The Marvelous Miscellany of MMcV

[mmcv]

Nice to see your work Matthem and they look OK to me. As a former modelmaker, practice makes perfect. New employees would often find it amazing at what I could do so quickly, but then I'd say I'd been doing it for 30+ years and it was second nature. Ask me to do something on a computer or mobile 'phone and I'd be struggling to say the least!!!

Haha computers I have no trouble with, indeed I can continue typing without looking at screen or keyboard, but dexterous work like this is new to me.

I do actually quite like the potential it has, but will take a while to get anything more advanced right. Small scale at least means impression is more important than accuracy, but does make it hard to work such small pieces. Lot of patience required!

Phil sent me a picture of some of the sculpting tools he uses so that'll give me an idea of what works well.

[Techno II]

What you've done so far, Matthew looks pretty damn good. 

Cheers - Phil. 

[paulr]

  

[Techno II]

What you've done so far, Matthew looks pretty damn good. 
Cheers - Phil. 

Hi, Matthew.

One of the things I might not have mentioned, is that Green Stuff cuts very cleanly with a new scalpel. (Unlike Milliput).....But it doesn't 'sand' well unless you use VERY fine glass/sandpaper.

Cheers - Phil

[mmcv]

Hi, Matthew.

One of the things I might not have mentioned, is that Green Stuff cuts very cleanly with a new scalpel. (Unlike Milliput).....But it doesn't 'sand' well unless you use VERY fine glass/sandpaper.

Cheers - Phil

Good to know, cheers Phil. I've not got back to these yet, hopefully get a chance at the weekend. I need to trim down the quivers I made in the moulds and see if they're usable. Then I hope to make a few head dresses like the guy in fig 108.



And maybe longer tunics.

Not sure if the head dresses are better done separately and stuck on, or directly into the figures.

[Techno II]

I'd do them straight onto the model(s), Matthew.....I think they'd be far too fiddly to make as separate pieces.
Cheers - Phil

[mmcv]

Trimming the green stuff worked okay. Able to do some more fiddling with them. Did a few funky hats, tunics, quivers and tweaks to standards. Painting when all dried.

Only modelling I have less is working out how to do the king, as seen here in figure 103



Need to find a good base model then make the green stuff tunic and hat. Those three feathers and headband will be tough.

Once that's done I've just six or seven sticks worth of figures to paint plus some casualty tokens and the Tarascans are done. Phase 1 anyway. Hoping to power though them in the next couple of weeks then I have two armies for the table and can think of painting something else next

[Techno II]

Hi, Matthew.

The best way to do those feathers, would be to drill a really wee hole into the figure's head and insert the finest bit of wire you can find into that.
For something like that, I tend to use a single strand of brass 'braid'.

I've still got a small length of brass 'rope'.....(The stuff that's used to hang a picture/photo on a wall)..and I just tease individual strands out of that, for something like this.
It IS bloody fiddly to do this sort of thing !

If you can find a suitable bit of wire...It's probably easier to do the feathers as a 'flat' on the wire and THEN insert the wire into Matey's head.

Hope that makes sense !

Cheers - Phil

[paulr]

That's two cunning ways to do it

[mmcv]

Interesting, thanks for the advice Phil. I have some of those brass wires Leon sells for pikes, though may be a bit thick. I'll have a go and see. If it proves very fiddly I may just go with a single upright to give the effect. For the head dresses I mostly just went with a flattened cylinder of green stuff, then cut some slits for the paint to find gaps when it comes to it. I'm pretty realistic about not having the skill level for details so going for effect.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

You could try on Amazon, I got some 10m of steel wire (for radio antenna) for £7.50...

[fsn]

Florists wire.

[mmcv]

I don't think I can justify buying something for such a small thing, but I'll have a rummage. I may go through the bag of cables and see if any old ones would be suitable. Sometimes get those frayed wire types.

[Lord Kermit of Birkenhead]

You might be able to do it by striping ordinary electrical flex = unpluged of course 

[mmcv]

Oh crap... unplugged you said... Owch! 😬

I have a bag somewhere of old cables. I sorted and tied them all a year or two back and chucked the old ones, but the fact I've not used any of them since means i can probably spare one of there are any suitable!