by Myrmidon
A while back I asked some folks for some suggestions with a project I was wanting to do - namely making casualty figures without bases (like the old metal casualty marine figures from the RT era). I got a couple badly mangled gaunts, and a gaunt model from a box set I ordered a while back (apparently hand sorted with a bucket loader) and I thought it would be cool to use them as casualties when playing.
However, I wanted to make them lying in pools of their own epoxy 'blood' rather than sticking them on bases and then doing the epoxy for blood. The main 'sticking point' as it were was that I had to find a surface I could pour the epoxy blood pools on, and let it harden with the figure in it, and still be able to remove the figure and epoxy from the surface once the epoxy had hardened. So, I experimented a bit, and I thought I'd share the results in case anyone else wanted to do their own.
I tried pouring tinted epoxy on the following surfaces, with the following results...
Plain wax paper - the epoxy set up as normal, but stuck to the paper when I tried to remove it after it dried. The epoxy peeled off the paper, but had fuzzy wax paper stuck to the underside - which is not what I wanted.
Wax paper with non-stick cooking spray on it - the epoxy set up, but the combination of the wax paper and (perhaps to much) cooking spray seemed to increase the drying time and drastically change the tint of the colour I was using - but it did come off the wax paper easily, once the epoxy finally cured and hardened. (Was using Scorpion green for this batch, and it came out like a deep olive drab - not what I wanted.)
Plain Aluminium foil - epoxy hardened just fine, but would not come off the foil - you could cut it off, but then your 'blood' had a mirror surface on the underside. (Which again, wasn't what I wanted to do.)
Aluminium foil with non-stick cooking spray on it - this worked fine allowing the epoxy to harden and then carefully peel away from the foil once it had finished curing. This was exactly what I wanted! Woot!
Here's my basic "How to" steps.
- Decide which minis you want to use as casualties, and decide on their basic placement.
- Do any any modification work required for the mini. In my case, I used a Dremal tool to flatten one side of the gaunts so they'd lay flat on the surface of my gaming table later, and I used a soldering iron to make wounds and bullet holes in various parts of their bodies. I also bent (any of their previously) unbroken limbs and tails down so that they had that 'collapsed in a heap' look one would expect.
- Primer and paint the mini as you normally would - making sure to pick out or highlight their wounds. I typically primer, paint, and then assemble.
- Get a fairly good sized piece of aluminium foil, and fold it over on itself several times (shiny side out) to form a sort of thick, flat (try not to wrinkle the foil) plate for pouring your epoxy and placing your mini on. Better still is to take a small but sturdy piece of cardboard and wrap your foil over that.
- Take get some non-stick cooking spray (I used 'Pam' spray in my experiments) and spray it on your finger. Then take your finger and smear a light layer of it all over the area where you want to pour the epoxy. If you don't think you have enough, spray your finger and repeat. Don't spray it right on the foil as you will almost certainly get to much spray, which can cause your epoxy not to cure properly. The idea is to get a very thin layer so as to effect the epoxy as little as possible.
- Making your blood - I recommend a good 2 part epoxy. A 5 or 10 minute epoxy works best for this. Pour equal amounts of epoxy on an expendable cardboard surface and use a toothpick (cocktail stick) to completely mix your epoxy BEFORE you tint it with your blood colour.
As another poster pointed out (thank you!), if you don't completely mix your epoxy before adding your tint or coloration, it may not mix properly and never cure which will leave you with a gooey mess instead of a cool casualty figure.
Mix more epoxy than you think you'll need - it's better to have some left over, than to not have enough and have to try and match the tint of your first batch with a second batch.
Tinting your epoxy. I've found you can use almost any typical acrylic paint such as GW's line, as well as Apple Barrel, Plaid, Armory, etc, can be used as a tint. However, there are some things to keep in mind.
First is, if you want a semi-transparent look to your epoxy blood, use an epoxy that is of the clear & yellow variety, rather the blue & opaque white variety. If you want a more 'thick slim' look, use the latter variety of epoxy.
