Tidbits

This post will start where the last finished: green stuff shoulder pads. No photos, mostly because the camera and lighting conditions aren't favourable for photographing cured green stuff, but it doesn't matter much.

Using vaseline and a brush to prevent the putty from sticking to the plastic, I made a mould of the front of the desired shoulder pad. The idea was just to try place the winged blood drop onto existing, blank shoulder pads: the blank pad and small amount of green stuff would press into the mould, after the mould was brushed with vaseline. Care must be taken with the vaseline though - it must be evenly applied, but also very thinly, otherwise it tends to gather in corners and ruin the shape of the pressed putty.
In terms of detail, it worked rather well. The insignia turned out very clear, and it was a promising start. The problem with this method, and with the Blood Angel insignia in particular, is that it can get very close to the shoulder pad trim. The excess must either be cut away, or the entire shoulder pad trim must have an extra layer on top. The former is far too time consuming, and the latter ends up causing thickened shoulder pad trims that would unbalance the look of the marine.
The original mould also wasn't intended to include the trim, so it runs into problems - particularly at the corners. A different approach was tried: make the entire shoulder pad from green stuff!

Making an entire shoulder pad would remove any problems with thicker trims, and the only excess to cut away would be flashing lines. As I already had half of the shoulder pad in a mould, albeit with issues at the shoulder pad corners, I decided to make a mould for the other half to save myself a bit of time (I just wanted to test and see if the idea would work for me, not form a production line). Long story short: yes, it works, and much better than trying to apply an insignia to an existing blank pad. Still have to be carful with the vaseline - you don't want the green stuff sticking to the mould. With this in mind, I'm now making a new mould that should give better results, including plastic sprue lines that should help lift the green stuff out of the mould when it's cured some.

I do plan on seeing how well oyumaru (or instant mold) works too. It might be more useful for making the mould because I hear that green stuff doesn't stick to it too easily.

Painting wise, there's not much new happening right now, other than taking far too long to paint the Death Company. On the plus side, they are starting to look much nicer, and they are more detailed than your average tactical marine.

I have adjusted slightly painting the Blood Angel symbol, compared to how it was done on Dante, by using a grey to layer the wings with. I don't have my notes with me at present, but I think it went Caledor Sky (base), Administratum Grey (layer), Ulthuan Grey (layer), and using a fine brush to paint the feathers individually. The tip uses just Rakarth Flesh (base) followed by White Scar (layer).

Another week and I'll hopefully have the Death Company finished. Well, the first five models anyway. A squad of tactical marines will likely follow on, as I want to try shading and blending with red.

-- silly painter