Green Stuff Industries

New Products From Green Stuff Industries!

2012-02-29T09:16:00.000-08:00

Green Stuff and Milliput examples created using each Tentacle Maker.

Green Stuff Industries is proud to announce the release of 3 new products! Further, those of you who have already purchased a SAW-050 can simply pay the difference (plus Shipping and Handling) to receive the new offerings and have a complete Tentacle Maker Tool Box (see below for details)! Please go to the Shop Green Stuff Industries page to place your order.

Click this link or the GSI Products Page button in the upper right corner for ordering and product details!

Groove comparison for a 1’ section of Tentacle Maker work surface.

The new products are…

The SAW-020,…
A 0.020” peak-to-peak sawtooth pattern that yields the finer detail professional modelers require.

The VEX-040,…
A 0.040” concave groove pattern that produces a ringed “armadillo tail” appearance.
These two new tools also come with a modified upper plate that is tapered on one edge! This prevents the groove pattern from deflecting when making tentacles. But, if you want that more organic look to your tentacles, simply use the un-tapered edge.

Deflection at “A” causes misalignment of “B” and “C” when using flat edge of upper plate.

Minimal deflection at “A” keeps “B” and “C” in near perfect alignment when using the tapered edge.

…and the Tentacle Maker Tool Box!
All three Tentacle Makers can be purchased individually or they can be acquired as a complete set called the Tentacle Maker Tool Box for just $34.95!

Already Own the SAW-050?
For those of you early adopters who bought the SAW-050 before February 27th, 2012 just email Green Stuff Industries at tentaclemaker(at)gmail(dot)com with your request and we’ll be happy to work out the details with you. We’ll send you both new Tentacle Makers for $19.00 (plus Shipping and Handling) so you can work hose and tentacle magic with a complete set of Green Stuff Industries tools!

Going to the Bay Area Open!

2012-02-23T23:35:00.004-08:00

I’m very glad to announce that GSI (a.k.a. me) will be attending the Bay Area Open!

I’ll be doing three things while there:

Playing in the doubles tourney and possibly the narrative event!
Sponsoring a table created around the Blasted Planet terrain posts from this blog! Preview pic of the as yet unfinished terrain/table below.
Selling my Tentacle Makers! Which will include two new types, for a total of three different Tentacle Maker groove patterns! Those will be officially released and available for sale early next week.

I’ve never played in a tournament of this type before. I’m really looking forward to getting a taste of “competitive play.”

I was at Frontline Gaming last night and helped Reece and Keno and Kyle put together some WHFB terrain. The store was littered with terrain (as you can see in the background below) in all states of completion. I’ve also seen the basic layout and terrain of the Frontline tables and I’m really looking forward to playing on them! This event will be a blast!

Deadman Footswitch - Short Product Review

2012-02-22T08:42:00.000-08:00

The cable that goes off to the right plugs into the wall.

I saw this MLCS 9080 Billy Pedal Footswitch on Amazon and thought “Hey, that would be great for my Dremel tool!” Unfortunately, I completely forgot my wife got me a cordless Dremel for Christmas and I had already given my corded unit to my brother. So, seeing as it was already on its way when I realized my error, I decided to try it out on my airbrush.

Holy crap! This thing is awesome! Being a “deadman switch” means that it only completes the circuit (allows electricity to pass through to whatever you have connected it to) when the pedal is pressed. When you let up on the pedal, the power stops. It really bothered me that my compressor was just churning away even when I wasn’t applying paint… this solves that probrem nicely. It takes a bit to get the coordination down, but once you do, its really easy.

You can use it for nearly anything with a cord that needs less that 15A of current: a Dremel, a scroll saw, a drill press vacuum… any sort of corded power tool! Plug it into the wall with the included 8’ cord and then plug what you want to control into the front. I flip the compressor switch to “ON” and leave it there so all I have to do to get the compressor rolling when I need it is step on the pedal. Let up on the pedal and the compressor shuts off.

This is where you plug in your equipment.

It also brings an important bit of added safety to your workbench equation, as well. For instance, if you are using a corded Dremel in conjunction with this footswitch and accidentally drop the Dremel, all you have to do is step off the pedal and the Dremel will shut off. Conversely, if you drop the cordless Dremel, it just keeps going until you pick it up and find the off/speed switch. I for one do not like picking up live power tools.

This thing is super handy but there is one drawback: it tends to travel across the floor if you step on it a lot. I think I’m going to have to mount it to a piece of wood with a textured bottom to combat this.

For around $20.00 US, it’s a fair deal for how handy it is and the added safety.

Outside Avenues of 40k Knowledge for Joe N00b

2012-02-15T15:32:00.000-08:00

When you are new at something you are forced to get help anywhere you can. I read a lot of the 40k blogs, I ask questions down at the local shop (Frontlinegaming.org), and I try to apply information and knowledge gleaned elsewhere to help improve my game as well as my modeling skills.

I have dabbled in tactics and strategy and gamed for a good chunk of my life. Back in high school, I read the Art of War and recently came across it again while unpacking from a move. After thumbing through it I thought I’d share some of what I think would be useful to other, similarly noobish 40k players, in hopes of pointing out the value of “outside avenues” like these.

Risk is where I learned a 3:1 attacker to defender ratio was usually necessary to win the territory in question.

There is a difference between strategy and tactics:

Strategy is typically the high-level long term plan for achieving your goal. It is your preparation before the battle.

Tactics are the low level, and consequently more short-term, plans that are generated during the battle. They are what single units or small groups of units use to keep the strategy on track.

Keep in mind that there is nothing new in The Art of War… it’s 2500 years old! There is a lot of stuff in there about managing subordinates and enemies eating horses that just doesn’t apply to tabletop gaming. But, what reading the stuff that does apply can do is crystallize what you already know subconsciously and bring it forward into your conscious mind to be built upon. It can make you think about how you conduct yourself at the table and what you can do to improve your game.

Furthermore, if you don’t get to play as much as you like because you have a life, a wife, kids, a brutal job, etc., resources like these (and blogs, for that matter) can help you when you aren’t able to roll dice all day down at the local game store.

Uhhh... Maybe not this one.

Here are some cherry-picked examples:

It is said that if you know your enemies and know yourself, you will not be imperiled in a hundred battles; if you do not know your enemies but do know yourself, you will win one and lose one; if you do not know your enemies nor yourself, you will be imperiled in every single battle.

This one has bitten me hard on the ass at least twice now. I know my codex (for the most part), but not many others. I now know that you should never, ever give psyflemen a line of sight to anything in your army. Further, I now also know that I really want venerable dreads (or something like them) in the Chaos Codex. Had I known more about my opponents before the game started, there would have been less “Oh, crap!” from and more from him.

