Green Stuff Roll Maker Megathread - just roll with it

[Reaver]

The plan here is to collect uses for the Green Stuff World Roll Maker Set and the XL Version which includes a different rounded texture. @MichaelX and I figured it would be great to display the experiments and uses we’ve found as well as soliciting the community for additional ideas. It is an interesting tool with some highly practical and also niche implementations. A true array of the possibilities would be vast indeed. Let’s see what we can formulate here!

Experiment with us! Try different orientations, try twisting your tubing after removing it from the roll maker, try sequences of rolling, anything you can come up with. Please share, even if you don’t see a use for a particular pattern, perhaps somebody else will!

Product video

Note GSW advises using a toothbrush for cleaning the plates as needed. Be sure to use plenty of water to avoid sticking while creating tubular masterpieces.

Michael has also kindly uploaded a few printable plates for those looking to DIY.
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[Reaver]

Table of Contents

• Chaos Dwarf Beards
• Legion of Azgorh Beards
• Steampunk Tubes
• Intestines
• Persian Brass Staff
• Roots
• Earthworm Tubing
• Crosshatch Tubing - Weapon handles?
• Maggots
• Ammonites
• Snakes
• Spiral Tubing
• Rat Tails

As this thread matures feel free to @Reaver to update this ToC so that future readers can find organized links to below posts.

Items flagged with might be of particular interest to us Zharr-inclined sculptors.

[Reaver]

Chaos Dwarf Beards

1. Yes this is an ogre but he’s a good test subject being slightly larger. I use the pair of smallest pattern and roll a clean ball with the flat sides.
   

   

2. Wet the flat sides with water and roll a clean tube with slightly larger diameter than the desired end result.
   

   

3. Using the small pattern with both plates aligned lightly roll in some texture
   

   

4. Afterward (optional) with some slight angle variation, introduce some irregularity to the beard coil. Accomplish this manually in step 7 if it’s not turning out great.
   

   

5. With a sharp wet knife cut to the desired length. This will crimp that end but the next steps will remedy that. Then with something like a ball end stylus tool slightly cup what will be the end of the beard. This is often not necessary if you plan to put an ornament to disguise the end of your beard.
   

   
   

6. Grab the beard coil by the crimped/cut end and drop it into place. Clean up the crimped end by dragging the green stuff into the chin similar to standard hair texture.
   

   
   

7. Use a sharp wet knife or sculpting tool to introduce more irregularity or more hair like texture around the coil.
   

   
   

8. Repeat for bigger and more impressive beards!!

Comparison with other bearded brethren

Usage on a slave giant using large texture pattern

[Reaver]

Steampunk Tubes

1. This is likely the most standard use of the Roll Maker set. Aligning the texture of two same sized plates to create grooves. Optionally start with a long enough section of wire so that you have a tube you can pose and pin into place on a miniature.
   

   

2. Manually thread the wire through the green stuff and roughly form it. Wet flat plates and roll it into a neat tube around your wire.
   

   

3. Here are a couple different resulting sizes both using the medium plates. When the green stuff is cured you can trim off the excess ends that aren’t as shapely or uniform if desired. (Don’t use your roll maker as a cutting board… bad Reaver!) It’s easier to get smaller tubes without the wire inside.
   

   
   
   
   Samples using the large and small plate in a similar manner.
   
   

4. Enjoy placing them on miniatures! I often create collars from plasticard tube at the ends of sections to make a clean joint where it enters the miniature.

Use pair of medium plates for deeper ridges on tubes or just the smooth sides for no texture. Large plates were used on the backpack accordion bellows oxygen pump apparatus thingy.

Medium plates used on the left miniature. Small plates used for the beard of tubes on the right miniature below.

[MichaelX]

Right!

I finally had some time to reveal these! Or more precisely, redo them as I can’t find the original pics.

Intestines

These are not the easiest to make consistently, and work best with greenstuff that isn’t too soft.

I used oven bake polymer clay to not have to waste GS and have a few do-overs as I can’t find the original pics, but this stuff is soft… too soft…

This is made with the xxl roll maker and the curved plates. It should also work with the other plates, but it’s easier with the curved one.

Start with a normal roll

And rol it between a plate with the texture and the back of a plate.

Next gently rol it between the backs of two plates to flatten the beads a bit

That was the easy part. Now the tricky bit. Put the flattend roll back on the roller, but offset it slightly, so the flattened beads are partly over the edge of the curves.

Gently roll it again between the textured plate and the back of a plate.

My roll was not the same width all over so only part of it looks as intended (the left bit) and not as good as it should. But as I said, I don’t want to waste green stuff. I might upload better pics when I make some more or have a bit of gs left over.

Finally, if the consistency it good you can slightly pull on both ends and stretch it all out a bit and if needed flatten it a bit between the backs of two plates.

