Dark Eldar WIP Voidraven - Part Five - Putty Wars & Void Lances

Hi,

After the unexpected quite modelling time I got on Saturday, Sunday turned into a complete fail, but I was back to modelling Monday night (abeit very late).

Putty Wars

Tonight was the first half of the modelling putty practice.  I'd already made my test peices:

The internet is a wealth of information, not all good mind you, but unless you're doing something very unique there's probably a video out there of someone else going it.  Therefore first I watched a couple of youtube videos of people using green stuff.  Main tips I took in were:

• Always keep your finger tips and tools wet to stop the putty drying out too quickly
• Be careful to knead the two parts of the putty together for long enough to ensure both parts of mixed together sufficiently

First up we have GW's Green Stuff.  As always with modelling tools, costing just under £7 for the following:

It's odd that there wasn't an even mix of yellow/blue.  Particularly when I spoke to some friends saying that previously (many years ago) that the green stuff didn't dry hard enough and being given the advice that the ratio was probably wrong and I wasn't using enough blue stuff.  Well time will tell if it happens again.

The green stuff was a bit harder to knead together than the other two, and came apart slightly when I was shaping it rather than spreading.  It's now drying and I will see how hard it dries and how easy it is to file tomorrow.

Next up was Gale Force Nine's Grey Stuff.  While costing £10 it came with 2 separate tubes of putty and had considerable more putty than the GW offering, but probably not as cheap as some of the green stuff offering you'd fine on ebay or from other manufacturers.

The grey stuff went on a bit easier than games workshop green stuff.  However the main claim to fame of grey stuff it that it dries harder, so I will be testing this tomorrow after it dries:

Lastly I had Mulliput.  This is definietely a more industrial version.  It was the only version to include instructions, which included a suggestion to use gloves (which I ignores) and to ensure the putty was kneaded together sufficiently.  As well as modelling uses it was advertised in the instructions as being suitable for industrial repairs (eg. boiler leakages, wall filling etc.).  What stuck me was that it would set under water, definitely not just for modelling:

Milliput was also the cheapest option.  For an amount similar to the Gale Force Nine's Grey stuff it cost only £3.99, from a town centre hobby shop.

The mulliput was very easy to knead together, and felt almost like plasticine.  It spead on easy, and if it dries hard it will probably win the quest to be my main material in the voidraven's next stage of conversion:

I made sure the mulliput went over the bits of plastic because I wanted to see how easy it would be to file down once it was dry.  The mulliput instructions also said that it dries without shrinkage, so I will compare the dried models to these pictures to see if there is any skrinkage or expansion in any of the putties used.

So I have my three samples all drying, waiting for the next stage; how well can they be filled once dry:

Void Lances

Before I finished for the night I wanted my Voidraven to take another step into looking like it's finished position.  First I glued on the rear thrusters, and I put on the section that holds the tail fin.  I'm putting it on regardless of whether I put on the normal tail fun, as it adds to the rear length of the model.

For the Void Lances I put a Bright Lance in between the mount and the barrel of the razorwing Dark Lance.  I glued the gun mount into the Voidraven, but I magnitised the barrel of the Void Lance.  Here's my completed Void Lance:

I may put some green/grey stuff around join of the bright/dark lance, but I think once undercoated and painted it will look fine.

Here's a picture of the Voidraven so far:

The stages remaining before I can undercoat the Voidraven are:

• Fill the gaps in the engines
• Smooth the join between the first and section cockpit sections
• Fill the gaps under the front cockpit, and attach the cockpit clear bottom
• Decide on and attach the fins at the back (the original straight tail fin, x-wing type fins, or both)

the void mine will be attached later.

That's it for now.  I'm only managing to grab modelling time in small bits, but this is showing it is possible to make progress, although in small steps, once I'm committed to using the time for modelling no matter if the time spare is only 30 mins or an hour..

Rathstar