Casting Miniatures - Tutorial Part 2

In this part of the tutorial I show you exactly what you need and how to cast a miniature duplicate in a one part mold. The duplicates I make are of the treasure chests that I sculpted in another tutorial. You can see that sculpting tutorial here. And, if you came to this webpage directly from a search engine this tutorial that you are currently looking at begins here.

I talked a little bit about one part and two part molds and now let me give you some specifics so you can decide which kind of mold you want to make.

Here is a picture of the Miniatures that I duplicate in this part of the tutorial. There are two originals and two copies of each one.

If you are casting a simple object like the treasure chest you can use a one part mold which is the easiest kind of mold to make. The way to decide is to picture dipping the object in rubber and letting the rubber harden. Will you be able to pull the object out once the rubber is hardened?

In this picture you can see a rubber mold that I made and I have poured the plastic into it and the plastic is dry. Now, can I remove those pieces easily from the mold? Yes because of the shape of the treasure chests.

The Treasure chests come right out of the mold very easily because there are no unusual shapes like arms or weapons. This is a perfect choice for a one piece mold.

So let's Go ahead and learn how to make a one piece rubber mold and how to cast the miniatures

What You Need:

In a nutshell what you need is rubber to make the mold and plastic to make the miniature. That's pretty much it. This actually comes out to be four liquids. To make the rubber you mix together two liquids and over the course of a few hours these harden into a rubber mold. Then you mix two liquids together and pour them into the rubber mold and in the course of a few minutes these harden into the miniature. It's really quite simple.

Note from Will: If you are looking for a complete kit that gives you everything you need:

Moldmaking & Casting Pourable Starter Kit - Mold rubber can be used to capture exact detail from any model. This starter kit will allow you to make a rubber mold of a small, simple 2 or 3 dimensional model using silicone rubber. Then pour our fast cast plastic to make one or more reproductions of the original. If you are an absolute beginner to casting then you might want to consider getting this kit. I have more supplies and options on my casting miniatures supplies page

Or if you want to just purchase the ingredients to make the rubber mold this is what I used:

Smooth-On Silicone Mold Making Rubber OOMOO 30

This is the stuff that you mix together and pour. It forms the rubber mold. I use this material in my tutorial on how to cast a miniature

Now here is a list of everything you need, this includes the little things like cups and stirring stick.

• Your two liquids to make the rubber mold
• Your two liquids to make the plastic miniature
• Mold release spray or brush on (this coats the mold and makes it easy for the miniature to come out and is optional but recommended.
• Stir stick
• Three mixing cups
• The miniature you are going to duplicate (treasure chests)
• Something to act as a mold. In this case I use a pringles can, you can use a paper cup or improvise something. It should be large enough so you have one half inch around the whole miniature.
• Not shown: Some kind of glue or a glue gun to affix the miniature into the mold. I will show you more of this.

Step One:

Glue or hot glue the pieces into the mold. Make sure you have a half inch all the way around and a half inch above the piece too. I am going to making copies of two treasure chests so I have glued them both into the bottom of the mold.

If you have a mold release spray or a mold sealing agent you would spray them on now and let them dry. about ten minutes.

Step Two:

You are using three cups for this step. Pour one part of the rubber mix into one cup. Pour the other part of the rubber mix into another cup. Pour them so you get equal amounts. Then pour both of these (as shown) into a third cup.

and gently mix them together with your stir stick.

And gently pour it into the mold. Stay to one side of the mold and let the rubber fill the mold slowly. You want it to go nice and slow and fill in all the little details around the miniature.

The mold is poured. Using a stick or pencil gently tap the side of the mold a few times. this will bring up any air bubbles. Air bubbles could attach to the side of the miniature and cause little defects and aberrations. You will see tiny bubbles come up in the rubber.

Okay, Now you just let it cure. For the particular rubber that I am using this takes six hours - doh! Follow the manufacturers guidelines for the rubber you use.

Continue with tutorial and cast the miniature

Custom Search

Home

Table of Contents for this tutorial

1. Miniature Home
2. Miniature Painting intro & overview
3. Painting Miniatures Tutorial start
4. The Paints
5. Preparing the Miniature for painting
6. Priming the Miniature
7. What to paint first
8. More Painting and the details
9. Close-up of the completed Warhorse
10. Adding texture to the base for realism
11. Tips and hints for painting miniatures
12. Diorama and Miniature supply Store
13. New Painting Miniature Tutorial: A Spartan Warrior
14. VIDEO TUTORIAL: How to paint miniatures
15. Miniature Paints and kits at Amazon
16. Ral Partha Miniatures
17. Links and info about manufacturers of miniatures
18. Understanding Miniature Scale
19. How to Make Foam Terrain for wargaming or dioramas
20. How to Cast Miniatures
21. Model Railroad and Trains

Sculpting Fantasy Miniatures

NEW: How to sculpt fantasy miniatures

1. Part 1 - intro
2. Part 2 - Drawings
3. Part 3 - Making Wire Armatures
4. Part 4 - Your first miniature 6"
5. Part 5 - Make a 3" miniature
6. Part 6 - the musculature of the 3" miniature Viking Warrior
7. Part 7 - Our first Armor - we sculpt the viking helmet
8. Part 8 - Sculpting leather and chainmail
9. Part 9: Adding Belt, bracers and boots
10. Part 10:Painting the miniature
11. Part 11: 25mm Female Warrior
12. Part 12 : The basic shape of the mini
13. Part 13: Completing the body
14. Part 14: Adding the swords and doing detail
15. Part 15: Painting and finishing the miniature
16. Sculpting Fantasy Miniatures Video Tutorials
17. Sculpting miniatures store- all the supplies you need.
18. Sculpting tips
19. Sculpt a Dwarf
20. Sculpt a Treasure Chest
21. Sculpt a miniature Raver and Gegenhound

Stormthecastle.com
Castlefiction.com
Epic Fantasy.com
The Medieval Armory
THe Fantasy Guide
The Heroic Dreams Blog
The Telescope Nerd HobbyNerd.com

STORES

Posters
Dioramas and miniatures

MORE

My Youtube Channel

Twitter - Follow Me

Links
Banner Exchange

---------
All Materials, unless otherwise stated, are Copyright© 2001 -2012
Kalif Publishing and StormtheCastle.com check out my copyright page for information about how to use any work on this site.

If you have questions
or would like to
contribute you can

---------

Earning money with your website