What's up guys? Welcome Back.
I built this little display base a while ago.
I was going to use it for a Hellboy model I've been working on but I haven't gotten
around to finishing him yet.
It was quite a fun little project, this video is going to show how I went about building
it.
We're going to essentially do a small scale concrete pour, so you'll need some kind of
shallow container to pour it into.
This is actually part of the packaging for a miniature but you can use anything.
An old CD case, or the lid on a box of cotton buds would work really well.
I'll put a couple cocktail sticks on either side here, and a little bit of bluetac should
stop them sliding about.
Just like in real concrete, we're going to have some wire running through the middle
of ours so this is going to let us have the wire elevated off the bottom of the container.
So that when we do the pour the wires will be roughly central.
I'll put two more stick in on the other sides in the same way.
Alright, so now we have a nice frame to balance our wires on.
Speaking of which, I have a roll of cheap copper wire I bought on Amazon and I'll cut
a piece of the wire so that it's long enough to balance on our little sticks, then I'll
use that as a template and just cut a bunch of wires so that they're all roughly the same
length.
If you need to straighten them after cutting you can clamp down one end with whatever these
tools are called, eh, pliers! That's the one.
Then simply pull the other end with your hand, and that should even out any kinks or annoying
bends in the wire.
The stuff I used here was a little too thin in hindsight you'd probably be better using
those brass rods you can buy for pinning miniatures together, they come already straightened,
I think they'd work really well.
Regardless, whatever wire you decided to use, once you've cut a bunch of them to size, just
place them horizontally on your little frame, spacing them out so they're roughly equidistant.
And then do the same again, this time placing them vertically.
Alrighty, once you've done that place them aside and you can start to make your concrete
mix.
For that we're going to use plaster of paris, You're going to need a little measuring cup
and something you can mix the plaster in that you don't mind throwing away.
To make the plaster you'll need to mix 1 part water with 1.5 parts plaster.
So I just measured out some water and poured it into an old jam jar, then I measured out
1.5 times that amount of plaster.
I want to add this to the water gradually while I'm stirring, so to make it a bit easier
on myself I dumped the powder out onto a folded piece of paper.
Then I can hold the paper like this and let some of the powder slide into the jar.
If you try to pour it in from the measuring cup it just goes all over the place so it
works out better doing it this way.
Use a stick to stir it up, I'm using the handle of an old brush.
Keep dumping more powder in and mix it into the water.
Try to resist the urge just to dump it all in at once, if you do that it wont mix properly,
you'll get lumps and it wont cure correctly and it'll just turn into a big waste of time.
Once you get it all mixed together, pour the plaster out onto your little wire lattice
you made earlier.
Be careful that you don't pour so much that it flows up over the sides of the container.
Then you can use your stick from earlier to smooth out the surface a bit.
Leave it somewhere safe, it should take about 4 hours to completely dry.
Whatever you do, don't pour the leftover plaster down the sink. Just throw the jar away.
When it dries you'll find it comes out the container really easily. It should just pop
straight out.
Then you can get rid of your cocktail sticks and the blue tac, you don't need any of that
stuff anymore.
You'll probably find that the top is a bit lumpy, but you can smooth that out really
easily with some heavy grit sand paper.
It gets quite messy doing this, you might want to wear a mask so you don't breathe in
any of that dust.
This also gives you a nice rough texture to the surface, it really helps to sell a realistic
concrete effect.
For our plinth we're going to use an old dice box you can actually buy these without the
dice quite cheaply, I've put a link in the description for where you can get them.
We're going to essentially glue the plaster onto the top of the box, but before we do
that we're going to bash it with a hammer!
I'm using a piece of wood over the top just so I don't leave big dents on the surface.
Then you can just pick it up with your hands and break it up. The plaster is pretty brittle
so it's easy enough to snap it with your bare hands.
Just keep breaking the plaster up so you get lots of interesting shapes forming.
It's going to vaguely stay together because of the wire grid we put into the middle of
it, but you will get a few bits falling out here and there, and that's totally ok. In
fact that's kinda what I'm going for.
