Putties! Part One

My last post was written under the influence of glue. I don't sniff glue, or anything else, recreationally - rather I sniff it hazardously and accidentally. I don't know where the habit originated but these days I have to stick my nose in something the moment I open it and take a whiff. Building the truck had presented me with the opportunity to whip out the billion and one glues I own quite unnecessarily and set them out on my desk. I only used one but that wasn't the point. Being able to take my glues out of my nerdy chest of drawers meant I had been justified in buying them - I don't just leave them there doing nothing!

Later on I sat down to write that blog post, casually unscrewed my glues and found out what kindof scent they all had. I do it with shampoos, body sprays, spices and herbs. This time I did it with glues and I have no idea how I wrote that blog post. I spend many hours a week in a chemistry lab, by the way. Sniffed more than a few things in there I shouldn't have. Also set fire to lots of things I shouldn't have but that's for another blog post another day.

This weekend experiments with epoxy putties and the like have been concurring. Epoxy putties are a substance that comes in two parts. You mix them together in different ratios depending on what properties you want the final putty to have, and  can shape and sculpt them until they solidify. The putties don't react and harden until they've been mixed together, and don't require oven baking like clays do. Greenstuff is an epoxy putty - also known as kneadatite.

I really like making bits of scenery and bases so I have a number of different putties in my nerd-drawers. There are a range of different colour two part putties available that have different properties. I'm going to do a run through of the ones I've come across and then show a little experiment I did with a couple of molds and putties. I don’t do any proper sculpting yet though so I can’t really help in that area.

As a note, putty isn't a hard and fast term. It can refer to a number of things within miniatures alone, and not necessarily a two part thingy but its an easy umbrella term for me to use in this post.

First up is one that pretty much everyone doing wargaming has heard of - Greenstuff!

Greenstuff

Components

Yellow – Filler. The more yellow the better, finer detail the greenstuff will take and hold. Too much yellow compared to blue and it won’t cure properly. 

Blue – Hardener. The more of this the harder the final cured greenstuff will be, and the better it will hold sharp edges/corners. Too much blue to yellow and you will end up with a hard lump with not much detail. So pretty much everything I’ve ever sculpted. 

Work Time – About 90 minutes

 Full cure Time – About 24 Hours

Usage - Greenstuff doesn’t take to carving and sanding very well at any stage because it remains a degree of softness and elasticity. It can be tacky and chewing gum like, especially compared to other putties. It is what I normally see people using to fill gaps in models or conversion work. Very frequently used to create scrolls and cloaks and more organic type objects. 

Here’s some examples of models sculpted from greenstuff

 This is by Mr F from Coolminiornot. He painted it and then entered it into GDUK2007. 

Check out his gallery for the painted miniature - which is excellent - and some more painted and sculpted works.  

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Mr+F?browseid=2128606

These models are the work of Scibor. I love the warbear. I really want to get one but they are super expensive and I can't paint nearly well enough to justify it. You can check out more of Scibor's sculptures and painting here
http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Scibor?browseid=2128763

Pricing and availability – Greenstuff is easy to get ahold of. Pretty much any art/modelling shop you go into will have it. 

Games Workshop sell 20g packets of greenstuff for £6.15. It  comes as a ribbon. £0.31/g.

In America is it 20g for $10. $0.50/g. 

Gale Force Nine sells 100g total of greenstuff for £9, with the yellow and blue components store in separate resealable tubes. £0.09/g. It can also be bought under the name Kneadatite, in a tube, at roughly the same price per gram. 

Army Painted sell a ribbon 20cm for about £4. I can’t find a weight for their standard packs which is helpful! 

All greenstuff tends to be the same stuff just repacked and priced up depending on how fancy the name attached to it is, with Games Workshop being the most expensive. Remember if you buy a ribbon you can’t use the section in the middle where the two colours meet because they will already have reacted so you will lose a small but annoying portion of your product.  I picked up a clear box with nothing on it but the word greenstuff and a price tag - 18 inches for 5 pounds - and what I got has acted exactly like GW’s stuff for a fraction of the price.

Milliput

Milliput comes in five different grades with slightly different properties and prices. 

Colour – Black/Terracota/Standard

Components – Various. It doesn’t matter that much what these do. 

Work Time – About 90 minutes

Full cure Time – About 4 Hours

Usage – The non ‘fine’ grade milliputs are good for bulking out armatures and making bits of scenery. They have a bigger grain than silver/white milliput and so do not make for good detail work. Also their colours tends to come off on your hands when working them. For the purposes of miniature modelling the colour is just there so they can be used to repair pottery, radiators etc without needing to be painted. In reality they are slightly different but unless you are going to be firing your finely sculpted rock into the sun to see which melts first it doesn’t matter. 

Milliput claims to be able to fix everything. Maybe one week when I’m struggling for update topics I’ll go round breaking things in my house and see how true the claims on the box are.

Not tacky or sticky to the touch. I recently smoothed out a roll of it yesterday and immeadiately tried to stick it to my face as a moustache but it kept falling off. Not springy either. Easy to control when pushing and pulling. 

