Tutorial: Raised Shoulder Pad Logos

My sculpting talents aren't all that great, in fact, I shouldn't even say "talent" when referring to what I've generously been calling "sculpting" on my part. So when I decided I wanted a raised Great Company logo for my Space Wolves, I was in a bit of a pickle. Then I remembered about the marvelous Blu-stuff casting material.

Remember that stuff? I reviewed it back in February. It's wonderful and makes projects like this super easy. First thing you need to find is what you want to copy. That part wasn't difficult- as soon as I saw this shield I knew I had found my GC logo:


Skull with fangs? Yes, please! Roll the two parts of the Blu Stuff together, push it over what you want to copy, and blamo!


Instant mold! Mix up your green stuff and get busy! I used a slightly higher than 1-1 yellow to blue ratio for these. I pushed a little into the mold, and then used its tackiness to pull it back out. I wet my finger very, very slightly before pushing the GS into the mold. It's a little tricky to figure out at first; you want it to be still tacky enough to pull it out of the mold without sticking tightly to your finger.

Carefully pull it off your finger without distorting the image and set it on a hard surface- I used some plasticard. Then you let them cure for a good day or so. I made enough for the entire army in one sitting, just cranking them out over about 2 hours. About 80 of them were all lined up across a piece of plasticard in the end.

After they've cured fully, you must do something very important. Change. Your. Hobby. Blade. If you don't, you will hate this part so, so much. You want to slide the knife between the image and the excess GS on the back to make it a nice, thin logo. You will never get it done with a dull knife.


Once you've done that, you might want to clean up the edges a little, depends on how close you got with the knife. After that, grab a little hobby glue and stick it onto your shoulder pad. I cleaned and scraped the shoulder pads first. Pay close attention to the sides of the logo, you want to press them down and get them as flush as you can with the shoulder pad.


Now there will probably be a little gap at the top, maybe on the sides or bottom depending on how carefully you glued them down. That's no problemo, just grab your pot of Liquid Green Stuff and it'll fix that right up. I prefer to use my colour shapers (paint brushes with silicon tips instead of bristles) when working with LGS. They are fantastic for manipulating it and getting it smooth on surfaces.

Once that's done and they're dry, they're ready for primer and paint! Woohoo!


My thought is to paint the background of the shoulder pad black and do the logo red. Hopefully I will get to painting the Long Fangs soon. I have finals this week, so they probably won't be on the table before the weekend.