Bloodbeard:
When can we buy these? I'm tired of starting at my headless goblins. LolI'm just waiting for Danny to ship the moulds. Hoping to cast the first heads before christmas.
Twisted Dwarf
Bloodbeard:
Quick question. All the stuff will ship with UPS tomorrow.
What colour should the resin be? Black or white-ish?
High quality both, only the colour is different.
Dînadan:
Quick question. All the stuff will ship with UPS tomorrow.I think light grey (assuming that's what you mean by 'white-ish') would be better as it'd be easier to see where the paint is while undercoating - imagine it'd be hard to see black spray on black resin ;)
What colour should the resin be? Black or white-ish?
High quality both, only the colour is different.
Bloodbeard
Admiral:
White-ish, for the reason Dînadan gave. Though the tightwad in me says black, to ease the undercoating. 
Dînadan:
White-ish, for the reason Dînadan gave. Though the tightwad in me says black, to ease the undercoating. ;)Except you still need to undercoat - the point of undercoating is to make it easier to apply the other paints ;)
Admiral
Admiral:
Yes I know and I always do, but the tightwad in me insists it is not necessary. 
Fingers crossed for smooth work in the Danish workshop!
torn:
yeah also for those who basecoat white, going over black with white paint would be a right pain in the A hole.
Averrucus:
can’t wait to see this SHINIES!!
Bloodbeard:
The UPS Santa just came knocking on my door!
If all goes well. I’ll do the first casting this saturday and come sunday I’m fielding 20 hobgoblin archers in a triumph and treachery game.
Stay tuned ladies and gentlemen, the shopping thread should open shortly after we enter 2015 - unless I mess it all up of cause!
Edit: Re-named and hijacked the thread from Admiral.
TheHoodedMan:
Good Luck! And take care of your health working with all that chemical stuff ;-).
Admiral:
Cutthroat hijacking. Yarr! :yar
Best of luck, and don’t forget about safety! :cheers
Bloodbeard:
I’ve done 4 castings, resin everywhere! A lot of miscasts, some specific heads have not yet come out usable at all.
Second run has turned out best, 3rd one didn’t work at all (baby interrupted me), forth casting I messed up a bit by shaking the mould. I have a firth “method” I will try out next.
After this i ask DWR Plastic for advice, as I haven’t quite made results as good as the test castings. Perhaps because they have used a pressure chamber or a shaker/centrifuge.
Here’s a picture of the heads done now. Left is heads that work as is/need a bit of green stuff for attachment. Few missing ear tips, still look good though (like a dog from a fight).
Middle is the heads that need a bit of green stuff work. Some filling of a hat, fixing a nose tip etc. These I will use myself to not waste too much resin.
Right is the miscast (inc. 12 that the baby messed up). To much of the face missing, bubbles in the resin or entire backs of the heads missing. Too much green stuff work to be worth the effort.
More time consuming that I had thought it would be. And I use gram resin pr head - not 0,5 grams.
Business part: I need 62 heads, Admiral has been promised 100. After this I’ll make the 400 heads needed to break even. They will go for sale at the same time. Depending on my avasilble time, motivation etc, there might be more cast.
Heads will not be sold in sets, but relatively randomly picked at 0,6 euro pr head. No money in it for me or Admiral - pure service to the community and to get my invested money back.
The work effort and high miscast ratio simply makes it bad business/work for me. Larger miniatures will be better to do. There is no itme frame at the moment.
Admiral:
Thank you very much for keeping us updated on the headcasting venture! Which heads turned out useless? Can they be fixed in any way? Where some sculpted areas flawed for the mould?
Best of luck with refining the technique! Once you’re fed up with the effort we should look around for some company (or MadHatter) to buy the master sculpts, mould and possibly any casting materials left over. I’ve got a hunch that the demand for heads might make it interesting for professionals (or dedicated fanatics ;)) to take over the heads once the jolly amateurs have run their course. 
