I would like to draw your attention to one issue I have with "Instant Mold."
The issue is that this product is simply a Cool-Mini rebranding of an already existing product called Oyumaru.
Now while rebranding in an of itself is of no great concern to myself, where I do take issue is that Oyumaru is
CONSIDERABLY cheaper than "Instant Mold."
I'm afraid I do not know American prices for Oyumaru but I would suspect that being closer to Japan (where I believe it originates) it is possibly slightly cheaper than it is here in Scotland.
Here at least the usual price for Oyumaru runs at around £4, around $6-7, for a pack containing 7 sticks, compared to Instant Mold coming in at $12.99 (before tax?) for 6 sticks.
One thing you will probably notice should you investigate this yourselves is that Oyumaru generally comes in coloured sticks rather than Instant Mold's clear, but the coloured sticks are still pretty transparent so that should be no issue.
As these products are, as far as I know, identical Roebeast45's experiences are still very useful information.
There are some videos up on youtube about it too.
Just realised that video says he paid $6 for 6 sticks, but seeing as he shows the same box I've seen elsewhere that pack is supposed to contain 7 sticks.
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Anyway all that nonsense aside ... great article Roebeast showing many of the potential wargaming uses.
One thing I would be interested to get your take on is in relation to the "whole model" casting front.
While the way you did your whole figure cast is probably the easiest as you said the "mold was more difficult to cut and had some problems with trapped air and parts that didn't fill in."
Another method which this stuff can be used for is making 2-Part moulds.
Essentially you follow the process shown on this website:
http://www.lenham-pottery-models.co.uk/moldmaking/index_mold.htmlExcept instead of plaster you use oyumaru/instant mold, this lets you skip the need for the clay base stage aswell.
Much more time consuming, but no cutting needed and trapped air pockets can be sorted via adding vents for the air to be pushed out of.
I've seen many people use lego to make the walls of their moulds as it is cheap, easy to clean and you can make the size you need, also if you press the top of a lego brick into the first part of the mould it will create indents that the second part of the mould can lock into.
Of course this can be useful for any kind of casting where you need detail on more than one side but air pocket issues have made the simpler method fail.
So yeah by far the easiest use of this stuff is making 1 part "push" moulds for detailing, but as Roebeast shows in great detail that is only the tip of what you can do.