A variety of ways to make master figures

[martin goddard]

Over the years there have been many ways to make master figures.
Some require a very special skill.
Some methods have come and gone along with their practitioners.

Other methods are on the way too I expect?

The "early" days  related to this chat are about 1960. This is the date that wargame figures started in the main.  Willie,Stadden , Les Higgins etc.

I don't know how flats masters were made. They look like they are carved into soft metal and then moulds made? I do wonder.

Other early methods of making master figures were sculpting in wax and then pouring molten metal into a mould containing the wax. Wax floats away and metal fills the cavity. I had a go at this . I did also try a polystyrene master and molten aluminium which replaced the polystyrene master. Aluminium does not get good detail.

Miniature figurines and Hinchliffe masters were made from solder (white metal). Higher temperature metal used for early stages and then lower melt point solders used for additional parts added.Then the master can be further carved and filed into the final shape. Hinchliffe's beautiful straps were made from flattened metal.

Apparently Bill Lamming made some of his masters in brass. Ouch!

I saw a range of horse masters for gaming made by layers of plastic card. e.g one layer had the legs, then a spacer layer etc. Carved , filed and put into a silicone mould.

Fimo is very popular too. I believe that Tony Barton (AB) has used Fimo (I think)?

Peter Pig in common with many sculptors use Kneadatite. This is an epoxy yellow/ blue mixing strip. Before it was well known I used to buy it as plumber's putty in the US from plumbing stores (Scotty's Hardware).

Milliput is also equally popular with sculptors.
There are several other epoxy putties too. I have not tried them but they produce very nice sculpts.

Sculptors of 25mm figures can often convert existing models to create newer models. This makes them  a mix of old figure and new putty.

Games workshop and others have used masters made to 3x the final intended size. This allows a lot more detail. Thus a 30mm figure would be originally sculpted at 90 mm using the normal sculpting techniques. A company such as Renendra would reduce it by 3D tracing ( pantograph). The pantograph cuts the mould by tracing and reducing at the same time.

Coming up to date we have 3D sculpting. I do not do this but know of such programs as Z brush which can create very good models.

I hope others here can add to this story of "how my chaps are sculpted".

martin

[Colonel Kilgore]

An interesting history, Martin - thanks for putting this together.

Simon

[martin goddard]

Thanks.
It does show the "enthusiastic artisan"  nature of wargaming figure making.

martin

[Sean Clark]

I'd love to see a video of the sculpting process.

[Panzer21]

Edward Suren sculpted the "Willie" range from old Plastecene apparently (under the influence of gin!).
The weapons were soldered to the metal castings.

I thought flats were cast between slate moulds - that would imply carving into the slate.....

Lost wax casting......wax masters - very much a lost art....

Minifigs were carved out of lead and built up with solder...

Fimo, yes Tony Barton uses it exclusively. What's amazing is that he sculpts half the figure onto glass, then bakes it and sculpts the other half. Once the figure is whole he adds the remaining details. The Fimo figures are put into Plastecene and a silicone rubber mould is made from which metal masters are cast. The ability to mentally disect a sculpt is a real skill.

I've sculpted one off figures in Fimo - no way up to TB's standard.
Examples on my blog (http://aufklarungsabteilung.blogspot.com/)

Kneadanite is also known as Green Stuff (also comes in blue and white). It can be mixed with Milliput. Gets the best of both - reduces the stickiness of GS but also allows filing / sanding like Milliput.
There's also Procreate which looks interesting.

For these you need a "dolly" or carved down existing figure on which you build up the details.
One of the advantages of Fimo is that it's self supporting; like TB you can bake it and add details or just create the whole figure - it tends to smooth out from handling...

Neil

[Panzer21]

Forgot to add Holgar Eriksson of Tradition and the mysterious Swedish African Engineers - SAE ( the moulds for which have been rediscovered in Madeira) who carved his figures out of wood!

Ronald Spencer Smith seems to have pirated the SAE figures to produce his plastics.....

More info on HE and SAE at Tradition of London (in Sweden!)

Neil