even tell how "new" you are :D
$peedY ( Soldiers of Honor)
Michel (0ne of the few bloggers I know personally. Nice Chap, makes great 20mm figures!) ( Michels Miniaturen)
András Szilvásy (Random&Creative)
James Barry(No blog?)
Stephan Reber(No blog?)

Have a nice time! I'll try to keep you updated with this cool linka-stuff!

Cheers,
Mojo

Farm-Raid

On the sixth of June, in the early hours of the evening, german troops raid a farm in normandy. This Kampfgruppe belongs to the Panzerlehr-Division which is advancing westwards to patch the holes in the costal front.
On the way they try to clear the upstate from scattered Airborne troops.

 To be honest: I'd only like to show of my new selfmade pieces of terrain:

 A field growing vegetables

 An already mowed crop field

 Hans is getting ready to throw the stick for the farms dog

 The Master for the Building was made out of foam board

 The windows were scratched from polystyrene

 The Windowlatches and doors were made of balsa wood

  The roof is made of corrugated cardboard

 Now, this building was completely cast from ceramic

 Next to the already known barn, I added a NWC, non-water-closett :-)

 

I hope you like it!

Finally, welcome to fpotd, he runs a blog featuring a funny pic each and every day! Go check it out! :)

And also welcome Trull, I am really impressed of his house-building skills!

Cheers, Mojo

Successful weekend

Hey guys! I'd like to share some more pictures of a very successful modelling weekend.
As mentioned before, I was busy doing moulds and casts.
First of all, I'd like to present the first cast from my roof-mould. It's about 3mm thick and made of Stewalin, some ceramic-like plaster:













It came out perfectly. I could not find a single bubble, and it's rather stable. Somebody said it's going to break while unmoulding because of lacking thickness. It didn't, har, har, har!

Next thing I did was fitting the windows and doors inside my Normandy-Farmhouse masters and applying the windowshutters in order to make the mould. This is how the moulds turned out:

You might notice that its already "dirty" from a first cast... Again the cast turned out pretty well, with a minimum amout of bubbles. Seems like I learn how it works :) But I won't show the farmhouse until its done.

Won't take long anymore ;)

Have a nice week!

Cheers,

Mojo

Mould, cast, mould, cast

Right now, I'm making the first mould for my normandy farm house. While it's curing, I'm casting some windows and doors again.
Busy weekend ;-)
Cheers,
Mojo