Space Hulk board using Hirst Arts blocks

[Westfalia Chris]

Remarkable work - ambitious in scope and excellent in execution.

I'm not sure I could bring myself to use the Hirst Arts moulds in place of more traditional scratchbuilding techniques, but these boards show off their usefulness and versatility exquisitely.

[Hammers]

This looks amazing and very tempting!

But I have a bunch of the fantasy moulds and found out you really need a LOT of castings to build even a simple piece and, more importantly, that I hate casting them.

Yes, that is the catch with HirstArts...

[Braz]

For those parts that are repetitive, like the wall tops, have you considered making a master assembled piece(s) and making your own mold from RTV silicone? Since you still seem to have a ways to go, it might still be worth it.

[Willypold]

I've considered it, but it isn't that much of a problem yet. I've started to look into the task of making my own molds, and eventually I'll get around to actually buying the things I need. It hasn't become a top priority yet, mostly because I always include the Machinery mold whenever I do any casting, be it for the SH board or any of the other three parallel Gothic Arena style projects - the Egyptian temple, a large indoor sci-fi board, and a Gothic environment. All of these use 3x3 board sections with separate wall pieces. If you look at the sci-fi board particularly you'll see how it is constructed. (The walls have been repainted green since the picture was taken.) There is a project page at the Hirst Arts site showing the geometry of the wall, corner and cross pieces.

[Admiral Benbow]

Brilliant setup and colour choice, just love it!
 

[Doomsdave]

Beautiful terrain.  I really want to invest in Hirst art molds, but the idea of casting so much is just too daunting.  Lovely work though.

[Willypold]

Daunting? Perhaps. I find the casting process to be quite meditative. I spend about 15-20 minutes cleaning the molds from the previous session, mixing plaster and pouring the selected molds. I set the timer for the appropriate scraping time, scrape excess plaster when the time is up, and then set the timer for 30 minutes. Demold, and clean the molds again. When I cast I usually put in between two and four sessions per casting occasion, resulting in anywhere between 75 to 200 different blocks, somewhat depending on the molds, of course. Actual casting time - excluding the curing time - to get this amount of material is 1 to 2 hours of work. My typical SH corridors use anywhere between 30 and 80 different pieces. Is it worth it? As long as the casting part of the process is fun, or at least not boring, it's definitely worth it!

[Groove51]

These look absolutely stunning!

[Pil]

Beatiful work! I can imagine this will stay fun if you enjoy the casting process as well, I never got into the HirstArts stuff and I think the casting will put me off as well, so keep at it!

[Willypold]

I finally got in touch with a friend who took some pictures of the set when it was actually played with at Stockholms spelkonvent 2010 (the Stockholm game convention) in September. I had brought my own camera to the event, but had forgotten to replace the memory card. Anyway, here are a few action shots by way of Fredrik:

Final round just before the Marine victory in Suicide Mission:



The set-up from another angle. One 5-square board section was still not completed, which is why I used some of the Egyptian tiles for the entrance/Marine starting point:



Close-up of the Terminators advancing through the space hulk:

[inkwell]

Top notch!! I have made my own molds and for the hassle and price you are better off going with hirst.

[Steamfunk]

Wow very nice!

I'm just starting to use Hirst blocks myself, might be a bit until I can do something this good!