green stuff and the doom

[harryf]

alright, im now trying to make my first ever conversion...
after brutally ripping apart one of shannon's tyranid warrior, I have the body necessary for a doom.
the head dosent look menacing enough, so I used one of the 5 spare heads I got on my carnefex kit
and I put a pair of crushing claws on him, and since the doom is supposed to be a psychic creature that grew exponentially in power through the devouring of eldar psychic signatures, I plan on making his head and arms significantly bigger than he should have.
however, my mashing kits together, I created gaps that look quite terrible, so could someone explain to me how greenstuff works?
I've heard that its in 2 parts, and by mashing them together you get about a day before its too hard to mold. so what kind of tools would i need in order to sculpt greenstuff?

[voodoo]

Not a day, at best about 2 hours before it's set too much to mush around, and about 4 hours till fully cured. Some quick tips I've picked up and consider useful on using green stuff are below. Depending on how big your gap is between the pieces it'll be really easy or a big P.I.T.A. to sculpt over and have it look nice. If it's a really small gap I recommend liquid green stuff available in paint pot size containers on the paint rack. For larger gaps/free sculpted areas that's where the fun happens.

Since Tyranids have lots of exposed muscle bundles behind armor plates; you'll have an easier time making the physiology of your bugs more convincing. It's easy to say "this tyranid is a new strain and has more muscles between his shoulders" it's harder to say "this space marine has arms like an orangutan because he's special, and that's nice". Please refer to blow tools and tips.

Basic tools
1. Exacto knife (I still do the majority of my sculpting with an exacto that is a bit old, has a snapped off head; everyone has one lying around, time to put him to good use!)
2. Stiff fingernail brush (more for doing rust than muscles, but it could provide a neat mottled effect on the edges of chitin)
3. Reference photos! (muscle bundles, real rust, another model that has a sculpted or stock idea you want to replicate)

Advanced tools
1. Sculpting tools (sculpture house website has anything and everything you'd ever need tool wise)

Quick tips
1. Keep all tools moist when coming in contact with green stuff. If you don't feel comfortable licking your sculpting tool, then keep a small dish of water nearby
2. Reference material! It's so important it needs to be said twice

Always remember, green stuff is really pliable, you can string it out to make stringy muscle sections that are hanging between armor plates, etc. It sticks to itself really, really well so if you make a mistake or don't like part of an area, you can cut away the area you don't like and re-sculpt the part you didn't like.

If you're going to be building up big areas or doing a lot of scratch building I recommend laying down a first layer in Milliput (available at leading edge hobbies, I use the Grey/Yellow), Milliput is a LOT cheaper but is not as pliable so for stringy sections it doesn't work as well and it's generally less forgiving than green stuff.

You can play with your greenstuff mix to get different results, more yellow will make it softer once cured, will take longer to cure and it'll be stickier while sculpting, the opposite of all of these happens with more blue than yellow.

Don't forget to ask like you did in your first post, we're all here to help and if we can, I'm sure we will. Best of luck!

[nsc]

I need to let things cure overnight in most cases.

Make sure you use wooden sculpting tools and keep them wet, if you're not sure you want to invest in some sculpting tools then toothpicks and popsicle sticks are your new best friend.

Hell, I paint eyes with popsicle sticks!

I've also used old hobby knives that were dull (keep 'em wet! and be careful of rust!)


Make sure the GS is warm before you work in it--you want it malleable like clay, keep your hands wet too. Freeze it when you store it so it has a longer storage life (I tend to use ziplock bags to store it)