Even More Quick And Dirty Casting

Following up on last week's post on casting items using Durham's water putty inside a modeling clay mold, here are the results of a tinting experiment recommended by JosefK in the comments. He suggested using ordinary food coloring to color the raw material, and whaddya know, it works great. This amulet is about 2.5" in diameter and had about five drops of green added while I was mixing it up.



As you can see, the coloring permeated the putty with a nice even tint. I suspect that adding a drop each of yellow, blue, and red would have produced a deeper green, but the results aren't bad at all. Keep in mind that there's no reason you have to tint the raw material if you're going to be painting it anyway. I just like doing it to make any of the inevitable chips or cracks a little less noticeable.

The highly stylized depiction of Cthulhu on it's face was produced by cutting the glyph into the soft modeling clay with a sharp hobby knife. I sketched out the rough shape into the clay with a stylus and then sliced away material with the blade angled 45 degrees. Once that was done the flat face of the mold was textured with a rolled up ball of aluminum foil and some rough ridges were added to the glyph itself with a flat toothpick.

Once the putty had set up it popped right out of the mold, and after a quick wash to remove any clay it was ready to paint. One of the nice things about this material is that it practically sucks up acrylic craft paints. As soon as the wet paint hits the surface it starts to dry as the putty absorbs the moisture from it, producing an excellent bond. You might need to work with a little extra water on your brush to counteract the drying effect, but it takes paint like nobody's business. Here's the final result:



I was planning on doing this in a bluish-grey finish, but when I sat down to paint it I realized I was out of blue. That meant I fell back on the traditional green paint scheme, using dark green, light green, and a yellow drybrushing to produce the shadow, midtone, and highlights respectively, followed by a black detail wash. Even an admittedly unearthly color scheme like this looks more believable if you blend together at least three colors to produce the final finish. That said, I should probably give it at least a light wash of brown to tone it down a bit.

Papercraft Elder Thing and Investigators

Artist Wayne Peters created this wonderful papercraft Elder Thing and investigators set for "Call of Cthulhu".



He's also dreamed up some other amazing artwork that you can see at his website, Crow's Nest. Including one of the best depictions of the venerable Type-S scoutship from the Traveller RPG that I've ever seen. One of these days I'll have to dig out some of the sci-fi props from the good ship Anton Regiv.

Update: Bleh. Mr. Peters left a very nice comment apologizing for slagging ATMOM. Unfortunately, I clumsily deleted it instead of posting it because I'M AN IDIOT and clicked the wrong button.

Not that it matters too much, since we're not mind-numbed cultists around here. Well, not about things like that. If you start badmouthin' "The Cats of Ulthar", on the other hand, we's gonna have words.

Cthulhu Fhtagn! Bryson Edition

From artist Bryson comes this stylized depiction of Cthulhu. I wasn't crazy about the gaunt, almost skeletal depiction, but the more I look at it the more I like it.

He's Got The Whole World In His Hands

Following up on today's post on "Call of Cthulhu" fandom in Brazil, I thought I'd offer up some ideas about the international nature of Lovecraft aficionados from my own experiences.

Roughly half the Miskatonic swag I send out travels outside the United States. Of that, thirty percent goes to France, twenty percent to Great Britain, ten percent to Canada, followed in descending order by Germany, Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Iceland, Spain, Slovakia, Brazil, the Russian Federation, the Czech Republic, Japan, China (Hong Kong, specifically), and Australia. That doesn't count the nations I've sent a single package to.

The biggest surprise to me was the huge amount of swag destined for France. After discussing it with a few natives I came to the conclusion that may well be because the French version of "Call of Cthulhu" is actually better than the English one. The licensee produces material with artistic and graphic design standards that, frankly, blows many of Chaosium's own supplements out of the water.

Update: Alban, one of my French correspondents, writes: It's right that this american game invented in 1980 was introduced in France in....1981! And is still played knowing only 2 editors;, the 1st one stopping to sell the game in 2005. In the other side Lovecraft was published here in 1953 and appreciated qt 1st encounter by the new underground "intelligentsia" to finally has a re-discover in the 70's.. It's not a question of better game translation; we are all Lovecraft fans here !!!! ;0)

Update: The current French publisher is Éditions Sans-Détour. You'll find their website over here, and a version translated into English is available via Google over here.

Call Of Cthulhu Paper Props

I've said before that the international "Call of Cthulhu" community produces some amazing work, and this post on game handouts at Mundo Tentacular proves it. If you can't read Portuguese, here's the Babel Fish version.







I'm guessing that the author is from Brazil based purely on the language and the covers of some of the supplements displayed elsewhere on the blog. I love stumbling across sites like this for the slightly different takes on Cthulhu gaming around the world. Even with the language barrier it's easy to see the level of talent on display.

