I’ve got a Space Marine that needs casting…
Hey guys,
Last time you may have seen me creating a Warhammer 40K Space Marine using ZBrush. This
was a Fanart Tribute rather than an exact replica, but I hope you’ll agree it looks the part.
I’d already printed both large and small figures but of course, me being me, what I really wanted
to do was cast a Space Marine in solid bronze. To achieve that, I had to head back to ZBrush
and start the process of repositioning the figure, giving him a more interesting stance.
I started off with the base that I’d blatantly pinched from one
of Archvillain Games excellent miniatures. It was then just a matter of moving bits around.
Now if you think this is boring to watch, it was even more boring to do.
There’s probably better ways of doing this but this was my
inexperienced approach. It wasn’t difficult, but it was time consuming.
I was so bored I completely neglected to record the construction of a simplified Boltgun.
Don’t look for all the bells and whistles here because, like I said, it’s simplified.
I know it’s a two handed weapon, as the actress said to the Bishop,
but I didn’t fancy covering up all the wonderful detail on the chest.
So it’s not the most action-packed stance, but I quite like it.
To make printing easier, I broke the figure into four parts.
Normally at this point it’s just a matter of printing these using the Mystery Castable
Resin in my Elegoo Mars 2 Pro. But, if you didn’t already know, there is no longer a Mystery Resin.
I revealed it a couple of days ago when it came on sale as being called “Cast” by Siraya Tech,
the company behind the famous “Blu” resin. It’s on sale in the US at the moment at a cost
of just $75 for roughly a litre, which compared to many castable resins makes it a bargain. You’ve
seen me using it a number of times now and I think you’ll agree with me, it does a very nice job.
As is typical of this resin, it printed well. There’s certainly plenty of detail here.
I used Sticky Wax to initially position everything
and then melted a little more wax into the joins to make everything watertight.
It’s worth pointing out at this point that the plaster I was using for this project
had gone off, setting within just 7 minutes,
where 10 minutes working time would be more normal. So I wasn’t optimistic.
Well, the cameraman is useless, but the casting looks better than I’d hoped.
There’s an obvious large flaw beneath his feet but everything else is hidden by plaster,
and there’s dozens of tiny recesses for the plaster to get stuck in.
So I turned to my Ultrasonic Cleaner. The blue liquid is just ordinary water with a
spot of laundry detergent with an added spoon of citric acid.
An hour later and more flaws were revealed,
so we’ll need to think of him as a battle hardened chap.
I could leave things there, but it’s a little plain for me.
So I decided to paint some Liver of Sulphur into the areas where I wanted contrast and shadow.
Definitely battle hardened now, but again, I was tempted to leave it.
Fine steel wool helps get rid of the bulk of things.
And scratch remover and polish do the rest.
Well I’m pleased with him. The cracked plaster has caused a few defects
and these stand proud thanks to the Liver of Sulphur, but the detail is excellent.
When I was designing the miniature in ZBrush, I wondered how much detail would shine through
and I’ve been pleasantly surprised. From the clip release on the Boltgun
to the groves in the exhaust vents.
It’s incredible how much detail can be captured using Siraya Tech Cast Resin,
an ordinary home-grade printer like the Elegoo Mars 2 Pro and a little practice at casting.
All in all, I like him. The Emperor would be proud.
So that’s it for this video guys. I hope you enjoyed it. Take care and thanks for watching.