Hey everyone! It has been 10 days and I have 10 miniatures finished, YAY! I had a bunch of chrysnbon kits that I had purchased from
Oakridge Hobbies (they were the best priced that I found in the US although they have a tendency to be back ordered a bunch). I also recently purchased some do-it-yourself book kits from
Angelika's Minis on Etsy. I don't have a whole lot of experience with miniature kits and figured I would give them a whirl. Hope you like them as much as I loved making them!
For this and all of the other plastic Chrysnbon kits I cannot stress enough the importance of trimming and scraping off the excess plastic. Unfortunately there are a lot of fake looking seam line from the molding process but I couldn't really complain since I think I spent maybe $6 at the most on each kit with the exception of the stove which I believe was around $12. I used fine 400, 600, and 1000 grit sand paper to try and remedy this. Also getting a putty filling compound especially for polystyrene is recommended, I didn't have any on hand and used an epoxy putty I had but it barely worked. It did not adhere well at all to the polystyrene but luckily filled in some of the little gaps.
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To try and make the texture that cast iron has instead of using a flat black spray paint or just aging the already black plastic I decided to use a fine textured black spray paint. I really like how it turned out. One thing I did not like about the stove kit was how fake the plated metal application is for this kit. I used a flat black spray paint on this and used Amaco rub and buff spanish copper, pewter, and silver leaf for some of the metal detail work. I buffed it out and it was a little to shiny for my taste I wanted the stove to be slightly antiqued and worn, so I used an acrylic wash with lamp black and let it sit a minute before wiping it off so it would get into the crevices. I also did this with the edges of the shelves and everywhere I used Amaco rub and buff.
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| Chrysnbon Stove Completed |
*Some things I would have done differently would have been to not spray paint the glue edges of the individual pieces. I had a heck of a time getting some of the pieces to glue properly and had to re-scrape these edges with an exacto knife and etch them a little bit to get the polystyrene testers glue to adhere, and even then there are places on it that the bond isn't stiff enough. Another thing I would have done differently is to glue the legs and the base board where the legs peg into together at the same time instead of separately. I had to break off all of the legs to get them to line up together.
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| Before aging right, after aging left |
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Completed Chairs
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The chairs turned out better than I had hoped. Working with plastic definitely had its difficult moments, I struggled painting the grey chairs with regular acrylic washes and in the end gave up because the acrylic would not adhere properly. I started over by washing the chairs with soapy water. I then spray painted them with a grey spray paint specifically for plastic and then aged them with a light grey acrylic wash and a dark brown acrylic wash because it was a little too cold otherwise.
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| Close up of modifications |
I separated the bathing kit into two groups and spray painted the pitcher, bowl, and "chamber pot" a vanilla and used a gloss varnish to make it look more like ceramic. I spray painted the straight razor soap dish, frothing mug, and shaving bristle brush with a flat black spray paint and then used the gloss varnish to enhance them. I used the Amaco rub 'n' buff on the straight razor and aged it a little bit with a black acrylic wash. It is a little hard to tell in the pictures but I modified the frothing cup to have a brush rest on it like most did in the late eighteen hundreds by melting extra polystyrene and gluing it on before painting. I also wanted a more realistic shaving brush so I cut off the fake plastic bristles and added real bristles instead.
I was impressed by how good of quality the printies I bought from Angelika's Minis were. They were only $3.50 + shipping each and I love how they turned out. I did do some modifications to the pages before I started putting it all together. I used an archival flat varnish and sprayed all of the pages before I started cutting and assembling to add strength and protect the ink from being handled. I also used an archival bookbinding glue and used clamps and pieces of wood to make a makeshift mini book press to make sure all the pages were tight and glued well. I strengthened the covers by adding some thin card stock before gluing in the pages, I also added some silk book ends I made to make them a little more detailed and elegant.
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| Close up of silk book ending added |
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| Size reference |
For this and all of the other plastic Chrysnbon kits I cannot stress enough the importance of trimming and scraping off the excess plastic. Unfortunately there are a lot of fake looking seam line from the molding process but I couldn't really complain since I think I spent maybe $6 at the most on each kit with the exception of the stove which I believe was around $12. I used fine 400, 600, and 1000 grit sand paper to try and remedy this. Also getting a putty filling compound especially for polystyrene is recommended, I didn't have any on hand and used an epoxy putty I had but it barely worked. It did not adhere well at all to the polystyrene but luckily filled in some of the little gaps.
To try and make the texture that cast iron has instead of using a flat black spray paint or just aging the already black plastic I decided to use a fine textured black spray paint. I really like how it turned out. One thing I did not like about the stove kit was how fake the plated metal application is for this kit. I used a flat black spray paint on this and used Amaco rub and buff spanish copper, pewter, and silver leaf for some of the metal detail work. I buffed it out and it was a little to shiny for my taste I wanted the stove to be slightly antiqued and worn, so I used an acrylic wash with lamp black and let it sit a minute before wiping it off so it would get into the crevices. I also did this with the edges of the shelves and everywhere I used Amaco rub and buff.
