Sunday, May 19, 2013

A Shortcut to Mushrooms

I've been using most of my available hobby time this week to press on with the rebasing of the French and Indian War figures.




I also based up a few Meisterzinn musketeers I had acquired preprinted, for my Renaissance project.





Yesterday I put the texturing/fill sand on 54 English soldiers. I'm about to sit down and put the grass on.

However, I had an urge to do something beyond simple mechanical work, so I whipped these out in a short session:








These mushrooms and rock formations are plaster castings from the 1980s. They were originally produced as "Otherworld Artifacts". One of our club members was associated with the US license holder, and ended up with a hoard of plaster when the company broke up. The plaster responds fairly well to washes with very thin paint, since it is quite porous. I picked up a stock of the mushrooms last month, when we played the most recent NQSYW game. I'm running a D&D game next week, and it seemed like they might be handy as dungeon dressing.

5 comments:

  1. Question about casting figures. I have a bunch of the Prince August 40mm molds. My wife doesn't want me casting on the stove for some reason. :)
    Would a 1300 watt hotplate be sufficient to melt casting metal in a small pot? What do you use for melting the metal when you cast figures?

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    Replies
    1. Bill just passing through but thought I would answer. I have used a hotplate to melt white metal for casting.

      I also have a melting pot sold by reb castings http://www.miniaturemolds.com
      and if memory serves Rob has one similar.
      -Ross

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    2. Sorry to have missed this earlier. I haven't tried using a hot plate. As long as it reaches a temperature higher than the melting point of the metal (~500F), it could work. Before I got my lead pot, I used to melt things in small crucibles over a camping stove outdoors; I'm not sure how hot the hotplate might get...

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  2. Pity we didn't base the pike and shot on single bases, the first shot looks a bit like the genesis of a toy version of King Phillip's War.

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