Thus, what is of supreme importance in war is to attack the enemy's strategy.

In my last game (Annihilation/pitched battle) against a Space Marine list over at Frontline Gaming my opponent’s deployment told me pretty much what he was going to do: the right flank had his 2 heavy support squads on top of a 3-story building with a tremendous field of fire and LOS to 2/3rds of the table. His 4 troops, HQ, and 2 Dreads were going to advance line-abreast across the entire width of the table. Each of these units had about 12-18” between them.

Even though I deployed first (which is a slight disadvantage, IMO), a little left of center and in a much tighter grouping, I could see what was going to happen and could plan accordingly.

I pushed hard left onto the 1/3^rd that his heavy support couldn’t reach and began rolling up his forces from that flank. His heavy support and 2 of his attack squads had little to do but climb down and run out in the open from turn 2 on.

I lost a squad of Oblits and a Rhino early in the game to great rolling on his part and stupidity on mine, so it was 0-2 at the beginning of turn 3. But because he got overconfident in his lead, he advanced into lash and plasma cannon range on the left. This allowed me to vaporize one 10-man squad in each of the next two turns with the other Oblit squad and my DP, thus tying the game. Had the game not ended after turn five, I’m confident that because half of his army was completely out of position, I would have won by just advancing down the length of the table, left to right, and picking off the single units as I went.

If you can take an educated guess at what your opponent is trying to do by studying his list/codex, placing and reading the terrain properly, and projecting where he will go from his deployment, your chances of a win go way up.

Mentally map it out!

And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.

Do your best to dictate where and when a fight will happen. I lost that first squad of Oblits early because I exposed them long before I needed to. I handed my opponent that squad on a silver platter. I could have easily kept them out of LOS but I felt it was unlikely that they were in range and could weather anything that could be shot at them. What I didn’t consider is that in turn 2 they would end up being the only unit in range; consequently, they had 3 squads and a dread shooting at them. They then fell to a torrent of high strength/low AP fire. I didn’t need to expose them, but I did and it cost me the unit and likely the victory.

This passage also works for terrain placement and deployment. Denying flanks, Null Deployment, blocking LOS, controlling the center of the board with high strength/low AP infiltrators forces your opponent to make decisions. The more decisions he makes, the more likely they are to be bad.

The clever combatant looks to the effect of combined energy, and does not require too much from individuals. Hence his ability to pick out the right men and to utilize combined energy is critical.

A list that doesn’t rely on a single strategy, but brings to bear the synergy of diverse units can be extremely strong. But, that mostly relies on the person directing the force. Spam lists are generally easier because they have a great amount of redundancy and are consequently more forgiving of mistakes. This is because you usually have another one of those units you just lost… and probably another after that, too. Spam is an excellent strategy but it is not for the poor.

I’m poor, so I don’t get to spam unless I find a cheap way to scratch build what I want/need. I’m also not a very experienced 40k player, so I use the basic CSM Lash DP list. But, I only run one DP because, outside of the obvious monetary shortfalls, I want those points for other units like Raptors or a possessed Land Raider.

Raptors have a similar capability to my DP: deep strike, many attacks, a 12” move… on top of that, they can also engage armor at a longer range and generate more close combat attacks for low toughness squishy units like Eldar Guardians or Tau Fire Warriors, as necessary.

The possessed Land Raider is not only a tough transport from the get-go, but also a fair anti-armor vehicle, excellent rolling cover for the DP, and a great distraction. It has proven very hard to kill and because it is possessed, it just keeps moving! That unstoppable armor carrying that choppy-as-Hell assault squad is no small threat. My opponents tend to blaze away at it while the rest of my army stays relatively safe.

Combinations of unique capabilities (choppy assault units in unstoppable rolling cover) and/or spamming capabilities between different types of units (wings on the DP and Raptors for deep striking or getting into close combat quickly) can yield a versatile and tactically strong list.

There is a similar "IC slingshot" move in Civ Rev.

To not prepare is the greatest of crimes; to be prepared beforehand for any contingency is the greatest of virtues

Have a list, a strategy based on that list (including how you think you should place terrain and deploy to make the best use of your forces), and a good grasp of the rules/codices before you walk up to the table. In my limited number of games (14 now, I think) the guys I played who showed up prepared were far tougher to deal with than the guys who wrote their list after we agreed to play.

Those are just some of the nuggets of wisdom documented in the Art of War. The book has many applications in life; read it and as you read it think about how it applies to whatever you are doing.

When you can play, play. Book learnin' is a pale substitute for experience. But if you can't play as often as you want, read all the tactica, blogs, and 40k specific information you can. When you run out of those, move on to the great works like The Art of War or Clausewitz' On War or Machiavelli's The Prince or even Tactics and Strategy for Dummies. Apply what you've learned in other games, in movies, whatever... Like any outside avenue of knowledge, weed out what doesn’t apply and use what does to the greatest effect possible.

Biographical Information: Sun Tzu, Chinese philosopher, general, and author of The Art of War, lived sometime between the 2nd and 6th centuries B.C. He is regarded as one of the great military minds.

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Blasted Planet – Volcano Lighting Effects

2012-02-09T23:42:00.000-08:00

In this installment, part 2 of the Blasted Planet series of posts, I’ll be covering the flickering magma lighting effects that will emanate from the magma tube. The effect has a few great uses: inside flaming wreck models, the flickering eyes of a daemon engine, anywhere you want to give the impression of a raging fiery heat source.

You can see Part 1 here.

The circuit described in this article is designed to be simple but still get the job done with a minimum of required parts. You should need only novice soldering skills.
If you would like to learn more about soldering here is a fairly comprehensive webpage on the subject.

REMEMBER: Safety first, last and always! Wear safety glasses while building this project!

How To…

I’m sure most of you have seen the flameless flickering LED candles that are sold in many of your local stores. For the purposes of this article, we are interested in the 99¢ store variety, i.e. super cheap. I suggest picking up at least two of these flameless candles in case one gets broken during the disassembly phase.

These candles can be used as-is for these effects, but they are not very bright. The purpose of the this article is to outline instructions for making a small light board that can be seen under fairly bright game store, tournament, or home lighting. You shouldn’t need to dim the lights to see the flickering of the flames!

