Casting Time: Hirst Arts Gothic Molds

Oh yeah! It's that time of the year again! ;)

Sometimes I get the feeling that I may be working on way to many projects at the same time. But when there is so much great stuff out there and my imagination runs wild I simply can't help myself. And now that my first fantasy buildings take shape it's time to kick-start my Fantasy Town Project. Except that is has grown in to a Modular Fantasy City Project. Of course it has. ;)

To get started I bought 5 new Hirst Arts Molds from Hirst Arts UK:

These are the Gothic Additional Accessories Mold (#44), Basic Block Mold (#40, I bought this one twice), Gothic Floor Tiles Mold (#201) and the Gothic Dungeon Builder Mold (#45). And I also bought a food dehydrator from Severin:

Normally it takes ages for the blocks to dry. But with this nifty little helper it just takes two hours. Perfect! :)
Last but not least I bought 20 pounds of Excalibur dental plaster which should keep my busy for a while.

Yay! A bucket full of plaster! :D

YAY!!!

On the Worktable: Modular Hirst Arts Sci-Fi Terrain

At first everything was very organized...

I've received the 3 remaining Sci-Fi molds from Hirst Arts UK last Saturday. After a weekend full of  mixing, pouring and scraping I finally had a decent amount of parts to create the first pieces of my modular Sci-Fi set. I opted for polystyrene foam insulating board for the base of the pieces since this material allows some very cool variations while giving a nice amount of stability. Each tile is based on a 10 mm (0,39 inches) piece of Styrofoam.

...but that didn't last very long.

The total of 36 modular pieces are the result of a day's work of gluing and cutting. This is what I've got so far:

(28) 2" x 2" floor pieces
  (4) 3" x 3" floor pieces
  (4) 4" x 4" floor pieces

Casting Time: Hirst Arts Sci-Fi Molds Part II

Working on several projects at the same time is really fun because it's varied and I can switch between the projects when I get temporarily jaded with one or don't have the time to work on something very time consuming. One of the projects of the latter category is creating my very own modular Sci-Fi terrain with Hirst Arts molds. But next Tuesday starts my vacation time and I'm looking at 14 days of relaxing and taking a break from my everyday life. I will use this time to work on several projects and the Sci-Fi project will be on the top of the list. I already ordered 4 new molds from Hirst Arts UK last Friday:

 Cargo Bay Accessory Mold (#302) Med Lab Accessory Mold (#303)

 Laboratory Floor Mold (#271) Pipeline Floor Mold (#273)

For reasons unknown HA UK decided to send all 4 mold in separate mailings which really is a mystery for me. The first one arrived today. With a little bit of luck the remaining molds will be in the mail tomorrow (according to the order status from HA UK the 4 mailings were send out at the same time. Why the heck did'nt they arive together? Mysteries over mysteries).
Anyway, I decided to work on this project early so I started today. The last time (and first time) when I used Hirst Arts molds I had 10 pounds of Excalibur dental plaster at my disposal. Now I have 30. 30 freaking pounds.

Oh Yeah. A bucket full of plaster.

Lets see what we can get done with all that plaster. I also used the molds I had already used before (Starship Wall Mold [#301] and Starship Deck Mold [#270]) together with the first of my new molds, the Pipeline Floor Mold (#273). And that's what I got done today:

I seriously hope my remaining molds get delivered tomorrow. I would like to empty that bucket this weekend. :)

Casting Time: Hirst Arts Sci-Fi Molds

It’s time for the future!

My plans for taking the DPC to the Dark Future are making progress. To accommodate my desire for creating cool game setups I am in need of some Sci-Fi terrain that resembles a grim Blade Runner style.

Not really the style I was going for

Sadly (oh so sadly!) Dwarven Forge cannot deliver that, for they have chosen a more “Buck Rogers” kind of approach on the Sci-Fi genre. For that purpose it looks as great as always, but for my grim and dark vision of the future of Terra there has to be an alternative to that.

Inspired by the cool setups I've seen over here at Plastic Legions  I have decided to go with Hirst Arts Molds. Since I already have no free time it seemed like the logical solution. Wait…

Oh well, free time is overrated. 

That's more like it!

The first two molds have arrived, together with 5 kilos of Excalibur dental plaster.

Over the last few days I used up all the plaster and created a lot of small components which are ready to be processed further.

The process of casting the plaster is really magical, I’ve posted the videos from the Hirst Arts Website for those who would like to know more about it. What the videos don’t show is the chanting process, which is an inherent part of casting the molds and solely consist of the words “F*cking Air Bubbles!” repeated loudly when desired…

 My materials for the casting process. I actually switched to a different pounding board after a few casts, which works even better now ( = fewer needs of chanting)

So far...

 ...so good.

I've stored the finished pieces in 12 small refrigerator boxes

And now, for those who want to know all the secrets, the beauty of plaster mold casting:

I plan to have a fair amount of finished and ready for gaming pieces at the end of the year and I will keep you posted on my progress to archive that goal. :)