by paulson games » Thu May 05, 2011 11:43 am
When I talked with Mark from dreamforge he said he primes and fine grit sands stuff many many times, at least 5+ times. Also mentioned that Mr. Surfacer doesn't hold up particuarly well and wears off easily as the printed parts has a very differant surface quality than resin or plastic.
If you have an airbrush I would suggest using a thinned down enamel paint like one of the testors brand paints, just make sure it's a dull coat (I'd stick with their military line) Dillute it with some thinner to get it nice and thin and apply it in very light layers. Scape with a hobby knife and sand with very fine grit paper 200+ grit. Then you'll need to reapply the primer layer and repeat until you are happy.
For getting into rounded areas wrap the sand paper around a toothpick, bamboo skewer, brush handle etc. You can also try the buffer tool on a dremmel if you are very careful.
As the resin is easier to see and work with I cast copies first in grey resin then started cleaning as it's much easier to see the fine details on. The off white or blue colors that most of the stuff is printed in can be difficult to see details on and because it's somewhat transparent sometimes you can see marks and bubbles that appear on teh surface even though they are burried udnerneath. The resin provides a non reflective medium to work with and is softer which is why I went with that option.
Just make sure you use a soild mold release to keep the parts from binding, the normal spray on stuff won't work. I used the rubber to rubber seperator that is normally used when making a 2 part mold. (micromark brand) Even then it was kind difficult to remove, as you are doing figures your results may vary so test on the smallest/cheapest part first just in case.
Prior to casting you might want to do a bit of clean up with the hobby knife to get rid of the major ridges and save the fine work until the resin cast that way if can help stop the part from sticking in the mold as strongly.