Materials

LED Flameless candle (one that doesn’t have a resistor inside)
Channel locks
Slotted screwdriver
Soldering iron
Solder
Solder Wick (not absolutely necessary, but good to have if you make a mistake)
Proto board
330Ω 1/4 Watt resistor
9V battery snap
9V battery
3 Sunburst style Yellow LEDs
4 Standard Red LEDs
A small ball of green stuff

The first thing that has to be done is the case must be cracked. It’s easiest to do this with a pair of channel locks. Adjust the channel locks to the largest setting and grip the candle by the sides with it. Increase the pressure slowly until you start to hear the body break away from the bottom plate . It may be necessary to pry the parts apart with a slotted screwdriver.

At this point the LED, the battery contacts, and the on/off switch are clearly visible. We want the LED and the switch.

Either clip or unsolder the LED from the battery contact and the switch. Be careful, this LED is the most important one. Keep the leads that stick out of the bottom of the LED as long as possible.

In the picture below the LED lead has been desoldered from the switch and the battery contact has been bent so that the other LED lead can be easily freed (it was not actually soldered to the battery contact).

The switch will also need to be desoldered from the other battery contact. This step still needs to be done in the picture below.

Now that you have the case open, look at components attached to the LED. If you see a resistor attached (inset above) this LED won’t work with the schematic below. A candle with a resistor inside is not a common thing anymore so you should have no problem finding what you need.

When you have it out, examine this LED closely. You should see a lip around the bottom of the LED, close to the leads. This lip should have a flat spot on it. This flat spot tells you which lead is the more negative terminal… meaning it ends up closest to the negative terminal of the battery. Because an LED acts like a one way valve, if you put it in backwards, your circuit won’t work. Sort of like when you put a battery in backwards in a device.

The Schematic

The circuit below is a schematic of the final assembly.

S1 is the switch. It is listed as a Single Pole Single Throw switch, but feel free to use the switch you got from the candle, whatever it’s configuration. You can skip the switch entirely and just turn the thing on and off by connecting/disconnecting the battery. If you leave the switch out, just make sure you complete the circuit by soldering the Red battery lead to the junction of R1 and D4.

BT1 is the 9V battery and it’s snap. Try to find a battery snap with at least 8” of leads included. I got mine from an old metronome I had. The leads are listed “Positive (Red)” and “Negative (Black)” to keep you oriented properly.

R1 is the resistor. If you are not experienced in electronics, the easiest way to get your hands on one of these is to hop down to RadioShack and ask the person behind the counter for a “330 Ohm resistor at 1/4 watt.” Shouldn’t cost more than $0.50 US. This resistor limits the current to the Red LEDs. It is critical that this resistor be installed on the Red LED branch or you’ll end up blowing an LED.

LED stands for Light Emitting Diode. Take a minute to study the LED symbols and graphics in the picture below. The large arrow (pointing right on the schematic symbol at the bottom) indicates the flow of electricity (positive to negative) and the vertical bar indicates the flat spot on the LED. The two little arrows are what tell you this diode is light emitting. Without those two little arrows, it’s just a humble diode.

D1 is the Flicker LED from the candle. This LED is really cool! It has an on-board resistor to limit the current and all the circuitry necessary to make the LED (as well as whatever is connected to it on it’s branch) flicker. This LED drives the rest of the Yellow LEDs! It doesn’t matter where you put this LED on the yellow branch because it randomly cuts power for the entire branch it is installed on. But, just to keep things easy to follow, solder your board as closely to the schematic as possible.

Also, don’t put multiple flicker LEDs on the same circuit because it is very likely that they will interfere with each other and nothing will work.

D2-D4 are Yellow LEDs. I used Linrose part numbers B4308CH7 and B4304H93. If you can, try to find “Sunburst” LEDs. The B4308CH7 is the Sunburst style and is very bright but the store only had two in stock so I had to get a couple of the other “Ultra-bright” style LEDs. Which are less bright, unfortunately.

D5-D8 are standard Red LEDs. They don’t have to be bright or flicker as their purpose is just to provide an angry background glow.

Final Product

My final product looks like this:

The blue board with the holes is the proto board. If you compare that to the schematic, you’ll see that it is laid out basically the same.

The back of the board (below) is not my best work.

Seeing as this is the back of the board everything is flipped. The Red branch is now on the bottom and the Yellow on the top.

From here, you can trace the circuit around the board by following the silver metal (the solder). The Red battery lead connects to the switch (far left) under the green stuff. The circuit then branches, top and bottom, then goes through the components and then both branches come back together at the Black battery lead (far right).

As you can see, I’m using green stuff as strain relief for the battery leads. Works really good and will keep the solder and wire from fatiguing and breaking when you bend the battery leads!

In the video below you can see it in operation under my workbench lamp. You can see the light is easily visible bouncing of the walls of the magma tube even though the room is well lit.

When the dry ice fog vessel is installed and working the fog will act like a diffuser and make the light a lot more visible in a brightly lit room. The fog will essentially give the light something to bounce off of. Without the fog, 90% of the light just shoots straight at the ceiling and never really gets seen.

In the video I tried to diffuse the light with some frosted glass, but that didn’t work too well. The fog will work much better.

The next installment of Blasted Planet will cover a simple dry ice vessel to simulate the noxious vapors of Furianis, that’s what I've decided to call the Blasted Planet, as well as propose some simple rules to make a game held near volcanic terrain a bit more interesting.

Disclaimer

Keep in mind that clipped leads are sharp and solder melts at about 600°F so great care must be taken while building this project. Safety glasses are REQUIRED, only an idiot would not use them. If you are a minor, make sure your parents supervise.

Neither the author nor Green Stuff Industries takes any responsibility for injuries sustained while attempting this project. This is a “build at your own risk” project.

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

The Amazing Table Top Community

2012-02-08T14:34:00.000-08:00

I haven’t been in the table top gaming realm very long. But, I have noticed one thing: table top gamers are among the most supportive groups I’ve been a part of. Second only to the progressive rock band I was in for 22 years.

Getting Green Stuff Industries moving is a giant pain… fun, mind you, but a pain nevertheless. I think if I were to try and start a business in any other area/industry, things would be far more difficult and… cutthroat.

Everywhere I go… on the internet, to the game stores, out and about in the world… I have yet to meet someone in the this community who is not ready to help with a rules clarification, a design improvement for the Tentacle Maker, or provide info on how to sculpt or paint something. It is truly amazing!

And so, I think it appropriate to say “Thanks!” and “Keep up the good work!”

Skeletal Plague Marines!

2012-02-04T00:14:00.000-08:00

I just finished my squad of converted Plague Marines! You may have already seen some of them in the previous Sculpting Tools and Tips post from about a month ago.

