Sample man walking and janissary painted

Man walking given a pick - he'll join my 'working party' group

a janissary in a trial colour scheme

the pikeman and musketeer mould has just had the second half poured - waiting for it to cure - then I can do some trial castings.

Sculpt & Cast - Man Walking and 'Janissary'

Making good progress, the next mould turned out well. First attempt left some bits missing off castings - end of sword sheaths and arms. So had to add some air vents to the mould ...

 second generation castings after air vents added - nice !

 the janissary figures start to gather to form a regiment (need a few more casting sessions to get 30 or so)

next mould will be pikeman and musketeer; the musketeer will be tricky - I like a challenge...

Sculpt & Cast - Man and Woman Standing

The next mould for these figures turned out well (used a high temp silicon mould kit), 7 of each casting to be cleaned up for use...

 two of the better castings

 a couple of the castings painted .....

they look much better than I expected.

Next mould will include man standing and a janissary of sorts (useable for 18C)

Gent painted and other new additions ...

The figure I finished sculpted in the last post has now been painted - this chap will be one of Wittenberg's nobles - Count Boritzy.

 Some other figures painted up recently. A Drabant officer and Irregular Miniatures pirate

 A Drabant seargant, with Steve Barber Miniatures Cardinal ...

Gentlement Civilian - WIP

Before getting back to making a new mould  I decided to make something out of one of the castings from the first attempt mould, its good enough to be used as a starter for a special figure...

 after a few sessions with green stuff the result is this gentleman ...

an enjoyable bit of sculpting; will tidy up the figure a bit and then paint him up.

Sculpt & Cast - 2nd attempt at casting ...

I added some air vents to the mould,  the next pour yielded much better figures,

well for my first attempt I've awarded myself 7 out of 10; quite nice to make your own figures; there is much to do to improve the mould making process - problems:

- air bubbles in the silicon after setting, appear on the back of the casting
    --> put figures in plasticene base and create first half of mould on top - the bubbles rise up !
- lack of detail in some places on the figures
    --> need to improve the edge detail on aspects of the figure masters
    --> brush some silicon onto the figures before pouring
- air vents to be added at mould making time if possible
- pouring reservoir shapes to be improved

Made some basic mistakes, but that's part of the learning process.  I have sold some stuff on Ebay recently, so will buy another silicon mould kit; we'll see how things go from there.

Sculpt & Cast ... first mould and initial results...

 hoorah ! a mould with two halve, masters came out easily

the first pour of metal - arm and leg problems - will add some air vents and see what happens.