Second - it takes very little (VERY LITTLE) of your colour to tint the epoxy. A little goes a long way. If you want a transparent look to your blood - then try using inks like GW's magenta for blood, as they are transparent by nature. If you aren't sure about how much colour to use to achieve the desired effect, then it's well worth the extra effort to spend a little time and experiment by making some test batches of epoxy on your greased aluminium foil and seeing which result you like the best, before you do your good minis and end up unhappy with the results. - Once you have your epoxy completely mixed and tinted you'll only have a small window of time in which to work before your epoxy gets to hard to manipulate. After it's mixed and tinted, take your toothpick, and pour some of (not all of) the epoxy onto your prepared aluminium foil.
I pour a main pool, with several long snaking streams coming out of the main pool to look like it was running along the ground. I then placed the casualty mini in the main pool of epoxy, and used the remaining epoxy to make little streams of 'blood' from the wounds running down into the main pool.
If your epoxy starts to harden before you get all of the wounds done - make a second batch rather than try to force the hardening epoxy into the places you want it. The results of smooth flowing epoxy once it's hardened will look much better. - After you're finished pouring the epoxy, wait half an hour to an hour and carefully remove the aluminium foil from the epoxy under your mini. (You can use low heat {not high} from a hair dryer to help cure the epoxy if you really think it needs it.) If all went well, you should have a casualty figure with a smooth bottomed, transparent epoxy pool of blood that serves as the base and can be placed on about any gaming surface and not look out of place.
Well, I hope this is helpful to folks out there, and thanks again to all the folks who offered suggestions and advice on my initial epoxy questions thread.
Extra notes of interest.
Having tried tinting a couple different types (brands of epoxy) here's what I found. Epoxy comes in a variety of brands, but basically in two general types, and two application systems.
The two types are the clear two part epoxies (yellowish & clear parts) which dry pretty much transparent - and the opaque epoxies (whitish & light blue parts) which dry with an bluish white opaque colouring.
The two application systems are your standard pair of individual tubes and the plastic 2 in 1 applicators which are supposed to deliver equal amounts of resin and hardener by pushing a single plunger. Unfortunately - I've found that a week or two after opening the plunger type epoxy it almost always becomes impossible to get equal amounts out of the tubes without being a complete pain in the butt. And rarely do I need to use that much epoxy in such a short time.
If you want thick opaque slime you will have to resort to the plunger blue/white epoxy, but it's great for making toxic waste that leaks from barrels and pipes. Better still, you can achieve some sweet multi- layered effects with toxic sludge pools by making your bottom layers of the opaque epoxy of various colours, and then using one or more layers of the transparent epoxy (in different colours) on top of the opaque stuff.
Now for the transparent blood - having tried both the transparent plunger variety and the 2 tube variety of epoxy, I have to say I like the 2 tube variety better for making blood. Here's why....
While both varieties mixed, tinted, and set up ok, the plunger variety tended to more liquid and spread thinly on the foil. The problem with this is it results in thin brittle edges on your epoxy pools of blood that break off easily and leave jagged edges. (Which are not very convincing on a supposed pool of liquid.) You can use small surgical scissors to trim off the brittle parts and then use a small D remal sanding bit to round out the edges again, but it's better if you can completely avoid all of this extra work - and you can.
I'm most satisfied with a 5 minute epoxy called "Devcon". This stuff mixes easily without getting a lot of air bubbles in the mix while stirring (I use a toothpick for about a minute to minute and a half) and tints well too. It's also thicker than the plunger type epoxy which lets me make my initial pool of blood without having to worry that it'll get to thin around the edges of the pool, and then if I let the remainder sit for 30 sec to a minute, I can use the toothpick to dribble / pour the reminder onto the various wounds on the mini so that it will set up before it completely runs off the mini looking like congealed viscous fluids from the wounds.
If I can borrow a good digital camera and get some good shots, I'll put up some pictures of the one gaunt I've done so far. (I'm still painting the other two gaunts.) Though I do think it looks really cool along with the old RT era metal marine casualties minis I have when laid out on the table top with some of the other battlefield terrain I have. :)
One more thing - either due to the tinting material, the non-stick cook spray on the foil, or a combination of both, - your epoxy will take a fair bit longer than normal to set up to the point where you can safely remove it from the foil. Be patient. Wait at least 30 minutes and more likely an hour before you have a go at removing it from the foil. If it still seems to be to soft, wait longer and try using low heat from a hair dryer or lamp to help the epoxy cure and harden.
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