These guys are constructed of three things: standard CSM bits, GW Vampire Counts Skeletons, and a bunch of Green Stuff.

I got my clocked cleaned by Julien at Frontline Gaming about 3 weeks ago... those damned Grey Knights! He had a squad that was just a dry brush of what I think was GW Chainmail with some red accents and a little wash, maybe. It looked really good for such a basic technique so I decided to try it.

This is the first time I’ve used a dry brush technique for the majority (90%) of the painting involved. Dry brush is the way to go for Plaguers. Besides, if you really screw up no one will know on Plague Marines.

I laid down a primer coat of black then dry brushed Scorched Brown, Calthan Brown, Vallejo Olive Green, and Vallejo Flat Green. The guns were dry brushed with Boltgun Metal. I also added some basic rusted areas with Reaper Mini Rust Brown. The diseased bits are mostly just the Flat Green mixed with Vallejo Scrofulous Brown (it’s sort of an orange). There was also a lot of Devlin Mud and Badab Black washing.

With this guy I wanted to depict a disease that replaced your nervous system with an external nervous system. That’s why his helmet is breached and his brain is growing out the back of his head. I also sculpted his backpack.

I just loved the ruined skull in the Skeleton kit. That’s pretty much what sold it, that skull.

I got the idea for the rib cage thing after I realized I pretty much just bought a Skeleton kit for a single skull. I figured I should try to get more of my money’s worth. Good thing, too. I like this guy the best.

You may notice with this model that the arms move. They are magnetized!

This one is probably my least favorite. I tried some things and they didn’t work out. Still an OK model, though, I think.

I had an old school helmet from a buddy of mine and decided to use it here. The detail isn’t up to snuff but it’s cool to have it on this model anyway.

I just like this guy because he looks so happy killing his enemy dead.

I learned two things from this project:

Dry brush shows mold lines really well. I didn’t notice that until I took the pictures. Naked eye they don’t look horrible but blown up to 20x their size, it looks like a serious problem.
The camera sucks most of the color out of the model. This squad is actually pretty colorful but it all gets lost with the high F-stop technique of photography. I haven’t yet gotten this photography thing down.

Other News

New Products! In the next week or so I should be releasing at least 2 new GSI products. I was hoping to have them 3 weeks ago but the fates conspired against me (and my unfortunate machinist).
Victory! I won a very close game vs standard Space Marines this week over at Frontline Gaming. Thanks, Tim! Sorry the dice hated you!
Guest contributors wanted! If you would like to post a gaming related article here on the GSI blog, please drop me a line and we’ll discuss it. Email me at:

tentaclemaker(at)gmail(dot)com

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Blasted Planet - Volcano Terrain

2012-01-23T19:27:00.001-08:00

I have this cool GW Battle Mat with a green side and a black side. The green side is obviously the side that is intended to be used while gaming. But, after admiring the green side for a bit I decided to flip it over.

“What a really cool Blasted Planet-looking surface!” I thought. It brought to mind gouts of black ash falling from a swirling orange sky, poisonous vapors choking all but the hardiest of life, and ground rolling a buckling beneath the feet of the opposing armies.

I then decided that the planet needed some outlandish terrain… something like one might see on an old Star Trek episode. Leaning spires of long-solidified magma, volcanoes spitting out those aforementioned choking vapors, crazy other worldly plant life…. the usual sci-fi stuff.

It also needed some fun “Blasted Planet” rules. So I came up with some simple rules that hopefully would add some twists to the game while being quick and not too annoying. I have yet to play them as of publish date, so if you use them, please let me know what you think.

The Terrain

The main feature of this table is a large volcano. The construction of which, I’ll cover in this first post.

The second post will cover the electronics, the dry ice smoke, and the rules. There are other bits of terrain for this table set-up, but knowing how to make this piece pretty much allows you to make most of the other pieces.

To make this volcano you’ll need:

Safety glasses and old clothes
Rubber gloves
Gap-filler, “Large Gap” type, if possible
A rigid base
A sheet of cardboard cut to fit the rigid base
Plastic packing tape
Cardboard tube, 3” diameter by 8” long (or whatever dimensions you want)
A workspace where you can make serious messes

I wanted some melted and sagging terrain features which led me to the use of canned construction foam (aka gap-filler). This stuff is awesome but extremely messy. It has a tendency to spit and it sticks to nearly everything. If you have the choice, pick up the cans for “large gaps.” This stuff seems to expand more as it cures and gives a nice flowing magma look. The small gap stuff will work, but it is harder to get the necessary look.

Also, when you go pick up the foam, make sure the applicator straw is still attached. If it’s messy with the 6” applicator attached, imagine how messy it is without it!

Wear old clothes, safety glasses, gloves, and put a tarp over any important stuff while you’re using it. It’s best to just use it outside and away from anything of value because if this gets on the walls of your home, it’s not coming off without some sanding and repainting.

Because this stuff is sooooo sticky, it takes some front-end prep. As it cures, it tends to warp whatever it is curing to. So you’ll need a rigid base or substrate. Here I masking-taped a cardboard sheet to a piece of rigid plastic sign board. You want something stiff but disposable, hence the cardboard on top of the plastic. I want to keep the plastic, it’s my cutting board, and because I’ll be removing the cardboard from the volcano anyway, might as well go as cheap as possible.

As I’ve said, this stuff is sticky. Once it cures, it’s really hard to get off whatever it is stuck to. With the first volcano I made I sprayed the foam directly onto the cardboard. This was fast and easy until I tried to peel the damned thing off. I literally had to remove the top layer of the corrugated cardboard to free the piece. Then I noticed it cured warped around the bottom. So, I scrapped it.

I solved this sticky problem by placing two layers of packing tape on top of the cardboard. The first layer gives the second layer something that it can be peeled away from, just like if it was being pulled off the roll. The first layer was put down long-wise and the second short-wise. In the photo below the second layer is only half done.

You don’t have to double-layer the tape, the foam doesn’t stick to it like it would a wall, cardboard, or your clothes but pulling a cured volcano from a rigid substrate in one piece will be a chore.

Use longer pieces than necessary and fold the excess ends over onto themselves rather than sticking them to anything. This gives you a tab to pull when everything is cured.

Next, the volcano needs a central shaft to simulate a magma vent. I taped an 8” long piece of 3” diameter cardboard poster tube in an upright position in the center of the substrate.

Make sure to close off the upper opening or the gap filler will just flow down into it. You don’t have to hermetically seal it, just put a couple of bits of packing tape over it to close it off.

