Vlog: How to Go from 0 Skills to Recaster

One month in and finally casting the toad I bought years ago. Candle wax to stick the model, eyeballing silicone, and learning that feet need vent holes.

One Month of Videos

This marks one month of recording videos, which is insane. It’s gone by so fast.

Today we’re doing something I’ve been putting off for years. Three or four years ago, I bought this Toad with big dreams of starting a YouTube channel. Never got around to it. Also got two demon princes to cast.

We’re going to try casting all of this without a single clue of what we’re doing.

The Candle Wax Trick

How do I attach the toad to the bottom of the cup? I could use hot glue, but that might melt the figure. Couldn’t find the glue gun anyway.

So I grabbed a candle, scooped the wax out while it was hot, hit it on the figure, swooped it into the cup. First try, baby.

The Silicone Pour

Using Smooth-On Moldstar 15 Slow. The toad is about 250ml in height. I’ll make 300ml and see if it’s enough.

The mistake: Pouring one cup into another pretty much guarantees mismatched amounts because of what clings to the cup. Next time, dump both into a third cup.

Pour slowly from high up. Don’t have an oscillating fan blowing on it.

I saw air bubbles coming up after shaking the mold. Started rustling its jimmies and tons of air bubbles came out. Hopefully that’s good.

The Results

After 8 hours, it’s time to pop it out. There’s definitely a better way to get the cup off.

The wax trick worked. Hell yeah, baby.

The problem: We lost the feet. Air bubbles formed there because the air had no way to escape. Makes total sense. Need to put vent holes in the feet.

But man, this turned out so good for our first try!

Side Projects

The rock I cast (I just like rocks, not into crystals) might make cool hexagon basalt terrain. Not wasted—I’ll cut it up for chunks in future molds.

The demon prince floated to the top. Probably not a good cast, but technically the silicone isn’t wasted.

Next Steps

Poke vent holes in the feet
Get a vacuum chamber for better results
Sell more Warhammer stuff to fund the vacuum pot
Make as many toads as I can

If you haven’t done this, do it. I half-assed most of it and still got a great result. This is going to be the future of the hobby for me.

Now I need to learn to sculpt.

30 Days of Progress

Looking back at the month: Trench Crusade stuff, the boards, two Mollog’s Crew dudes, working on the goblin army. Tomorrow everything gets primed and it’s pure gas from there—actually painting stuff instead of boring tedious prep work.