Resin all the things- Objective Marker!

So someone on Reddit asked how to make an objective marker.  I had never really considered making objective markers, cause well, we usually just use a nice glass bead, or a random model or something... so the need for one has never really come up... then I thought, why not make one, and why not make it so I can produce as many as I need, with my most favorite thing ever: MUH FUCKIN RESIN!!!

Resin is just some fancy liquid that comes in two parts, you mix it, it gets hard, you paint that shit.  Easy as that.  Forgeworld does all of its kits in Resin, and GW is jumping on the Finecast wagon and producing resin models as well... goodbye lead!  I like resin, its lighter, easier to glue together, and when I drop a model, unlike metal, the glued parts dont go flying off everywhere.

Ok, so for my objective marker, I looked around my little room here and decided I would use this nondescript cyclops skull as the main part of my marker.  As you can see I added an eye and a sweet ass horn... Im imagining it will be some sort of golden idol, laying in a pile of rubble.. perhaps the remnants of a chaotic statue of questionable power?  The bust of particularly succesful plagubearer?  A sculpture created by an annoying art student and imbued with mystical forces?  Is it the fucking CRYSTAL SKULL and now each game will be met with a hokey ass jump the shark plot twist like the last Indiana Jones movie??  Who knows!

Ok so I have a 40mm base that I will use.  It has some Nurgly stuff molded onto it with milliput that I have already made a cast of, so Im just going to glue shit on top of it.  Thats how I roll.

Time to cut up some sprue to make "girders" and things... this will be the basis for the rubble that our Golden Skull is laying in... I also have some guitar string laying around so im going to cut that up too...

Now I glue it all on the base with supah gloo... I really just drown that shit in super glue and let it sort of fall naturally onto the base... I throw in some cut up pieces of guitar string, and I even sneak a knife in there, cause it just happened to be sitting here...



Now I get crazy with even more super glue... I add some random blobs of super glue here and there, trying to focus on the bottom most parts of the model... now I grab my coarse ballast and pour it on there.. just like fruit loops in a bowl.

Now we have this mess:

I set that bad boy aside to dry... then get ready for the good shit... the RESIN.

I use Alumilite resin.  Its the bee knees:

And alumilite mold making putty:

I got my little plastic cups, and my popsicle sticks... also I use measuring spoons for resin-ing things... the resin comes with little measuring cups, but I hate them!  The marks are hard to read and they get dirty very easily... these spoons are much easier to clean and give me better accuracy when measuring.  I recommend them.

so first I got to make a mold... I grab equal parts of the modeling putty... I get it as close as I can just by feel, but this stuff is pretty forgiving, so if theres more of one than the other by a little bit it will still work fine...

mix it together, and get it so its a nice even color all the way thru... that looks about right:

Ok, so now its time to squish this shit all over the model... I start by rolling out a long piece of it, and wrap it around the base, pushing it into the model nice and snug, then I use pieces to build up my mold around the rest of the model, taking care to push the putty down into and around the details.. eventually you have this pink cacoon looking thing:

Ok so I got to let that harden... I go and google naked pictures of celebrities for 15 minutes or so.  After a while it should be good to go and I can remove the model from inside... things look good:

RESIN TIME!!  So I measure out the thicker resin first... it takes me a little longer to get it all off of the spoon, so I always throw it in first...

Now the clear stuff...

mix that shit till its got a nice even color... Im careful not to get all crazy with it, stirring too vigorously will add bubbles and we dont want that.  No sir.

Now as I pour it into my mold, I use the popsicle stick to "push" the resin into the details... just sort of spread it on in there... this helps me reduce the amount of bubbles... the little tiny details usually get bubbles in them if I dont make a point to do this... but for rubble and anything nurgle, Im not too worried about it...

I just have to let it set and soon we will have an awesome objective marker.  Sometimes I stare at it, willing it to set faster... this usually doesnt work.

About 15-20 minutes later, its ready to go!  I carefully pull it out of the mold, and there we have a brand new shiny objevtive marker of the chaos gods.  I forgotten golden idol, sitting innocently in the rusted rubble of some far away structure...

A quick paintjob and some weathering powder later, this marker is ready for the battlefield:

This picture is kind of crappy, but I finished off the base with some nice DA green, and in real life, its actually quite nice.  Now that I have a mold I can bust out as many of these suckers as I need.  A few bubbles aside this one came out pretty good I think.  Now I must go retrieve the Idol before the Inquisitors get to it first. 

-DAN