So once you've decided it's nicely broken up, place it on top of your dicebox and start
to try and find a position that you like the look of.
We have quite a lot of plaster to play with so we can mess about with this a fair bit.
So don't worry if you don't like it straight away.
Just pretend you're Mr Miagi clipping at a bonzai tree and you can't go far wrong.
I think it'll look all right around here.
But I don't want all this stuff at the sides so I'll just push it down there against the
side of the box.
Actually maybe I'll pull that bit out a little and just snip the metal wires. I wont cut
it all the way off though, I'll leave it hanging down like that.
Maybe that side can fold down there.
That looks alright.
It's a bit too uniform still so I'll snap some of these edges off with a pair of pliers.
I don't want too much stuff hanging off the sides so I'll cut that bit off.
There's too much stuff on this side aswell, I'll get rid of it.
Then we'll use our pliers again to crack the plaster up some more, it's a little too samey,
the pliers should help to give us a more random appearance.
Alright so we'll just keep chipping away at it until we find something that works.
Keep the little bits you break off handy, you can use them on the base later, or just
keep them for future projects where you need some bits of broken concrete.
Before we start to glue it onto the base we'll prep the box a little.
I'll glue this black part onto the bottom with a little super glue.
The nozzle on this glue is all solid with old glue so what I do is just take it off
and use a paper clip as an applicator.
It works quite well.
You just stick the paperclip into the glue then spread it where you want it.
There will be a little seam where those two parts meet but we can get rid of that with
a little bit of milliput by pushing it into the join.
You can use your fingers or if you have one, a rubber sculpting tool.
Leave the milliput to cure and it should set rock hard.
The good thing about milliput is that, unlike greenstuff, it's sandable.
So we'll flatten the milliput with some sand paper.
Use quite a heavy grit to start then switch to a finer grit so you get a nice smooth finish.
Give it a bit of a wipe to get all the dust off the surface, you definitely don't want
any of that on there when you come to paint it.
Alright, so to attach your masterpiece, first we'll score up the top with a scalpel blade,
this is going to give your superglue something more to grip onto.
And I'll actually pour a pretty decent amount on super glue straight onto the middle there,
Then spread it out with a paperclip.
Use quite a lot of glue so that it stays wet for a while, that'll give you some lee way
for adjusting the position of things when you put your plaster framework thing on top.
Then you can take some of your spare plaster bits and glue them here and there over the
top.
For the ground scatter I'm using a mix of various grades of sand, some little bits of
cork and some of the smaller plaster bits and I just sprinkle it onto the exposed surface.
Shake off the excess and survey the damage.
I think it looks ok. You might want to double check your model is going to fit on there
at this stage.
I think we're good.
I'll glue this over hanging section to the side with some super glue.
Some of these wires are way too long so we'll give them a bit of a trim.
I think It's looking pretty interesting.
There's a few little bare spots on the surface still so we'll sort that by blobbing on some
of the superglue and then sprinkling some more of our sand mix on top.
Also I think the surface is a bit too one dimensional, it's quite flat so we'll put
a couple of our broken bits on top, maybe here off to the corner.
Yeah that looks ok, another one over here maybe, or maybe not. There, that'll do I think.
Once you're happy with the placement you can use your superglue again to stick them down
in place.
Alright so that was a bit of an experiment for me but I think it turned out quite well.
You don't have to use a dice box as a plinth, you could use a block of wood or even just
a regular slotta base, if you wanted to do it on a smaller scale. I'll show how I painted
it in an upcoming video.
Hopefully this gives you a few ideas you can use in doing your own bases.
It's an area I need to spend more time working on to be honest, this was my first attempt
at doing something slightly outside the box, I'm happy with the result but I know I have
it in me to do better next time.
Anyway, thank you for taking the time to watch the video, and thank you very much as always
for supporting the channel, it's a big deal to me to have so many people engaged in what
I'm doing. And it's a big motivator in driving me to get better.
Alright, so I think that's all for now. Stay tuned for more videos coming soon.
Thanks again
Bye for now...