Heresy Dragon Big Thread Of Doom

[Enazel]

Any more news of this .

[Big Boris]

Have done a silicon mould of some of the spincastable dragon parts - head pieces, the various back spines, arms, hands, some of th etail. At the moment I don't have a resin to experiment with, but have done some test casts in my usual metal alloy, and this established two things: one, that silicon moulds are awful things when it comes to metal alloys - the parts are 'burnt' looking and you can see flow marks in the discolouration, also there's a very fine sandpapery/orange peel-like texture to them. Basically, not really good enough to send out BUT it could be the quality of the metal as it's very much multi-recycled stuff. Am awaiting fresh metal delivery this week, along with samples of a lead-based alloy to see if that makes any difference to the finish. Secondly, the weight of these parts in metal is over 600g, which means it will add a fortune to the shipping for overseas if I do use metal. as well as considerable cost to the cost, if you follow me.

I am ultimately wanting to do the parts in resin on the spincaster - I'd love to be able to do that plastic-resin thing that Ed at Trollforged has developed and which apparently Juan at Avatars of War has figured out as well. But lacking the knowledge and essential clues, I'm stuck with regular resin in the forseeable future unless either of those two gents is feeling generous enough to clue me in.

Complete lack of funds so will investigate resin after the Hammerhead show and once I've garnered some sales from the next batch of releases (fingers crossed, anyway, things have been treacle slow lately, down by about 50% since summer). Heard rumours that there might be a new formula knocking about soon that may do the job.

[Enazel]

Thanks for the update Andy.

[Twosoc]

might be worth experimenting with a fast cast polyurethane with a 5% acetone mix.  you'll need to spin it for about five mins but might work for you. Not too expensive to try out, could do a good amount of trials for about £30.

[Jimmy]

Any kind of estimate as to when the next batch will go out? be cast?

[Big Boris]

Not sure yet. Ian is no doubt still casting up his big bits, I'm trying to find a work around for the little bits but just got hit by unexpected £500 of repair bills which I was going to spend on resin and moulds. Good news is that Ed at Trollforged thinks his plastic/resin hybrid formula is near 100% and should be ready for April, at which point I may be able to get my hands on that (he thinks he may be able to sell it or at least spin it for me). So what? you say. Well, if I can get my greedy hands on it, then all 200 Dragons in the queue would have half their bits done in five days or so. After that it's a question of getting the loan of a bigger mould press (new one costs £3040) and a deeper mould tin (£1100) and if I can get those, I can make spincast moulds for the torso, legs and wings too and suddenly you'd be looking at a couple of weeks to get all 200 dragons made in theory.
If I sell the house, I'll be able to buy those new. This also assumes that Ed's formula will work on large components as opposed to regular sized figures.
Until that happens, though, I have to rely on the current plan, which is successfully spincasting resin without all the problems GW are having with this.

[geronimo]

Not sure yet. Ian is no doubt still casting up his big bits

Yup. Throwing away as many as I'm getting right at the minute - the crap weather over the past few weeks hasn't helped.   

Meanwhile there's some resin in the post for you, Andy, to see if you can create a stop-gap stock of spincast pieces....

[Kat]

Hi all. I'm just getting back into painting minis and this dragon is on my list but I think I will wait and order him once you've filled all the back orders! I already have a mountain of unpainted minis, just working on a Cang at the mo so I'm certainly in no rush for it. He looks gorgeous though! I can see why he might be a nightmare to cast. Has anyone actually put one together and painted it yet? I'd love to see how he turns out!

 

[Ajsalium]

Has anyone actually put one together and painted it yet? I'd love to see how he turns out!

Here is a W.I.P:
http://forum-of-doom.com/index.php?topic=15724.0

[yxalitis]

Oh my...he's finally 99% complete!
By that, I mean, I have finished him, but being as he is so large and complex, I'm sure I'll find errors here and there over the next few months.
The hardest part about painting him, and a lesson to all yet to start theirs, is to really, really, really clean him up.
I washed in soapy water, then scrubbed with a nail brush using cream cleanser, then wiped clean and repeated, but still, I would find large sections of gloriously-blended paint peeling off! I had to redo some of the wing sections about 4 times, you can probably spot where, as the final blend is not as good as other sections.
Don't ask me how many greens went into that, I stopped counting after 12, plus about 4 different types of washes.
The idea of the claws being separate was great, I thought. "I will be able to paint these up all nice, then attach them after, so I don't have to worry about painting fiddly little claws all over the place"
Unfortunately, getting some of those claws in place was very difficult, especially the one behind the tree stump!, most took a few attempts to get in right, and after all that effort, I had worn the paint off and had to repaint anyway..gah!!
Forgive my photography, poor technique and lighting tend to wash out some colours, and super-enhance others (the mouth is not that RED!)
http://www.flickr.com/photos/76084129@N03/sets/72157629514172053/

[DarthSte]

Looks amazing yxalitis!

