build: carcharadon rhino doors

As mentioned in this post, I've spent a good chunk of December and January working on an "undisclosed project" for a secret santa present. Now that I've confirmed delivery of the present, I can share it here.

My giftee, BigBadBull is one of our forum's moderators, and the guy that always posts up the ForgeWorld newsletters the second they hit. For months he's lamented the lack of ForgeWorld kit for his pet project, a Badab War themed Carcharadons army. When I drew his name for "Deep Strikin' Santa III", I knew what I had to do. After a few false starts, ill-concieved and/or ill-implemented ideas, and a little trial and error learning new hobby techniques, I came up with this...

Carcharadon Rhino Kit: front plate, rear hatch, left and right doors

Carcharadon Rhino Kit: rubber molds with resin casts

Carcharadon Rhino Kit: test fit

DSS3 Present: Original sculpts, Rhino kits and molds

DSS3 Present: packed and ready to go

Molding and casting were entirely new to me, and the process has a pretty steep learning curve. The basic process is ridiculously simple, but getting quality results is not. It took a couple tries to get workable molds without major flaws, and then I had to improvise ways to reduce bubbles after pouring the resin. I'm pretty happy with the end results, but even the best of my casts could probably use some Liquid Green Stuff to make 'em flawless.

I'm going to keep working at it, and have committed to sculpting and casting an Iron Warrior Rhino conversion kit for our forum's annual Toys for Tots charity project this year. I plan to document that process more fully and do some how-tos and/or step-by-steps with what I've learned/continue to learn as I delve deeper into casting my own stuff.