Now that the superstructure is done, it’s time to start in with the foam. It’s best to make a ring around the base of the tube to give the upper portions something to rest on. If you don’t do this, when you spray on the foam around the top it will just keep sagging down onto the substrate and begin flowing outward. The first one of these I made ended up as an 18” diameter, 8” thick plastic cookie.

Remember, this stuff expands (I think by as much as 20%) so make it a bit smaller than you think it should be. Work from the bottom up and take it slow. If you have a spot that just won’t fill in, like on the side of the tube, it may help to let what you have already applied cure some before you fill in these tough gaps.

Also, you can sort of push the foam into place with a gloved hand, but direct contact seems to mess up the chemistry so avoid this, if possible. It looks like the bubbles pop and leave you with a very thick coating.

You can avoid the look of long curly feces by placing the nozzle of the applicator right up against where you want the foam to be. This gives you pillows instead of poop.

Once the coverage is completed how you like, wait an hour then push down on the top of the volcano.

This will create a nice little crater. At this point, the outside of the foam has cured somewhat and become leathery but the inside is still completely uncured so you shouldn’t have to fight much to make the crater.

Now wait another 12 hours before you handle the thing again. The inside will be wet and sticky for a loooong time, so be careful!

I waited 16 hours for mine to cure. It peeled off the tape just as expected and the inside was still goopy, which was also expected. The tape that held the tube in place tended to collect the foam in its cracks and crevices. That bit was the hardest to pull up from the substrate.

Next I ran a tongue depressor around the goopyness inside to pop the large bubbles and make some room in the base of the volcano. That extra space is for the electronics which I’ll cover in post #2. Let that dry for another 4 hours or more and then cut out the tape that held the tube in place.

Now that we have the overall shape, the inside is hollow, and the tape at the bottom of the shaft is removed it’s time to cut out the top of the magma shaft. I cut mine with an Xacto segmented knife. One of those box cutter-like knives that you can break off the old sections to expose a new blade. I fully extended mine so I had about 3” of thin razor sharp blade and just stabbed and sawed away until the hole was cut.

As you can see, it is currently a volcano with a cardboard center. I textured the inside of the tube with what I like to call my “terrain slurry.” Basically, what my terrain slurry consists of is textured wall covering and Styrofoam chunks. This step is also very messy and requires:

An old paintbrush, I think mine is 1.5” wide
A paper cup
A stirring implement (tongue depressor)
More gloves
The textured wall covering (Sur-Stik Permanent Patch 102)
Acrylic paint to mix in, if possible
Styrofoam bits
A workspace where you can make messes

The Sur-Stik stuff is ideal. I’ve tried other brands and they actually put sand in the paint, which is really hard to get out of brushes. Sur-Stik seems to put in little hunks of dried paint or some sort of soft rubber. Makes for bigger chunks that are easier to handle than sand.

What I do is drop 2-5 tablespoons of textured wall covering into the cup and then mix in the Styrofoam, usually by hand (gloved, of course). I also added the paint but that didn’t work out so well. Adding the paint at this point is really easy if you are dealing with shades of grey. Dealing with actual colors can be troublesome.

Terrain slurry can also be used for cityscapes and the tops of hills (textured wall covering and green acrylic paint only). Later I made a green slurry for some vegetation on the sides of the volcano.

Once you get a textured and colored base coat on your terrain it’s very quick and easy to dry brush on the other colors. It can take quite a bit of acrylic paint to get the color you want because the textured wall covering is pretty much chunky white paint.

From here you just paint the stuff on with the brush or smooth it on with your gloved hands. You don’t have to coat the entire inside of the tube because you need to leave room for the dry ice smoker. There is no need to be neat about it at this point because the outside still needs a coat of black spray paint.

I tried to make the slurry the deep red I had in my mind’s eye but the acrylics wouldn’t behave so I was stuck with sort of a pinkish orange. Which actually isn’t so bad because it reflects more of the light than a deep red would.

When spraying the outside with black paint don’t spray into the shaft, just spray across it or you will paint over all that lovely orange slurry you just applied. A little overspray around the mouth of the volcano is not a catastrophe, though.

I ended up dry brushing on some yellow and red to give the tube interior a hotter look.
After that, I dry brushed some of the upper surfaces of the volcano with a dark grey. This gave those areas an ashy look.

Next, I made up a green slurry (only textured wall covering and green paint) and brushed that onto some of the upper surfaces, as well. Once the green slurry dries, dry brush it with the other vegetation colors you’ll be using. In my case that was some acrylic burnt umber and some Vallejo olive green.
I had some extra fish tank plants, so I stuck them on, too.

It came out pretty good. In the next post I’ll show you how to make a pulsating orange-red glow with hacked LED tea lights and a simple vessel for a dry ice vapor spout. And the extra rules, of course!

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Sculpting Tools and Tips

2012-01-13T22:07:00.000-08:00

Recently I’ve noticed that I have acquired a pretty good collection of tools that I use for sculpting green stuff. I’m no great sculptor, but I have found that having certain tools at your disposal can up your game some. Be warned, all of these techniques take some practice but without the tools, you will have a much harder time achieving the effect. Much of this info can be picked up from other, more in-depth, tutorials but I figured a small compendium of what I’ve found useful might help my fellow gamers/sculptors.
Originally I started with a set of these…

… I believe they are a Gale Force Nine tool set. Before these, I was using an Xacto knife, which was very difficult. Mostly I use the pointy one (left) and the one with the sharp glaive-like end paired with the tiny trowel-like end (right). Pretty good starter kit except I think I paid $15.00 for it. Which might have been a bit on the expensive side.

The pointy one is great for making moldy looking parts on Plague marines. Just pick an area on the fresh GS and start poking. If you vary the angle and the depth of each poke you’ll end up with a very messy organic look. BTW, I'm doing these examples on glass because I don't have a model to do all of this stuff on.

You can also mess up the clean edges of regions by poking just inside the edge of the green stuff patch and dragging outward. This makes things stretch and grow tendrils. Water is optional with this operation. Sometimes the stickiness is a boon and makes things look even better. You may have to pat down tendrils that won’t lie down on their own.

One more thing the pointy one is good for is placing small balls of GS onto a specific area. Barely tack it onto the end (no water) and place it where you want. When you withdraw the tool, twist it to break it’s bond with the GS. This takes some practice but it works pretty good.

The trowel end of the other one is good for smoothing patches over if you get fingerprints in an area of the sculpt or just need a clean surface. All you need to do is wet the end and gently move it across the surface.

It’s also pretty good for poking vents into things.

