Thursday, October 16, 2014

Filling small gaps on miniatures

Hi everybody!
You know that feeling right, when you have this really cool new miniature but there are those seams and gaps in view that really don't make sense and make it look like a plastic toy rather then the high-end model it is supposed to be. 

Well in this article I will share the method I use to fill these little gaps on models.

To follow this tutorial you will need:

  • Model with gaps
  • Standard yellow-grey Milliput 
  • an old brush
For this tutorial I used a Chaos Lord from Warhammer Fantasy. A model I really love and which is in general a really good model. Most of the contact points are hidden behind armor or the cape. There are two gaps however, that are really visible on this model and they really bug me. I circled these with red. 

Ugly gaps on the WFB Chaos Lord
Time to fix this! I can imagine if you got this model for gaming purposes you don't really care about little details like this but I bought this model because I want to paint it up really nice so I want to make the model as good as I possibly can. 

I got out my Milliput, which is a two-part, cold setting, non shrinking epoxy putty, and mixed a little bit together. Once the two parts where mixed into a homogeneous ball I used the back of a brush to make a small dent in the ball, shaping it into a cup. 

Mixed Milliput cup
Next, dip your brush into clean water and transfer it to the Milliput cup. Using the brush mix the water with the Milliput to create a Milliput "wash". 

Milliput wash
Now, using a brush, apply this wash to the gap. It might take several passes. You can use a blow-dryer or blow on the gap to make the wash dry faster before adding an other layer of milliput wash.

Once you are satisfied let the whole thing dry for about 3 hours. The blow-dryer can speed up this process. When it is completely dry you can  use a fine sandpaper or sanding stick to smooth out the surface. 

Filled gaps
That's it for today! 
I really hope this article helps you make your models look nicer by filling those nasty gaps. Feel free to share your results with me or if you have any questions to post those in the comments.  

If you like this tutorial feel free to subscribe to this blog to see when I publish a new article or to share it with your friends via Google+, Facebook or Twitter.

See you next time! 

No comments:

Post a Comment