I am considering making custom asteroids, debris fields, etc, and I've seen lots of people who do scratch building post them. I have found some resources and read them but apparently not bookmarked them. Someone recently posted a bunch of stuff they had just made too I think using greenstuff to get the shape of ships and such too, I think?

Anyway, my question is:

Is there a good resource that could give me a few pointers on making that kind of stuff? Or if not, is someone who is proficient at making them willing to post a kind of walk through like we saw on the magnets over the weekend ( http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/128587-magnets-how-they-work-for-x-wing-miniatures/ )?

I am relatively new to customizing and just about a year got into painting and doing small mods to ships (like turning the B-Wings sideways and such) and kind of want to introduce myself to a new challenge, so this would be an entirely new process for me to jump into.

Thank you everyone!

Lavs rocks make great, easy and cheap, asteroids. Get them anyplace that sells barbeque supplies.

As for debris fields, buy some WotC star wars miniature ships. Most are malformed and can be found fairly cheap. Cut them up, mount them on pegs/pins and voila! Debris field.

I found some lava rocks at a graveyard (for real)...

I drilled and stuck wooden skewers and a cardboard base on them.

I have been thinking about getting sponge and spray painting it.

A while back I posted a tutorial on sponge asteroids : http://rule37-ica.blogspot.com/2014/05/x-wing-attack-of-sponge-asteroids.html

That's a great tutorial, and they look great. I'm in the process of using some insulation foam board and just using my thumb nail to dig out some shapes on the sections. It will be similar to the sponge ones.

Also going to try to mount them to the official asteroid tokens for bases and using the magnets for ease of removal when needed (or just mount on clear bases).

When i made my asteroids i kept the cardboard they were punched out of and used that to trace the shapes onto some thin mdf, then cut out the shapes with a dremel tool. Worked rather well just be careful you dont cut off to much at the edges.

I have asteroids from a previous space based game that I made. They started out as Polystyrene balls from a craft shop.

I cut them up into more irregular shapes, basically not spherical. Then I dribbled super glue over them, sparingly, as the glue eats into & melts holes in the polystyrene. Once the glue had dried I painted the entire 'model' in a mix of PVA glue & sand to give a rough texture & create a hard surface. Then I painted them black & dry brushed up through brown to a sandy colour. Poked them on to Flight stands.

In game we lay out the counters & then stand the 3D 'roids on top of the counters. This makes moving through/into them a lot easier as you can pick the roids up & move them out the way.

I don't have a great shot of them, but you can get a vague idea of what they look like in the photo linked hopefully?

I made my asteroids out of pumice stone found on the beach. Light weight and very easy to drill into, with a nice rounded cratered look to them.

I made my asteroids out of pumice stone found on the beach. Light weight and very easy to drill into, with a nice rounded cratered look to them.

Same here, they are light weight and have a nice asteroid look to them.

If you water down some acrylic paint the pumice soaks it up giving it a nice finish. Only problem i had was putting them on a post. I used a screw (not the best look but i was improvising) which ended up breaking some of them, but if you pre-drill the hole you should be fine.

I used a 4mm drill bit, the pumice is soft enough to drill it carefully by hand. I then used 4mm plastic wall plugs glued to thick, dense cork gasket material, cut into the same shape as the asteroid templates, as the base for the asteroid.

Thought id share my roids with you:

Basically painted packing styrine with a textured surface cut into rough shapes on the top of dowel rods that have been glued with araldite. It helps to paint any wooden surface with pva glue before using spraypaints on them.

I didnt have lava rocks on hand so i didnt do it that way maybe if i do another set down the line for epic games ill get a hold of some.

Asteroid use lava rock.

mount them on flight bases and glue them to a spare set of asteroid 'flats'

debris is harder

you need to learn how to 'press mold'

There are tons of tutorials online but essentially get yourself two shallow plastic dishes (40k non slotted round bases are good for tiny items). Fill the dishes with modelling 'green stuff'. Take a ship you can spare... break it into pieces (hopefully so you can rebuild it)).

Cover the pieces lightly with vaseline. put the piece into the two dish halves and push as hard as you can then G clamp or vice the parts together.... let it set for a few hours.

Open it up, remove the ship parts

You should have 'negaitves' of the ship parts.

And you've got yourself a mould of lets say 'xwing' parts. they will be softer than the production models, possibly warped a bit but you want that tbh.

Now mix up some more green stuff, lightly smear the mould with vaseline to stop the green stuff sticking together... fill the engative mold with green stuff.

clamp it together

Let it set for a few hours...

open it up, pull out the parts

you *should* have decent copies of parts of the ship. Its for personal use so legal to do this

they wont be good enough to put back together and make new ships (it wouldnt be worth the time and effort in clean up and you'd still need new dials) but you do have cockpits, wings, engines etc etc that you can glue to strands of copper wire in colils or jagged lines, put random bits of rock or plastic sprue chipped to size in between... cotton wool to disguise the wire (the wire will look cool bare in some parts)

Hey presto, debris field.

the long part is making the mould.

personally i'd make a mould of xwing parts and tie interceptor parts as they are distinctive and will survive the pressure of being clmped in green stuff...

anything too fiddly like a y wing engine struts wont mould. needs to be free from underhangs and gaps as much as you can.

xwing cannons, wings, cockpits, engines... all will look great as single parts.

likewise tie pods and wing sections... standard tie wing sections look odd whole.

Hope that helps

before anyone goes bonkers about copyright.... its legal to press mould stuff like this for personal use, just dont try and sell it as its LFL/FFGs IP not yours.

Thats why i'm not recommending you buy cheaper 3d printed ships t cut up and make molds for as those guys (cool as they are) do NOT have the licence for those ships and you will be ripping off LFL/FFG

At least this way FFG get the cost of one or two ships off you.

Press mold guide

i press mold parts a lot to replace small components on out of production GW 40k models.... like if i need a tow bar for a rapier laser destroyer that hasnt been sold for twenty years for my second one i mould one from the complete one i have

Thank you everyone for the recommendations so far!

Fall semester is ending here this week and well...time to do something, right (besides play more x-wing!)