Casting and sculpting for Fox Box and myself

[Jubal]

Nice work!

[Flamekebab]

I've been working on the truck I was talking about:

[Flamekebab]

Progress!




Amusingly there was a bit of a delay as I had to take the time to carefully fill the engine compartment with resin - otherwise it could either buckle or fill with silicone during the casting process!

I'm looking forward to the next bit of the construction process as it's going to be pretty much exclusively detailing. Then I've got to design another two axles (as ideally I want the vehicle to be usable without the truck extension kit) and the canopy frame/roll bars.

[Jubal]

Looking good! Will those wheels be fairly as is, or with tyres, or with tracks on the back pair?

[Flamekebab]

For now the wheels will be pretty much as they are. They're a marginal improvement on the originals (a few minor detail additions and pre-drilled sockets).

In time I'd like to have more wheel designs but I'm still working on ways of getting something suitable. There's a vehicle I'd like to build that I've yet to figure out the wheel situation for so at some point it'll need to be tackled.

I'm considering creating tracked wheels as well but I had a few issues casting the relevant bits for it (amusingly I'm rubbish at making simple open-faced moulds!).

[Flamekebab]

I've been working on the armament for the truck and the crew. Once they're done then it should be easy to continue on structural things. This is the problem with creating multi-part kits - things need to interlock but one can't glue them together properly during creation.

The truck is going to have a machine gun option and a rocket launcher option. Currently the focus is on creating the machine gun as it's a very specific design (and whilst the rocket launcher is also its design is significantly simpler). As with other things this is where 28mm "Heroic" scale is tricky - things aren't proportional. I have to make a judgement call on which bits should remain prominent and which can be safely shrunk down.

So for reference the machine gun is based on the M60:


Here it is on the truck (missing its rear iron sight - it hasn't been attached yet):


As you can see the gunner is sitting on a stack of boxes. Currently they're placeholders as they're going to be replaced by ammo tins:


I'm working on a master at the moment:


Once it's done I'll make some copies and use them for a variety of things. Extra boxes and stuff to decorate vehicles 
I don't suppose anyone is wondering but the rocket launcher is going to be based on the M202 Flash.

[comrade_general]

[Jubal]

Bonus points if you can make the like-machine-gun as an option, FK.

[Flamekebab]

I reckon I probably could, amusingly!

Alas there's too many other projects to work on for Joker-style weaponry at the moment (maybe one for April 2016..?).

Anyway these guys went in the pot last night and their mould will be getting tested in a few hours:


They're not really done, per se, but to continue to improve them I need to experiment and I don't really want to mess up what I've done so far.

I'm also trying to decide on whether to add rivets to these:

(Spot the odd firearm out)

[Flamekebab]

I've been experimenting with filler for my resin and whilst the first run has a load of bubbles in general the results are promising!

[Flamekebab]

It took a while but I finally have a mould for her!



I'm amazed the talons worked out. Utterly gobsmacked.

[comrade_general]

Do the chickens have large talons?

[Flamekebab]

Larger than you might think!

[Flamekebab]

Now that I've got some ammo boxes for the truck gunner to sit on I can at last get back to getting fine details to fit. Putting big plates together is fairly quick but getting things to fit that can't be glued in place is a pain in the backside. The spacing on the crew-served weapon has been a thorn in my side over the last few days but at last I'm on to putting the alternate weapon in - an M202 Flash rocket launcher!




Of course in reality the spacing wouldn't work at all due to the backblast but I figure it's worth overlooking to get the other main weapon option in there.

[Jubal]

Speaking as someone who knows minimal weapon history beyond 1461, backblast?