Wednesday, December 21, 2011

My First Finecast Experience

Over the Masters weekend, Dad brought me up the Finecast Haemonculus that I ordered it 6 months ago, and which had only just shown up (thanks Maelstrom...).  Looking over the clampack, I was very impressed.  The model itself is fantastic, and there appeared to be a very high level of detail in the cast with no visible faults.

I cracked it open the day after the weekend, and found I was sorely mistaken.  There were air bubbles all over the model, some of them quite large.  Luckily, none of the front of the model (what I had been seeing through the clear plastic) was damaged.  Having already used some of Dad's about a month ago, I quickly rushed to the FLGS and picked up some Liquid Green Stuff to help me fix up the model.

Here's some pictures of the faults.  It's mostly just air bubbles, which required multiple layers of Liquid Green Stuff to fill up, but using this was much easier than regular Green Stuff.  Big thumbs up to GW for an amazing product!

A couple of big bubbles here
Plenty of bubbles on this bit too

By far the worst bit was how the model sat on its base.  It had been cast badly, and was on a massive lean.  I had to cut and re-pin the bottom part back on, and sculpt to fill the resulting gap.  The model stands straight up now though!

The gap after reattaching
A bad photo of the resculpting needed

And here's a blurry pic of some of the filling I had to do on the back half of the model.


Luckily, the finished model had little to no flaws on the front half

One labour of love later: the assembled Haemonculus

Here's the sad bit.  As good as the Liquid Green Stuff was at filling the bubbles and other faults, it still took me three nights to clean and assemble this one figure.  I'm not looking forward to repeating this when my Wracks eventually arrive (7 months and counting, thanks again Maelstrom!).  Despite this, I'm very happy with the how the model has turned out, and can't wait to paint him.  I'm just disappointed it was so much extra effort over a plastic or metal model, and costs a lot more too.

Of course, maybe if I'd used the Flash Brush and Mouldline Scraping Tool from the Citadel Clean-up Kit I wouldn't have had so much trouble... ;)

3 comments:

  1. I had exactly the same problem with this model, the quality was shocking. However, one little tip on the leaning thing. Just use a hair dryer to heat the model, it become softer, so you can bend it to the required lean. Hold it while it cools, should be sorted.

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  2. Or just dip it in very hot water

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  3. Thanks for the tips guys, added to the knowledge bank. I'm actually happy I ended up pinning him, since I'm willing to bet that he would have snapped at some point in the future. The finecast just seems so flexible, but almost brittle at the same time. That won't happen now that there are two 2cm pins running up through the base!

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