And not least, thank you greatly for attempting this! You were both the initiative behind it all, and now you’re the crucial workhorse. I don’t get why people constantly ask me if I’ll get paid for my “heavy efforts” with sculpting the heads, whenever the project is brought up as a topic. The sculpting time of 2-3 weeks was enjoyable, and obviously I only have to do it once. The mouldmaker, caster and salesman have to handle his chores much more than just once!
Malorndk:
Thx for keeping us updated. It sounds like quite a hassle to get through, but their might be a learning curve that can make the process easier/faster once yu get the hang of it. I hope it works out great in the end. If the money aren’t adding up, just raise the prize. We will support this!!! <3
Doombeard:
I had similar problems with my first go at casting. I decided I wanted to clone some popular and unavailable miniatures I had in my collection so I made moulds and used resin from the same guy, dwr plastics after teaching myself how to on youtube (for example Xander made a good tutorial vid) Speaking from experience its pretty normal to waste a lot of resin on your first few goes, after a while you will get a feel for how much you need and measure it out correctly and will be able to waste less and be more clinical. I used disposable transparent cups and marked on it where the level should come up to, and also started to weigh them using some digital kitchen scales I bought for a 5er. I found about 1.4grams to make about 4 hobgoblin sized miniatures + sprues was about what I was using each time.
I found using a small syringe to inject the resin worked better than a large one because it is less air, and air pressure firing it through the mould. Seemed to work smoother. I also found I went through the syringes pretty quickly so needed a bunch of them, and had to carefully run water through them after every injection before the resin dried (takes about 90 seconds to dry) to clean them in order to be re-useable.
I also found putting my finger/s over the air escape holes in the mould forced the resin into the corners and hard to reach parts of the mould which was a good way of ensuring it filled the mould correctly.
I also found if I wrapped up the two halves together with elastic bands too tightly it distorted the casts so that detail was lost and proportions were squished. The biggest problem I had was feet, could never get them to cast correctly. Out of about 80 or so minis I tried casting not a single one came out perfect, I’d say maybe 40% were useable with minimal green stuffing to fix, the rest would take considerable restoration work. In the end I gave up after having spent about 100 pounds, as I figured the amount of hours I was going to have to spend trying to fix stuff and the cost I’d spent was making it not worth it. I decided its only really something I will do in future to make something very simple that I need en masse such as a shield or something.
Heads should be much much easier than full figures, just don’t expect it to be perfect the first time you do it, as its a learning process. If its too much hassle I don’t mind if you bail on it man I understand. I think I did offer to do it myself but for whatever reason that didn’t work out.
torn:
I think i speak for everyone when I say we appreciate the effort you are putting into this project, especially when you have a new baby in the house as well. Thankfully we are a patient bunch so you shouldnt feel under pressure to hurry all of this up. Like doombeard says you will get better with practice and to be honest once you have made 500 or so you will be like a pro.
snowblizz:
Perhaps because they have used a pressure chamber or a shaker/centrifuge.Randomly watching tv and they used a "vacuum storage bag" and I realise. Hey ready made vacuum chamber which could maybe help the casting.
Bloodbeard
You don't really need very much pressure, just enough to overcome the viscosity of the resin.
Bloodbeard:
That is an excellent idea. I'll make sure to get one and try that out. Grap some slaves for that.Perhaps because they have used a pressure chamber or a shaker/centrifuge.Randomly watching tv and they used a "vacuum storage bag" and I realise. Hey ready made vacuum chamber which could maybe help the casting.
Bloodbeard
You don't really need very much pressure, just enough to overcome the viscosity of the resin.
snowblizz
cornixt:
I’ve heard of people making their own shaker table by attaching a drill with an off-centre weight.
LordFortitude:
Hi!
I’ve just discovered this thread in my search for making some Hobgoblin conversions for a future Chaos dwarf army i will be doing. The heads you are making really look great and i would love to buy some aswell and conribute to your project
I have made a user since this looks like a cool forum for all chaos dwarf related, so hello everyone :hat off