Sludge Pits

While the Sniperwrecks, Wreckwalls and Junkheaps give a nice variety of scenery, they're all essentially the same in terms of game effect: LOS-blocking hard cover. Great for melee units that need to take advantage of cover to close with gun-toting opponents, not so great for the gun-toters. What they want is terrain the slows down opponents while leaving LOS clear.

Over on the TMP forums 28mm Man suggested "sludge pits," and I dug the idea. Big oozy pits of oozy goodness. I also want to add some color to the otherwise monochrome board, so I'm going to go with bright green slime. Of course, where there is bright green slime, there must be leaking drums. I'm going to need a lot of leaking drums, so this is good opportunity to do some casting.


Here's our ingredient list: Alumilite White, Alumilite Yellow, legos, some plastic bits to make vents and pouring funnel, a couple of 4 oz. measuring cups, some dixie cups and (not pictured) some non-hardening clay, such as Sculpy. Also needed is an object to cast, in this case an O-scale 55 gallon drum from Scenic Effects.


In this shot you can see the drum and the plastic bits better, set into the Sculpy. The topmost piece is the vent, and needs to be placed to allow air bubbles to escape the mold. The piece connected directly to the top of the drum is the pour channel. I made mine from a lego piece and two pieces of Plastruct tubing, one bigger than the other. Once you've pressed the Sculpy in place and set your casting items, add another layer of legos.

Yes, my legos are pink. You got a problem with that?

The next step is to mix up a ball (about 1" diameter) of the Aluminite Yellow and press it into the mold. Let it cure for twenty to thirty minutes and then break down the legos. With the pieces set in place flip the mold over and coat it with olive oil or a proper expensive mold release. I use olive oil because it's cheap and I always have it on hand for cooking. Once the mold is coated, make another ball of Aluminite yellow and press it into mold. Now you have a two piece mold. You can find a more detailed article on the process of making a two-part mold at Dakka Dakka.

You can repeat the process several times and make multiple molds. I made one mold like this, and two that are one piece molds with two drum impressions.


Here's why. When you mix up the Aluminite white, you'll fill one of the two measuring cups with Part A to the 1/4 oz. mark, the lowest mark on the cup. Then you'll pour Part B in the second cup to the same depth. You want to get as close to exactly even proportions as you can, so you always want to fill to a measuring line. Mix the two together in a Dixie cup, that way you can just throw it away when you're done.

Pour Part A into the Dixie cup first. Part A has a higher viscosity than Part B, and takes longer to pour. So if you pour it from the measuring cup into the Dixie cup first, you can get every last drop. Once they're mixed, you can crease the lip of the Dixie cup by squeezing it gently and create a nice pour spout.


Because we're casting such a small part, this is way more than we need, so the excess is poured into the one piece molds. If there isn't enough to fill the mold, that's okay. These half-drums will be "buried," so it really doesn't matter how big they are.


Once the Aluminite White has set, you can demold it and start a new batch.


A quick bit of work with an xacto knife and you'll soon have the start of a very large collection of drums and half-drums.


Now it's time to whip out the hot glue gun and stick them on a terrain round. As you can see, I've clustered the full drums at one edge of the soon-to-be pool, and intimated a ring of half drums buried in the muck.


Next I use some Loctite 5-Minute Epoxy Putty, one of my favorite products. While too coarse for most modeling applications, it's a superior filler that dries quickly into a hard, stone-like substance. It's excellent for applications like this. What I've done is mix up a small ball (about 3/4" diameter) and pushed it into the gaps between the drums, even making a long ridge where the gap was large enough to fit several drums. I used a popsicle stick broken in half to press it into place, leaving a very rough texture all over the putty. The goal here is to ensure that there is an unbroken raised ring around the edge of the round, so that when we pour the clear resin into place it doesn't immediately flow right off the edge of the round.


The next step is to paint the Sludge Pit up. By now the process should be quite familiar. A coat of the Ruddy Brown primer, followed by a wash of the Antique Walnut minwax, and then drybrushed with the Autumn Brown poster paint. In addition to drybrushing, I also painted the entire pool area with the Autumn brown.


Next I squeeze out a fat dollop of yellow poster paint into the center of the pool area, while the Autumn Brown is still wet.


Blend outward from the center, so that it's brightest at the deepest points of the pool. You can skip this step if you plan on messing up the next step like I'm going to.


Now its time to assembled the ingredients for the Sludge. We have a clear casting poly resin from Castin' Craft, another Dixie cup, some Clear Green from Reaper's Master Series, and some decorative glass marble things from Jo-Ann Fabrics floral department.

It's not easy being green.

Mix the paint and the resin -- but not the catalyst!! -- in the Dixie cup. If you use a paint other than Reaper's make sure it's a CLEAR paint. The Clear series from Reaper has only tint, no hue, so it won't make the clear resin opaque, it will just tint it green. That is unless you do what I did, and add way too much. Then it will be fairly opaque. And you'll feel stupid for painting the bottom of the pool. As always, do a better job of it than I did.


Now add the catalyst. The thinner the layer of clear resin you're making, the more catalyst you want to use. Mix it quickly then pour. Once you've poured the resin into the pool, plop a couple of the marble things into the pool to form giant bubbles on the surface. Now let it set overnight. Make sure you leave it somewhere with good ventilation, preferably outside. As my roommate put it: "That thing looks almost as toxic as it smells."