The sharp glaive end is great for cutting excess GS away from an area. It’s sharp enough to do it cleanly but not sharp enough to damage the model underneath.

As you can see, some cleanup on the edge may be necessary but that’s easy if you are careful.

The second set of tools I picked up was a group of three double-ended embossing tools. Basically, these are just metal rods with variously sized spheres on the ends. These are now my go-to tool.

Really good for doing the following stuff…

Gently drag them (water is required) from a raised area of green stuff to a lower area of greens stuff to make what look like stress folds.

Push them into the surface, shallow is best, to make hammer marks.

Smooth an area with the largest one.

Push GS into a specific area/crease.

The next tool I came across was an angled needle pick. It may have been a dental tool at one time… it is very sharp. This thing is great for pulling GS into points.

The mutant belly mouth of the WIP Oblit below was done by poking a large embossing tool deeply into the GS, making a pretty good hole, and then pulling the edges out with the needle pick.

I also did the knuckles of this Plague marine by pulling up bits of the GS I placed on the power fist. Still needs a bit of work, though.

Everyone who’s done some Nurgle work in GS knows about straw ends. Make a smooth raised bump of GS, poke the straw in, pull the straw out, gently pull the GS from around the circle, smooth as necessary, and viola! A giant, puss filled, skin bubble.

If you have different sized straws handy, you can make concentric rings around a “mark.”

This one I discovered on my own. I wanted a way to do sections of chitinous armor plate, like on a pill bug (Woodlouse) so I started pushing the edges of my GF9 tools into the area I was working on but I could never get a clean line. Then I rolled a small screwdriver shaft across the area and it left a good impression, but it didn’t wrap around the body like I wanted. WIRE! Use wire! So I got some 30AWG (very thin) wire, clamped the base of the Oblit to the workbench, and used it to form the folds in the armor. It actually worked very well and was ‘way easier on the nerves than trying to get a straight line with my shaky hands while using the GF9 tools.

One more fun technique is stretching necks. Really all you do is place a blob of GS in the neck-joint of the model, texture it up a bit with whatever tools you have at hand, smoosh the head down where you want it, give it a minute to bond, and then pull it up. The GS sticks to the bottom of the head and stretches out leaving some really good detail and a nice proportional neck with very little effort. Remember to let it fully cure before you work with that model again! It’s very easy to smash a perfectly stretched neck if you get impatient. I always wait 24 hours before touching that model again after I’ve stretched its neck.

Keep in mind, correcting a bad sculpt is pretty easy if it’s a small area stuck to a plastic or metal model. GS bonds pretty good, but there is no chemical bonding like if you used model glue. Model glue basically melts the two plastic parts together. GS just sticks to the surface. So remember, GS can be pulled off a model if you are gentle and careful.

Please feel free to post techniques or tools you have found helpful in the Comments section below.

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Plastic Knives into Giant Scary Swords

2012-01-04T10:34:00.000-08:00

My Defiler kit bash had a problem: it was bringing two knives (each a former chainsword) to a space-aged gun fight. The knife in the right hand I was good with, I think it had the proper look and feel. The one in the left hand? Not so much.

That Defiler needed a large and crazy close combat weapon to go with its squirmy tentacles. Something that just looked Evil (pronounced “Eee-vil”). Unfortunately, I had no large bits in my boxes that fit the bill. I toyed with the idea of buying a GK Dreadknight kit just for the sword, but that seemed excessive. Unfortunately, the closest I have to a "before" picture is directly below; I just got so sick of looking at the lameness that was the left hand weapon I clipped the thing in the hope it would force me to make something else.

You can see the end of the chainsword as it was held in the left hand, just right of the mouth tentacles.

This knife problem bothered me for about a month until I got inspired by cheese. The knife I was spreading the cheese on my crackers with was made of plastic! Why, that’s the same stuff my 40k models are made of!

So here I will outline how I turned the humble plastic knife into an ultra-deadly Dreadnaught close combat weapon of the 41^st millennia.

Materials

Making these weapons without a high-speed rotary tool (Dremel) will be extremely difficult. I would imagine all of this can be done with an Xacto and a set of files, but it would take an extreme amount of time and patience.

Left to right: Cutting Wheel, End Mill, Large Ball Mill, Small Ball Mill

Not only will you need the Dremel, but go with the Dremel you’ll need a cutting wheel, an end mill, a large and a small ball mill, and likely a drill bit small enough for pinning. By the way, the mills are also called "engraving bits" in case you go looking for them. You’ll also need a permanent marker, small files, some coarse and some fine sandpaper and at least a few plastic knives. You’ll also need a pair of safety glasses to wear when you do your Dremel’ing.

Before you start working, test to make sure that the glue, the primer, and anything else you’ll be using that has to stick to the weapon will actually stick. Take a spare plastic knife and try to glue it to some spru. Wait for the glue to completely cure and take that glued knife-spru and primer it. Then stress test the whole thing; bend it, scratch it, see where it breaks. Seems silly, but I only thought of this halfway through my build and if the glue or the primer didn’t work like they were supposed to, I’d have been super pissed at myself for the wasted work.

Compostable knives!?!

I lucked out because the knives we had on hand are vegetable based plastic. Specifically, they are made by a company called Stalk Market out of natural plant sugars. The reason this is good, aside from being “green,” is because petroleum based plastic that is food-grade is typically made to be extremely durable, is fairly brittle, and very smoothly finished. These properties can make working, gluing, and painting the material very difficult.

The Modifications

Once you find a suitable knife, preferably with serrations and a nice curve to the cutting edge, you’ll want to mark out what modifications you’ll be making. The plant plastic was great because it was white and a standard permanent marker marked it up very well.

I can’t stress this enough: draw out what you want to do to the knife before you do anything! Don’t wing it! It doesn’t have to be art, but those simple marks help you get everything cut the way you want. My markings were very rough, as you can see, but they gave me a guide to judge my progress against.

When the knife was marked like I wanted, I started in with the Dremel. The most important thing to know about using a rotary tool like a Dremel is that it relies on speed to do the work, not power (torque). Using too low a speed can cause the bits to grab and damage the work piece or stall the motor. Unless you’ve used a Dremel a lot, I’d recommend you practice on some of the other knives, first. High rotary speed, smooth motions with your hands, and a little practice can make a project like this go pretty smoothly.

I used the cutting wheel to create tabs on the back of the plastic knife blade. I then used the ball mills to weaken the base of the tabs so I could break them off without worrying about busting the knife itself.

Blues lines are cutting wheel cuts and red lines are ball milled grooves. The tab at the point is already broken off.

