Sculpt is finished and the first casts are done. This was tricky to cast – I ended up tilting the mold to get it to pour right. Here’s a casting before I’ve cleaned up any flashing.
Also working on Aguirre from the Verner Herzog film, basically Apocalypse Now with Conquistadors. The figure will work for other Renaissance games too.
An open-handed Landsknecht, ready for pike, standard or halberd which I cast separately from the figure but in the same mold. I’ll have a painted shot of him soon.
A shot of the peasant force fighting Landsknechts over a manor house. I used the old Warhammer Skirmish rules which make for a quick, simple game and accommodate all the different weapons (I left out pikes – I can’t imagine they were used outside of set-piece battles).
Working on a few things and taking a detour from Renaissance sculpting. First is a town militia arquebusier in a helmet. Almost completed, I may add a knife or sword.
An almost-complete Landsknecht that’ll be open handed for a pike, halberd or standard.
I watched Solomon Kane over the weekend, having exhausted all the good (and even the not so great) Renaissance war movies. Kane is a Robert E. Howard character, a Puritan warrior in 1600 who fights supernatural evil. A goofy, pulp movie with a veneer of historicity (1600 England was all mud, witch burnings and black clothes, right?) but fun.
There are some fantastic 28mm Solomon Kane figures out there but I thought I’d try to do him in 15/18mm. I’ll give him the classic tall hat and cloak. He’ll be armed with a cutlass and rapier as in the movie.
His face may be the favorite I’ve sculpted. He’s scowling, as one does when fighting for one’s soul, and has a long pointed nose and chin.
Enemies? Maybe some pirates or Turks or ghosts – anything that I’d like to try really.
Recently completed, a Landsknecht loading an arquebus and a peasant with an agricultural fork.
If you’re looking for small-batch molds, Alumilite’s mold putty is probably the way to go. It’s a got a few qualities that are relevant: it can withstand the heat of molten lead, it sticks to itself unless lubricated, has some flexibility once cured, has a short open time and doesn’t need to be vulcanized before use. We’ll get into each one of these qualities in a walk-through of the process.
I’ve used two types of Alumilite putty, the yellow kind and the purple kind. I didn’t see much of a difference, the purple may be a bit stiffer once cured. They’ve got the same heat resistance and detail retention, which are the most relevant features.
Rubber that requires vulcanization will last through more casting but for my purposes the mold putty has worked out fine. Also, I don’t want to cook rubber in my oven or buy a vulcanizer!
I start out with a LEGO box larger than the subject figure (in this case the Landsknecht swordsman I just finished). For a 15mm figure, I leave about a half inch to cut a funnel for pouring the lead. Then I lay down a quarter-inch or so base of putty and press the figure in halfway.
The putty comes in two colors, yellow and white – mix it until the colors are fully blended and it’s ready. The downside of this putty as opposed to one that’s later vulcanized is the open time. Once the two putties touch they start curing. For the impatient, it’s nice to be able to use a mold 20 minutes after you’ve made it. However, the workable time is only about 2 minutes. I leave the putty in the fridge to extend that a bit, but you’ve got to have everything set up and ready to go once you start mixing the putty. Take too long adjusting the figure and the putty starts to push back on you.
At first, the second stage would be a repeat of the first. I’d paint Vaseline on the first mold half (although not the figure, the putty won’t stick to greenstuff) and then lay on another layer of putty and smooth the top so I can clamp the two when casting.
However, all that smoothing would often move the putty around the model enough that the second half of the mold, usually the front of the figure, would cure with blurred or smudged details. After wasting a few mold halves trying to get this right, the putty’s self-adhesive quality finally dawned on me.
That blob of putty is just what’s need to cover the figure and capture detail. I add a second layer of putty once that’s cured and can level the top without disturbing any detail.
The results have been quite good – I’m losing very little detail from the green on the casting and the mold lines are also reduced.
With this method, putty will be pushed into cavities and other areas but a casting will come out freely since the cured putty is still rubbery.
I’ll cover casting in a future post but it’s worth saying that it’s easy to overheat the metal and burn the molds. I haven’t had a loss of detail yet but some have some discoloring around the pouring channel when the lead was too hot. However, it seems the mold putty holds up to repeated lead castings.
The whole mold-making and casting process was done last night over a few hours between other activities. I finished painting a figure this morning although this is one of the first ones with smudged front detail. The cast figure above is the new method which improved the beard, scabbard and mold lines.
The guy with the sword is ready for the mold and the arquebusier is right behind him.
I like how the hat turned out on the swordsman. I’m not so sure about the size of the feather on the second one, I may tone that down before I base him.
In the background is another peasant who’ll have an agricultural fork.
Next up is going to be some pictures of the molds and an explanation of the process.
Finished the 15/18mm peasant, made a mold and did a few castings. The figure came out really well, I only needed to add one vent to get the halberd to fully form.
I may take the hat off the green and swap it for another style, giving me some mixture of headgear without making a new figure. It’d be nice to just file the hat off a casting and avoid altering the green but you lose some detail making the mold as it is. A copy of a casting would be rough.
After the next two Landsknechts I’m planning a peasant with a flail.
Peasant or city militia halberdier almost complete. I left too much space between his weapon and body, I’ll have to fill that before casting. He’ll get a base as well, of course.
Another figure in the beginning stages that’ll end up as a Landsknecht loading an arquebus. You can see the previous figure in the background.
In both photos are the four sculpting tools I use the most. Three were bought as part of a sculpting kit.
The soft shaping tools (blue handles) are excellent as they don’t stick to GS. The rounded one is perfect for creating folds in clothes and the chisel one is good for some hard lines and for smoothing.
The spoon tool is general purpose – you can do just about anything with it.
The little thing on the end is a pin stuck in a piece of wood for small details. On the other end, it’s another pin bent to create a hook.
While I was aiming for 15mm, my figures are coming in consistently closer to 18mm. I bought some Old Glory Landsknecht artillerymen and they’re definitely smaller than what I’m sculpting.
I prefer a larger, chunkier style for painting but I’ll have to find another company for figures that’ll be in scale.
This figure is pretty generic with armor and a sallet helmet. Probably could pass for Swiss, Italian or non-Lansknecht German. I made a mold with the sallet helmet but removed the helmet on the green and replaced it with a hat, the sallet seeming a little antiquated for the early 16th century. I’ll make a new mold with the hat to cast that version.
And with a new stylish hat to bring him into the 16th century:
I packed the empty space between his halberd and body with Grey Stuff. If you were looking to just paint a green there would have been no need. For casting it’s better to have a more compact and contiguous figure.
To make molds, I’m using Alumilite Mold Putty. I’ve found it works best to sculpt along a vertical plane – the figure’s body, limbs and weapons are all along roughly the same axis. Introduce a 90 degree arm or weapon would point into the mold halves and likely would fail to cast (with my drop cast setup, anyway).
Gaps within the figure should fall along the vertical plane – no need to fill in the space between the figure’s legs, for example. But gaps on a horizontal plane like that between the halberd and body will create awkward overhangs in the mold and could tear off when removing the casting.
Rather than fill the gaps like I did here, I’m trying to sculpt weapons closer to the body or use other methods to avoid the problem altogether.
Rat Rampant 