Friday 8 December 2017

Space Hulk: 3D Hirst Arts construction

I think I might have done something silly... trying to build a 3D set of Space Hulk terrain with 40mm squares suitable for full terminator bases. 



When I picked up a copy of the Space Hulk box last year I was really keen to base the Blood Angels terminators on 40mm bases should I ever want to use them for 40K compatible games. Since the box contents are really geared up for the much smaller model bases, obviously I needed to also make some 40mm sized floor pieces too.
 
This turned out to be a much bigger project than expected, but has been filling some of the time on the regular army while treading water before the new codex release (this week... woo). 

The insanity was probably in choosing to cast plaster blocks using molds from Hirst Arts. Their molds are excellent quality, and after having dragged home a 25kg bag of dental plaster that I had shipped to work, I set about learning how to make stuff. 

Temporary work space on the balcony - 


Start with mixing plaster - water first then plaster (I have the cup sitting on kitchen scales to get the weight right. 100g plaster to 32g water for hydrostone...).


All the forum comments are pretty strict about using some kind of surfactant to help prevent bubbles in the mold - in my case a little spray bottle has a tiny amount of rinse aid mixed into the water. Molds get a spray with that first (actually seems to help adding a tiny bit to the plaster-mixing water too). 


Overfill the mold with plaster... wait 6 minutes for the water to rise for the surface (the board it is sitting on can be banged to help clear the bigger bubbles), then use the plaster scraper to smooth off the surface of excess plaster + water. 


Demolding the blocks onto a cake rack to dry. This is the result of 2 rounds of casting 3 different molds, and about ~1.5hrs work (although some learning curve in there).

The whole Space Hulk set will take 34 rounds of all the molds (ie, > 100 castings) to complete :-(

Fast forward a week or so, and this is 9x castings of all the parts (I've also started to add parts for one of the other sci fi molds with some interesting floor tiles - will swap some of the standard ones for these). 


The storage box is sorted into all the components, and I'm getting a fair idea of the scale of project given this is only 1/4 of the total material. 


Probably an overkill step but I have sanded the bottom of all the pieces just a little - a few had rough edges where my casting wasn't super accurate and this seems to have helped even them out as well as allow the blocks to sit together more snugly. 


First few pieces glued onto foamcore. Bits of corridor and 1 of the rooms. Found I kept nudging the pieces around while the glue was wet on the first couple - so ended up gluing just the floor tiles and waiting for them to dry before adding the edges. 


Long corridors (also serve as boarding torpedoes) have come up ok.


Detail on intersection piece. The single-square in the background will be a dead-end, and has a rather cool little hatch tile. Edging pieces still to go. 

Must say getting to play with plaster casting has been kinda cool - whole different technique for making scenery that has heaps of potential and I quite like the idea of being able to scratch build parts rather than buy kits of say plastic or resin terrain (which may go out of production if you ever want more). There is definitely some cost to buying the molds & materials, but if we were trying to avoid spending any money, 40k really isn't a good hobby choice to start with... 

BUT, the sheer amount of work I still have to do before being able to play even a single game of Space Hulk on them is huge, and don't want this to be a project that goes back into the cupboard never to be finished. I though this might be heavily progressed before the BA codex came out. While that definitely isn't going to happen, I do want to keep some momentum up and get it done well before the 9th Ed codex :-)

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