Very easy to sand, file and cut once set. Water soluble before it sets which can be useful when smoothing it into something. 

I don’t have any examples of anyone using it for interesting modelling work.

Pricing and Availability – Everywhere. Modelling shops, Car shops, DIY stores. The first three grades run about £4 for 117g of total product. £0.03/g. 

Always comes as two separately wrapped tubes so you don’t need to throw any away. Cheapness and the fact it’s everywhere means it’s worth trying out at some point as the underlay on a sculpture or something. I like making my molded rocks with it and broken walls. Being able to sand and cut it after its set makes it much better for ruins and scenery than the springy greenstuff would ever be.

I lied - I found something amazing sculpted by someone amazing using standard milliput.

Allan Carrasco is an excellent painter and sculptor. Check out his website here.

http://www.allancarrasco.net/

And his CMON here, including the painted version of this sculpture

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/allan+c?browseid=2129286

Milliput

Milliput comes in five different grades with slightly different properties and prices. 

Colour – Silver Grey Fine / White Superfine

Components – Various. It doesn’t matter that much what these do. All I’ll say is both the components are white and working out when they whole thing is blended properly is a pain in the butt. 

Work Time – About 90 minutes

Full cure Time – About 4 Hours

Usage – Very fine grain and good at taking basic edges, and organic details. Sand, files and cuts very finely after curing so complicated edge details can be formed too. Quite often used to make weapons with sharp edges such as swords and halberds. 

Pricing and Availability – Everywhere. Modelling shops, Car shops, DIY stores. These two grades used to be more expensive but you can find them around the same price as the above now. 

Always comes as two separately wrapped tubes so you don’t need to throw any away. Go for super fine white if you are doing character type sculpting. Also water soluble. 

One of the better uses of milliput is mixing it up with enough water that it becomes fluid. You can then brush it over small cracks as a very smooth filler. Create a mix with even more water and you can use it to brush over irregular surfaces to create a super smooth base for priming.  

This is the Elf Warrior sculpted by Freeman, taken from CMON. It is a combination of milliput and apoxie sculpt. This guy has done a lot of pieces I've seen before painted by others - you probably have too. Check out his gallery at CMON to see the original sculptures and some of his paint jobs on his own work.

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/Freeman?browseid=2133366

Z Putty Patrollers

Components – Clay. Evil.

Work Time – About 10 Seconds

Full Cure Time – If not killed in one hit they will roll around on the floor for a bit then get up again

Usage – Rough creations only good for delaying the Power Rangers while a bigger monster is prepared, or distracting them while Rita Repulsa and Lord Zedd get up to mischief elsewhere. The inclusion of a giant Z weakspot on their chests allows them to be dealt with in one accurate blow. In conjunction with their very low intelligence this means they are only useful in large numbers. There are a few variations on the basic putty patroller but all are useless and die quickly. When it comes to modelling the best idea is to give them a hard strike to the chest and use the clay they explode into for making the bulk shape of scenery eg; hills, cliffs.

Pricing and Availability – A dime a dozen. They seem cheap at first but you need so many for them to be of any use that it can add up to a significant price. As for availability if you want to use them for modelling you need to be prepared to run around performing some basic hand to hand combat and then kick them in the chest. If you aren’t very flexible or fit this can be an issue. They are also good at doing somersaults so if you have any low hanging lights storage can pose a problem.

 

Brownstuff 

Components – Brown and Aluminium

Work Time – About an hour

Full Cure Time – 4 to 5 Hours

Usage – A very hard curing, stiff putty. Good for sharp edges and points. Takes sanding, filing and cutting well after fully hardened. One of the harder putties. Not as good at fine details as superfine, for example, but sets harder and sharper. 

Price and Availability – Actually a bit of a pain to get ahold of. About £7-8 for 4 inches online. Can’t find a weight for this one yet. It is more expensive than most other putties though but mostly gets used as an additive in other putties so a little can last a long time. 

This one doesn’t seem to be anywhere near as commonly used as any of the others. I don’t know if this is because of limited applications, or price, or the fact it isn’t easy to get ahold of. 

Here’s some examples of components of sculpts made with brown stuff

 This is another one by Freeman on CMON. 56mm sculpt, like the one above. You can see the brownstuff work on the shin guards. 

This piece has a lot more brownstuff on it - all of the hard plates in the armour.

It is by Adso2 on CMON. He has a few more figures up in his gallery, and apparently started up Enigma miniatures himself. 

http://www.coolminiornot.com/artist/adso2?browseid=2133621

Those are the main two part epoxie putties that I’ve come across. There are lots of alternatives used for sculpting and miniature prep/repairs but I will go into those in another update. I’ve been playing with milliput and greenstuff etc at the moment. I will be playing with my clays and bake able sculpting materials soon. 

Next update will be up in a day or so showing what I've actually done with my materials and how I found using them. I'll be comparing the detail they've taken in a mold and the different ways I tried to apply them. Then I will be priming and comparing how they have taken their paint and so on. 

I hope this was useful to someone!