Tomecraft: Clasps

One of the most difficult parts of crafting a convincing eldritch tome is the hardware. What grimoire or book of forbidden knowledge is complete without all kinds of little buckles, corner protectors, embossments, and decorative inserts? Unfortunately, that kind of metalwork is almost impossible to find today. That's where Closure, a blog about making metal book clasps, bosses, and book decorations comes in. There's an amazing variety of work on display and many of the posts include a detailed rundown of how the hardware was constructed.



Sadly, it appears the blog hasn't been updated since April, but there's still a wealth of useful material available.

More Quick and Dirty Casting

Ancient clay tablets. Alien star stones. Mysterious bas reliefs.

What do they all have in common? You can bang out a decent prop version that will add a whole new level of immersion to your game for less than ten bucks.

One of the biggest issues preventing the use of more props in both tabletop and live action "Call of Cthulhu" games is that of cost. One of the attractions of paper props is that they're absurdly inexpensive if you already own a computer and a decent printer. Download the file, add any needed customization, print it out, trim and...tada! Cool prop.

Physical props, on the other hand, can be a little more intimidating because they require more expensive materials. If you're a die-hard prop fan it's easy to drop $100 on quality silicone and resin casting supplies, and sculpting smaller projects using polymer clays like Sculpey can cost $20-$30. But what if you're working on a budget and just want to have a nice one-off prop for a single game? The answer is clay casting. Using patching compound or water putty inside a mold made from modeling clay you can create some pretty nifty items for $5.

Inspired by the examples from Dave Lowe and Tom Banwell, I decided to try my hand at doing some basic clay casting using a one pound box of modeling clay ($2.50) and a can of Durham's Water Putty ($3). I've read a lot of good things about Durham's from wargamers that use it to inexpensively cast terrain features for their gaming tables, with a big emphasis on it's ease of use and cost effectiveness. It was originally a handyman's helper for fixing things up around the house, but it didn't take long for people to start using it for "off label" projects. That's just fine with the manufacturer, which is why the website has an entire section filled with hints and tips for folks using it for craft projects. The directions for casting couldn't be simpler:

Start by mixing DURHAM'S Putty and water together to the consistency of heavy cream. Immediately, pour the mixture into the mold, tapping the mold gently while filling to bring air bubbles to the surface. After the putty has set, carefully remove the cast from the mold and fill in any air bubbles which might remain with a new mixture of putty.

My mold was a simple lump of modeling clay with the negative shape of an Elder Thing star stone carved into it. After taking the clay out of it's package I put all five sticks inside a large, microwave safe measuring cup along with a tablespoon of water. Why the water? Because the clay isn't electrically conductive, so it won't heat up directly from the radiation inside a microwave oven. With the water present it only took two minutes for the heat from the steam to spread to both the clay and the cup, producing a nice, malleable ball of clay. After kneading it together for a few minutes I flattened it out on a small dish and then carved out the mold from the clay using an old butter knife. Then I used a ball of aluminum foil to add some surface texture, followed by painting the whole thing with some cheap petroleum jelly based hand cream to act as a mold release. Here's the result:



Then I followed the directions from the Durham's website and mixed up a batch of putty. Except I didn't follow the directions- I added a blob of acrylic paint to color the putty. And then I did it again. And then I stopped doing it, because adding paint to the putty is a really bad idea unless you want a weak, crumbly casting. Here are my two bad castings along with the good one without paint:



The castings with paint added are filled with bubbles and very "foamy". The material breaks easily and the fractures are course and grainy.



The difference in strength between the casting with paint and without is immense. The colored casts started breaking up while I was taking them out of the mold, but the un-colored material can take all kinds of abuse without chipping or cracking. See that little triangle of flash between the two bottom arms of the star? I'll probably have to remove with a Dremel tool, since it's too strong to snap off with my fingers.



The Durham's website mentions not adding "too much" paint to the putty mix, but it's a better idea to not add any. Why? Durham's is a gypsum based product akin to plaster of paris and relies on the same kind of chemical reaction to set-up. Unfortunately, the pigment coats the powder particles and prevents them from forming the interlocking crystal structure that forms while the liquid putty hardens. At least that's my theory.

In the end it doesn't matter all that much, since the hardened putty is an excellent painting surface. It will soften slightly when exposed to water, but once it's sealed with a coat of paint it should last forever. And did I mention it's cheap? Unbelievably, insanely, cheap? The surface finish isn't perfect, being prone to bubble voids unless you scrupulously tap them out before it sets up, but for the kind of faux rock or clay props I intend to use it for that's an acceptable trade-off.