Tauster's Casting Show

[tauster]

Got a new toy today, and just had try it out - namely, a silicone mold of an anatomic heart (one half only)

I can't recommend those silicone molds enough. For less than 4€ (shipping included) you get a tool that is virtually indestructible (I never had a mold I bought damaged) and lets you to crank out shapes that are very hard to sculpt, and even if you had the talent (I don't!), it would take you much more time than filling this thing with hotglue and waiting for the glue to cool down takes.

Sure, not every DM or crafter has a need for multiple giant half-hearts, but you can do not only giant monsters (undead with hearts showing through) or the centerpiece of a necromancer's experiment but also truly horrifying 'living terrain' pieces: mountains of flesh, quickly and cheaply done with construction foam with a few hearts interspersed here and there. Link them with gnarly 'veins' made of hotglue and you have a revolting piece of terrain for a game night your players won't probably forget. My point is: Even something as specific as an anatomical heart mold is more useful that you might initially think - and there are hundreds of much more generic mold shapes out there, cheap as dirt and of great quality.

[tauster]

The dark red wash I mix for my flesh color scheme seems to have separated even after giving it a good shake, so the overall result is somewhat subuptimal...

However since this was just a test piece, I can always repaint it when using it in a future gross-my-players-out project.

Trying to come up with ideas what to do with that mold...

- a hollow book (like these) with a very organic look. A dice box for a necromancer with a living heart.

- a terrain set for encounters inside a living body, or on a living plane. That's the direction I'm going. There's a story arc set in one of Torog's cities coming in one of my campaigns, so I need creepy stuff like this.

Any ideas are welcome, feel free to pump away!

[tauster]

Got a nice silicone mold for a large crystal cluster recently, and here's the frist paint experiments.

The center one was painted with alcohol inks. I never used those before. It is fiendishly expensive stuff, but the results are great, even if it is still a bit spotty. I think those might work great when applied with an airbrush, though spraying alcohol inks with an airbrush would be absolute new territory for me. Heck, I even haven't got the knack out of this tool with regular colors...

The right cluster was washed with regular miniature washes. I could have added a layer ov clear gloss varnish, but I chose add a pearlescent layer which makes it look more metallic. Works decently, but it is a totally different beast.

I then hollowed both clusters out from below to make space for teeny tiny LED balls.

The effect is hard to catch on camera, but here's a shot with regular light...

...and one with flash:

My verdict: The mold works great, and together with other large crystal-shaped molds* like these could be used to make very large areas of crystal terrain with hotglue. You can use resin of that suits you better, but that would take much longer and is way more expensive. Then of course you can try and whittle those crystal shapes out of hotglue sticks directly, giving you much more control over their shapes but that method is much more time-consuming that simply making a bunch of castings.

I'm thinking of whittling some styrofoam crystals and making silicone-and-cornstarch molds out of then, but I don't have an immediate use for so many different crystal molds, so I leave that on the to-do list for now.

* search online, you'll come up with stuff like these and others, mainly used in DIY resin jewellery...

[margaret]

Lovely crystals!

You could put a miniature speaker in the hollow of the half-heart and make it go lub-dub,lub-dub. That would be getting out of the inexpensive range though

[tauster]

After a sudden realization that lychee make great scaled bodies, I grabbed a handful of discounted lichees in the supermarket (17cent/100gr) and made molds.




I rolled a lychee over the flat piece in the background to make a texture mat. Not sure this will work out, but I certainly won't find out without trying.

Tauster, why in all crafting gods names would someone make molds of a lychee?

Glad you asked.

Oh, and I also - finally! - made a partial mold of the vulcano crater I made with crackle glaze.




Unfortunately the cracks in the mold are very small, and give the silicone too much surface to grab onto, resulting in the mold to get damaged with every casting. I will lose detail with each casting, but the effect will get smaller with each casting too, as all exposed areas of the mold will have been ripped off, leaving me with a less detailed but somewhat stable mold.





Haven't painted anything so far, but I definitely will throughout the holidays.