@Uncle-Heavy Using card stock to make drapery jigs is a really good idea and will work for all sorts of applications.
@SdAufKla That is a beautiful little diorama. The brass plate with information about the scene is another really good idea.
@Biggles50 When using Milliput to sculpt things that conform to large surfaces, plastic wrap often makes a good boundary layer. Once dry, plastic wrap peels right off Milliput. One problem with this method is that the plastic wrap can shift rather easily if not well secured. It can also stretch in unwanted ways. For fine sculpting, the lid of a cottage cheese or sour cream container makes a good, secure base. It will not shift but still peels away the next day.
This job was done with Avis Apoxie Sculpt (standard gray) and their solvent. It’s a little more forgiving than Milliput, and considerably less expensive (good for bulky, large objects like tarps, bed rolls, bags, sand bags, etc.).
This is not to say that Milliput is not good stuff… I do use it, but mostly for figure work where it takes really fine detail very well. However, Milliput can be brittle and fragile in thin cross-sections and (where I’m at) it’s fairly expensive compared to other options.
Have you considered the pva and acylic ( or even just craft poster ) paint method?
I typically use a 50/50 mix . Simply paint and spread it out on something like parchment paper and leave to dry. Carefully peel off , cut to shape, and apply. The key advantage is it remains flexible if you some go too thick.
IIRC, I picked that up off the old site years back.
@SdAufKla Michael, thank you for sharing your knowledge. I have tried the tissue paper trick but after looking at your brilliant results in those step by step sequence I think I just learned a new trick. I’ll sure to practice it soon and save your information for reference.
Here’s another example of a variation on the theme. This time the epoxy putty is used to make bed rolls for an otherwise OOTB build (adding new footman loops and tool straps) of Tamiya’s M10 Tank Destroyer.
Since the kit turret provided a firm surface to work on, these bed rolls were made as single pieces. However, as before, they were also made to be removed and painted separately. Ordinary talcum powder was used as a release agent, the sculpting tools were common toothpicks (shaped according to need), and lead foil strips for the straps (with leftover PE buckles). The same materials and techniques were used to make a couple of sandbags on the front of the TD.
Another fine example and thank you again for sharing. Btw, is that Safety Solvent brushed on to smooth out rough edges? That’s what I read in the label in the pic but get your take. Also, you used lead straps to make the tarp o bedroll tied then another strap with PE buckles to hang. So, strapping it twice?
Thanks everyone for your ideas, opinions and recommendations.
When I get to this, I’m going to scratch a frame and use it to practice laying and folding back the 5 and maybe the 10 ton’s tarps.
The Safety Solvent is something of a multi-purpose solution.
It will dissolve uncured epoxy putty to clean it off of tools. It can be brushed on uncured sculpted items to smooth the finish and remove tooling marks, finger prints, etc. It can also be used to wet a brush with stiff bristles which can then be brushed across the surface, cross-hatch-wise to actually texture the item. It can serve as a wetting agent to prevent the sculpting tools from sticking to the putty or pulling putty off of the surface.
With regard to the lead foil straps: The bed rolls are not actually hung on the model with the straps, so some of the straps are wrapped around to appear like they’re bundling the rolls and additional straps are wrapped to appear like the ends, passed through the footman loops to also give the appearance that the rolls are suspended from those loops. The strap ends with the PE buckles are threaded through the buckles, but they’re then just glued down on top of the straps under them so as to appear to be laced together.
This is kind of hard to explain, but here’re a couple of photos (different build) of some tool straps that were made from lead foil straps with PE buckles, threaded through the footman loops (made the same way as on the M10) and then trimmed to length and wrapped around the tools. The overlapping ends are just glued together to give the appearance that they’re actually laced together.
Note that the PE buckles are laced on one end of the straps. This is done by bending the strap into a “V” shape and passing both ends through the buckle. The strap then flattened back out. The straps are made extra long for easy handling, but once threaded through the footman loops, they’re cut to final length and glued in place. The straps on the bed rolls were made the same basic way.
At this stage they were still very “clean” and “contrasty.” There were a couple more weathering steps to go: additional washes and dust glazes. Unfortunately, this is the best photo I have in the build folder of the final weathering and finish. The intermediate finish has now been toned down and muted along with creating better continuity with the rest of the model.
These are the OOTB tools on the M10 in their finial finish. Sadly, I didn’t take any in-progress photos of these. The mounting brackets molded onto to the tools, but the kit lacks the retaining straps, so these were added exactly as with the previous example.
Thanks! No, I haven’t used the air-dry type modeling clay for that purpose. The epoxy has a huge degree of durability and takes really fine detail so nicely that I haven’t had any incentive to use anything else.
@18bravo : I’ll dig through my pics to see what I still have from that build.
I covered the entire diorama in a build-blog here on Armorama some years ago. The dio was also featured in a magazine article a year or so later.
Had to turn the dial pretty far on the ol’ “way-back machine” to find these, but since you asked, here a few “happy snaps” of the Canadian Sherman Firefly vignette. This is the Tasca kit with Panda tracks and Lion Roar and Voyager PE. The figures are all DML.
