Yep on the chain gang again, but instead of breaking rocks I’m making rocks!

Inspired by Eric’s exploits with molding I just happened to be in the hobby shop ( yeah right!) to pick up some scenics, which they didn’t have, when I came across a lot of the Woodland Scenics’ molds. Some of you might remember when I was modelling a Japanese Garden that I used a lot of purchased rocks which looked great but cost a fortune. So I decided to give this a try. The mold cost AU$21.95 which was less than what I had paid for all of the rocks I had purchased.

While not totally foreign to plaster molding, as I had used the old Bellona 20mm plastic molded terrain as molds to make my own bridges and walls, it has been a long time.

The process was quick and easy, and within an hour I had gone from mixing plaster to “popping out” rocks.

This is what you get from one pour of the mold.

The excess flashing was easily removed with a modelling knife, and then glued to round “coaster size” mdf bases. They were then undercoated with with a Matt black spray can ready for painting.

After a quick dry brushing of light grey, white, and ochre the bases needed to painted with a sand colour and dark brown on the edge. This stops the black “bleed through” when basing.

The scenics were then added to the base.

I had a lot of “rocks” left over and then the Guru had a thought (it does happen, not often, but it does happen) and came up with this:

The left over rocks were quickly painted, and as you can see they work very well for large 6mm rock features for my Zulu Wars gaming.

Five pours of the mold made enough for thirteen round coaster size rock bases, with enough left over for the 6mm terrain and a few small ones for adding to figure bases.