I could have just cut the tab bases, I suppose, but I didn't want to press my luck. I figured it only took one slip of the tool to screw the whole thing up, so just take it slow and easy. Minimize any chance for my clumsiness to get in the way.

Once the tabs were broken out, I used the end mill for smoothing out the edges of the cut areas. High rotary speed is critical when it comes to working thin bits of plastic. If you’re trying to put a point on a sword and your bit grabs, it’s either going to chew up the material badly or just break the point off completely.

I also needed to cut the butt end of the knife off. This presented me with a problem: how to do that and not make it look like I just cut the handle off of a plastic knife? I hit upon the idea that the bottom edge of what would ultimately be the guard of the sword should have a pointy bit. That, and I’d hide the plastic knifey parts with a liberal application of green stuff. I made some more grooves with the a ball mill and broke the knife handle off. Then did some extensive smoothing with the end mill.

Knife handle removed, pre-end mill smoothing.

The next step for me was to make a place for the Defilers hand to grip the sword. I did this by drilling out holes with a 1/8” drill bit and my giant pin vise. Those holes allowed me to then smooth the opening out with the end mill. After that, it was a simple trim-to-fit on the hand.

Butt smoothed and grip holes drilled!

Making sure the grip is big enough. Noooot quite!

It’s a PITA, but I pin everything I can when I do a modification like this. I knew I’d be slathering on the green stuff later, but a little reinforcement couldn’t hurt.

The most delicate part of the whole operation.

Checking pin hole orientation.

I did learn that if you have to drill through a good distance (like that hand), a high speed rotary tool is not what you want. The speed causes heat where you began drilling and the heat melts the plastic. The pin-hole through the hand is considerably larger than I wanted at the entry point because the heat had time to build up while I was finishing the hole. Luckily, that part of the hand is covered in green stuff now. If you can, use a pin vise or an actual drill for distances through plastic of greater than 0.250”. Don’t get lazy, like I did.

Testing the pinning.

With the pinning done, all that is left to do is get artistic with the green stuff.

On the use of Green Stuff

Using green stuff for the last year or so has taught me two very import traits: patience and moderation. The green stuff work you see on that sword took me 4 days to complete but it was only about 2 hours of actual work. There are at least 16 destinct sculpted sections on that weapon.

First step of green stuffing

I used to get super excited about what I was doing and let that feeling get the better of me. I’d mix a giant ball of green stuff then work and work and try to complete the entire job before the ball cured. I’d constantly get fingerprints in parts I just finished perfectly. I’d throw out grape-sized balls of hardened green stuff all the time. That lack of patience wasted more of my time and green stuff than I care to think about.

The finished Close Combat Weapon

Don’t get me wrong, I still get excited by what I’m doing, but now I mix little bits of green stuff, sculpt only that small part, then step back and let that cure before I lay down the next part. Patience keeps the clumsy fingerprints out of the sculpts. Moderation keeps me from rushing the job and wasting materials.

Context shot

Just Go Crazy

I know this Defiler is considerably smaller than the GW model and is therefore nowhere near “legal.” I think I would need both a very forgiving opponent and a liberal TO to be able to play this thing anywhere outside of a friendly game. All that aside, it’s one of my favorite conversions. I'm really glad I didn't let the rules dictate what I could create. It’s been my experience that many players will just be happy to play against an interesting looking army. So, just go crazy!

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Store Visit - Frontline Gaming

2011-12-31T18:50:00.000-08:00

This week I dropped in on Frontline Gaming in Martinez, California. I showed up sorta late to catch a 40k game but I did get to hang out and talk to one of the owners, Reece, and a couple of the regulars, Tim and JP. These guys are real enthusiasts and helped re-energize me on the gaming side of 40k. I haven’t really played much and to be honest, it’s a daunting thing to just show up at a store and start a game with a complete stranger when you are a relative noob. But, these guys treated me really well and I’m looking forward to getting back there next week and getting my ass handed to me (repeatedly).

They really liked the models I brought, especially the Oblits I blogged about last week, and offered me a guest post. That just blows my mind. Now I just have to think of something to write about.

One of their portfolio armies on display in the store.

Frontline is a smallish store, which is understandable because what primarily drives their business is their custom terrain and painting service along with their “Table in a Box” products. They are currently working on a very large Necron army for a customer and it looks stupendous!

The Frontline community also has a blog with video battle reports, gaming news, modeling how-to's, as well as tips & tactica.

There were plenty of kits in stock, including a rare-ish Space Marine Megaforce. All at what looked to be 20-30% off MSRP! They also allow customers to come in and use the store paint at their painting table as well as use the on site airbrushes, provided the users chip in for the paint and keep things clean and well maintained.

The two tables they currently have set up looked good and have plenty of interesting terrain. They have what looks like hundreds of first-rate terrain pieces due to the Bay Area Open tourney they organize. So if you’re not feeling what’s on the table at that moment, just ask to see what they have at hand and chances are, you’ll find something that will make your game interesting.

The thing I liked most about the store was it felt less like a place of business and more like a comfortable game room where you and your homies can kick the hell out of each other on a regular basis. To me, the vibe at Frontline is what tabletop gaming is all about. If you live in the East Bay Area, you should probably make a point of dropping in to see what Frontline has to offer.

Better Late...

2011-12-28T11:29:00.000-08:00

I probably should have linked to this excellent review over at From the Warp right after it was posted. The holiday crush just blocked that idea right out.

The review was mostly good. I can't argue with the points Ron brought up. I'm currently in a v2 design stage that will bring some new sizes and capabilities, so be on the lookout!
If my designs work out, they'll be offered at a competetive price and be significantly more capable and easier to use than before!

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Obliterator Kit Bash

2011-12-23T10:42:00.000-08:00

Here are some pics of my latest sculpting and painting effort, a group of CSM Obliterators that I kit bashed from a few different places. I really don’t like the GW Obliterators, they just aren’t an exciting sculpt to me. So I figured I’d try and do one better and make my own.

You may notice there are 4 models in this squad; I’m sorta banking on the rumor that the squad size is increasing in the upcoming codex. Or maybe I’ll just make two more for a second full squad!

I’m a novice sculptor and painter. I’ve only been doing this table top gaming thing since mid-2010. Up until then, I hadn’t picked up modeling glue or a paintbrush in nigh 20 years! I would describe my style as more comic-book-like than realist or clean.

I know the broad-stroke ideas for a couple similar conversions have been posted elsewhere before, though I can’t remember where I saw them so I can’t give credit. I apologize for that. This squad is my take on Oblits and I thank those who may have posted similar ideas for the inspiration they provided.