[MichaelX]

This is how you can make a Persian brass staff or handle for a hooka, pipe, … could also be carved bone or wooden beads depending on the paint job.
You could also cut these beads loose and put them between a normal staff and the weapon as embellishments or if you make them smaller they could be used as a necklace or bracelet.

I made these with the roll maker xxl and the curved plates but it works similarly with the others too.

Start with one plate rotated 45° and one guide added. Roll a sausage that is close to the outer width of the staff you need and put it on the plate.

Then take the second plate and put the grooves parallel to the guide. With just a little pressure roll the sausage between the plates. You should get this result.

To make the staff u cut off the last few beads that haven’t taken the texture well and add a Lizardmen bit to it to show how it might look.

And as handle decorations

[Reaver]

Roots

1. Using the smooth sides roll a conical shape by holding the plates at an angle as pictured.
   

   

2. Depending on the size of the root desired I use two dissimilar plates to create irregularity. This time the grooves on both plates are aligned parallel to the length of the tube. Here I am using medium and large plates. Make sure to try to adhere to the conical angle similar to step 1. The goal here isn’t your final root texture, just a cheeky head start before you place it on a miniature or base.
   

   

3. Remove from plate and stick it down. Any twisting or distorting should add to the root look. I come back with a sculpting tool and scarify sections that are too clean and add holes or extra forking sections of root. Finish it off with a bit of a mound around where it emerges from the ground so that basing material will mound up near it convincingly.
   

   

Here’s how this technique looks after priming

[Habitual_Lurker]

You make it seem so simple! I’ll end up giving this a go, but I’m pretty sure the results will be comical.

[MichaelX]

Nah mate… this is easy to use. I have mine for a few days now and already used it to make 3 distinct shapes. Hardest part is figuring out what combination of plate and orientation creates a specific texture. And that is what this thread is for.

[MichaelX]

Now… the other stuff reaver did in his builds… is staggering… so I get why it seems like a lot. But tubes and tentacles are relatively simple

[Reaver]

Earthworm Tubing

Here’s a weird one. Not sure what else to call it. A quick experiment at sequential rolling.

1. Roll a tube using the large rolling plates aligned traditionally.
   

   

2. Then roll using one large plate and one flat plate to change how pronounced the ridges are. Do this very lightly as it will blur your texture entirely in quick order.
   

   

Bonus points for making your curing fixture super unstable.

[Reaver]

Crosshatch Tubing

Here is some medium-medium crosshatch tubing with 90 degrees misalignment. Advisable to use the guides that come with the tool to maintain the angle. This could be used as a grip for hammers or axes perhaps?

Now that I’m seeing it this might be a good candidate to come back over with a flat-flat roll extremely lightly to try to flatten out the small square nubs. Try it and see what you think!

[Reaver]

@MichaelX

You could also cut these beads loose and put them between a normal staff and the weapon as embellishments

Cutting up small sections of a resulting tube is a highly underrated use! Nice work. Very easy to pin through such things in the middle of a shaft, use them as the butt of a handle, or even beard ornaments.

[GhraskDragh]

Great idea for a thread guys, thanks so much for putting this together

Do you think this would be useful in any combination to create the scraggly unkept beards of the LoA?

[Reaver]

Challenge Accepted!

Legion of Azgorh Beards

1. Started with small-small plates and rolled a thin tube. Worth noting I mixed the green stuff with more green than I usually do to increase pliability and hopefully pick up more detail. Consequence of this is that it sticks to the roller easier if not using plenty of water.
   

   

2. Leaving a few coils intact I went at it with the sculpting tool. Lightly pressing around the coil to replace the coil texture with messy hair strands. I repeated this with the pointy end of the tool going both directions (up and down the beard).
   

   

3. Repeated for multiple sections and drew out the bottom. Also used a wet blade to scrape up the coils a tad, could also do that after a partial cure so as not to flatten the beard with a heavy hand. Not perfect but quick and reasonable? Let me know your thoughts @GhraskDragh
   

   

[Reaver]

Mate, looking forward to seeing what you end up creating! As @MichaelX said, it’s an easy tool to start using. And who knows what patterns you’ll discover in learning and experimenting with it. We’re just starting to scratch the surface here. Not to mention the potential doors opening up by going beyond the tool and doing a bit of post processing, a head start to some sculpting endeavors.

Every roll I make doesn’t work (nowhere near that), and that’s fine, I either start over or let it cure for my box of refuse that usually ends up on 40k bases. I’m trying to make nice ones for the purposes of the tutorials, but trust me the process is a fluid one. The more ideas we can collect here the better.

[GhraskDragh]

Wow, fantastic mate

You’ve exceeded expectations, that were high already

Thanks so much this will definitely be bookmarked for future projects

[MichaelX]

Haha I can’t believe you did it awsome!

[tjub]

Oh, great thread! Ive had one of those for years but never got around to actually try it for real.

[MichaelX]

Then this is the time @tjub … start making some tentacles now!