[Mortanius]

Wow it still looks great seeing the dragon finished. You did a great job on it.

[Kat]

Nice work! 

[DRAGON]

Any news on the casting Andy ?

[Big Boris]

Not heard anything from Ian yet. Am currently re-texturing the wings prior to putting them in a big mould for spincasting. Bit more work than I'd thought, but IMO looks better for it. Lack of money has meant I am forced to get other stuff done first. See 'New Troopers' thread.

[Jimmy]

any kind of estimate when the next batch will ship? weeks/months?

[Big Boris]

As soon as I have any info from Ian I will let you know, I promise.

Meanwhile I finally got the money together to get enough lead-rich metal ordered to make the seriously heavy metal Dragon masters to make the spincast moulds, thanks to everyone who pre-ordered the Troopers and Boris. Will have news on that as soon as I have something to actually report ie a successful spincast of resin parts. Looking at spincasting both arms, the head parts, the horns (currently in metal but would prefer in resin), the top ends of the wings (iffy as they only fit in the tin backwards to how they should so i am dubious about their likely success) and the back 2/3 of the tail. If I can get the funds for a deeper mould tin this will be expanded to include the big bit of the tail..

Annoyingly, whilst I could easily source a much bigger tin, ie bigger diameter than 11", say 15", easily capable of taking the wings and even the torso or legs if deep enough a tin was bought, none of the UK rubber companies I can buy rubber moulds (and tins) from appear to cater for anything bigger than 11". It is most perplexing. Why would they sell me a bigger tin and not the bigger moulds to go in it?

[Big Boris]

News: So it turns out, Ian sent a batch of Dragons in mid-Feb.

They never arrived!

The couriers claimed to have delivered them two weeks after posting, on a Saturday, (no deliveries on this Industrial Estate on a Saturday, and we weren't in that day anyway) and have an unintelligible signature on the receipt. Much gnashing of teeth.  Hope Ian gets good compensation for not only the deliberately 'lost' batch of dragons but also for the wear and tear on the moulds!

pS Don't know which courier it was.

[beefcake]

That sucks. Are you keeping your eye out on ebay and the likes. At least you have a good record of who you have sold them to.

[Enazel]

Not good. This bloody Dragon might be the end of us all at this right.

[Graeme]

Have you looked inside your compost bin. City-Link left a package for me in mine, took a photo to prove they delivered it then failed to put a note through my letter box telling me it was here. it was over a month before I found it, half decomposed.

[Avicenna]

Get the courier to check every inch of their warehouse - both the local depot(s) and any hubs in between. When I worked in logistics this wasn't an infrequent occurrence and they normally managed to find the box somewhere, however, Ian might have to push them...

the swines!

[Nosferatu]

I had a similar thing happen a couple of weeks back. I was at work and was keeping an eye on the courier's tracking website because I knew the package was due. It was quite disconcerting to see the package status change on their system to 'delivered'. Apparently signed for by someone called 'David' (which is, strangely, my name!). Their tracking system also showed 'David's' signature, which didn't resemble mine at all! Anyway, luckily the package was on my door step when I got home. I complained long and loud to the courier company. The Manager got back to me and seemed to appreciate the seriousness of fraudulently signing someone else's name and of dumping a package that had a big pink sticker on it saying 'signature must be obtained'. So end result for me was that I did safely get my package, no thanks to idiot courier. Who apparently will be out of a minimum wage job if he does it again.

...I was lucky that time, but it seems this is courier revenge, because Andy's missing package may well have contained my dragon! 

[Ben Brownlie]

News: So it turns out, Ian sent a batch of Dragons in mid-Feb.

They never arrived!

The couriers claimed to have delivered them two weeks after posting, on a Saturday, (no deliveries on this Industrial Estate on a Saturday, and we weren't in that day anyway) and have an unintelligible signature on the receipt. Much gnashing of teeth.  Hope Ian gets good compensation for not only the deliberately 'lost' batch of dragons but also for the wear and tear on the moulds!

pS Don't know which courier it was.

When we get stuff delivered here we need to give a signature and a name

So if they can not give a name then it is suspect

Especially if you were not there that day

[beefcake]

I may be going overboard but since it's probably 1000's of pounds of product I'd perhaps get the police (or at least threaten to get the police) involved if the courier company doesn't do anything.