***

This one is primarily made from a Flames of War Panzer, a Robogear melta-looking gun, an AOBR Termie body cut at the waist, and a Khorny head and chest plate. I also used my Tentacle Maker SAW-050 prototype to create the life support and power hoses that connect the tank chassis to the torso and gun. It’s the last one of the group I made and I wanted to do a cleaner model, more machine than biology.

***

Originally, I had written this off as kind of a throw away model. I didn’t like what I had done; it was mostly just the saw and guns green-stuffed onto an AOBR Termie… it just seemed “meh.” Then I woke up one morning with the “MORE BITS!” idea jumping out of my subconscious. I then added the shoulder emblem, the antlers sticking up out of the back, the spikes and horns, and the pistons on the back of the legs. Those hydraulic pistons are from a Star Wars AT-RT kit, the head is from the CSM Possessed kit, and the right shoulder skull emblem and antlers on the back are cut from some spare Chaos Icons.

***

With this guy I tried to take the idea that Oblits can modify their body at will (i.e. create weapons) to the farthest extent possible. That’s why the left eye of the helmet is melded into the sighting scope, the chest plate and backpack are separated by a whole lot of super-deformed body, and the duel plasma pistol hands are up under the front of the leg platform, far from where the shoulders of the chest plate are. I really wanted this guy to look grotesque, big, and scary.

This thing is mostly green stuff, 2/3 of a Robogear walking chassis, and some spare CSM bits I had. I really like how the Chaos shoulder pads look as knee armor.

***

This last one is the first one I made. This is my fledgling attempt at the scary guy above. When I created this one, I didn’t have the AOBR set, I mostly just had the leftovers from a Chaos Terminator Lord. That is to say I didn’t have much. This guy is a mash up of some Termie Lord and standard CSM bits along with a pair of inverted Robogear legs… and Eldar War Walker feet! I lopped the front edge off those and added them to get cloven hoof look. I also couldn’t make the arm carrying the Rhino flamer fit satisfactorily into the normal place, a.k.a at the shoulder, so I just green stuffed it to his back. Which I think came out better: more of that gross-body-modification-at-will idea seeping in.

As for painting them, they are mostly a black OSH primer (which is a surprisingly good product for $3.99 US) with a base of Codex Grey and then a darker grey I mixed by hand for the camo bits. I kept the colors I used for the bulk of the armor the same across all the models because I wanted them to look like a single unit. But, I didn’t want them all to look uniform so I changed up the camo pattern from model to model. They are Chaos Obliterators after all, and they will do whatever they want!

Once the paint looked clean I roughed it up with some Badab Black, Devlan Mud, and Gryphon Sepia washes. Then I used a jagged sponge and either watered down silver or rust to show some age and wear. There is also a little bit of rust and base color dry-brushing, too.

The bases aren’t spectacular; they’re just coarse black sand and some diorama “dry grass” stuck on using Undercoat Black. Simple but effective.

El Studio

Regarding photography, which I’m not very good at, I found this site (bmpt1.com) that suggested I use a higher F-stop for more detailed pictures. Apparently, that opens up the depth of field and makes the focal plane a little thicker. Before this info I found the end of the guns would be blurry if the face was in focus and if the gun was in focus the face would be blurry.

Raising the F-stop also causes the aperture to open for longer so you will need less light on the subject. I found that an F-stop of about 10 worked best. Unfortunately, I didn’t find that out until the last couple of pictures, so most of them are taken at 18 and look a little funky. I’ll experiment with this technique more on my next project post and let you all know.

I had a whole bunch of fun making these guys. I also have an Eldar army but I’m less enthused about them because there are far less options for creative conversion. Chaos Space Marines are just plain fun to build and paint. There are sooooooo many ways to make these guys look impressive!

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Quick Tentacle Maker How To Video

2011-12-18T13:24:00.000-08:00

This is a quick video I did this weekend on how easy it is to use the Tentacle Maker. Below are some higher resolution screen grabs from the video. Enjoy!

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box at the top right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

First Tentacle Maker Sold!

2011-12-15T09:19:00.000-08:00

Proven Fact: President Nixon hid his tentacles under his jacket.

It feels amazing having sold one of these things! I never considered it would effect me this much but, oddly enough, I've been pretty wired these last 24.

Thanks to Matt over at Black Matt's Black Legion Blog for purchasing the first one!

I had made the original mock-up based on a similar product for personal use only. Mostly because I didn't want to wait weeks for it to arrive. I found it was not so easy to use, though. Alignment of the grooves was a big issue. So, after making some modifications I had something that worked so well I figured other people in the hobby world might want one, too. "What the heck," said I with a shrug and went forward with investing in having a grip of them made at a local machine shop.

Suddenly, with this first flush of success, there are all sorts of other designs and ideas floating about my noggin. Having always wondered why people would want to own a business (it's far more work than a "regular job")... now I think I have a small taste of why.

It was only one, I know. A very small step, indeed. But it had a pretty huge impact on me.

***

To order a Tentacle Maker, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box to the right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

Tentacle Maker, SAW-050 Incoming!

2011-12-08T13:50:00.000-08:00

Green Stuff Industries is proud to announce the release of the Tentacle Maker, SAW-050 on December 15, 2011!

To order, please click this link Order the Tentacle Maker or click the Order the Tentacle Maker entry in the Pages box to the right. Only $15.95 + tax and shipping!

CAD Drawing of the SAW-050

The Tentacle Maker SAW-050 is an excellent new tool for creating tentacles, hoses, and tubes in modeling media such as Green or Grey Stuff, Sculpey, and clay. Simply roll the media between the base and the upper plate and turn a conical shape into a tentacle or turn a cylindrical shape into a tube or hose!

Please note the upright section of the base plate. This allows for effortless alignment of the peaks between each plate. A perfectly aligned tube of up to 0.250" can be achieved easily!

The SAW-050 is a triangular sawtooth pattern with a 0.050" peak-to-peak measurement. Working surface is 2.0"x2.0".

Tentacles made with an early mock-up of the 'Maker

More mock-up version creations!

Excellent for use in:

Modeling for tabletop games
Creating “mutant” versions of RPG miniatures
Adding extra detail to automotive, railroad, and military models
Fantasy, Sci-Fi, and Halloween dioramas and miniatures

Detailed instructions are available here.

These hoses were made with the final version prototype (CAD drawing at top).

All orders are shipped via USPS Priority Mail Flat Rate Boxes. Currently, we are only offering this item within the U.S.

For orders outside the

U.S., please contact us at tentaclemaker(at)gmail(dot)com