Heat pen tutorial for plastic models

[Prince of the Night]

O.K. guys, here it is. A tut as promised on the use of a heat pen that I have been using for my plague zombie marines. I have never done a tut before so hear goes nothing.


This is what the pen looks like. I purchased it @ a craft store called A.C. Moore a while back intending to use it for carving foam. After messing around with it for a little bit, I realized it just got too hot for foam carving and set it down on a piece of plastic and saw what happened. I figured at that point I would see if I could put it to use on plastics and Vwa-la.

This pen gets extremely hot, so I use an old cookie sheet to set the pen and the holder in place when not in use. After plugging it in, it is ready to go in less than 3 minutes.

Figure out what it is that you want to achieve first. Here I am going to show exposed bone in a space marine power armour suit. With the heat pen you need to slowly melt away the area in which you want to show the exposed bone. This will be between the wrist and elbow. I start at the wrist and push the pen towards the elbow letting the heat of the pen do its job. Do not put to much pressure as you will melt right through the plastic. As the plastic melts it needs a place to go, so it forces its way up to the surface and creates a nice overflow. Normally you could let it be and it would look very puss like, bur we need to get rid of more plastic as the bone piece is a tad wide.

Trim away the raised plastic with an exacto blade and repeat the melting process again.

Start to shape the hole with the heat pen as best you can to have the object, in this case bone fit. You will nee to eventually shave the bone down to fit snug. Remember to let the pen work for you by not applying to much pressure. "NEXT SEGMENT"

[Prince of the Night]

Now that the opening is big enough to accept the bone, you will need to trim the bone to fit. Again using an exacto- blade, " oh and I suggest cutting on a real cutting board, mine is made by kitchen-aide."

After inserting the bone, you can take the heat pen and fuse the bone to the armour, creating crevises and puss marks, to make it look more realistic, as if the armour was actually decaying. Just take the tip of the pen and lightly graze the edges to fuse them together.

Using the tip of the pen and just a little pressure, you can add the pox marks to finish off the plague look. Simply tap the plastic with the tip of the pen and pull away, and you have an instant pox mark. If you tilt the tip slightly, you will get an oblong shape which could be helpful if you were planning on making a face for example.

[munkey joe paints]

Nice Prince!!! + rep

the ONLY thing I don't like about this or any of your posts are the small piccys. its not really a prob but I open every pic in a new tab and click on the tabs as I read my way through the tut. This is just my opinion and does not detract from the AWESOME effects you do with that stinkin pen.

on a side not i tried this effect last night before the tut.....lets just leave it at that!!!

[Brother Warchild]

I agree with munkey on the pics,But the tut is a+.Very nicely done I am gonna def have to try this out since i found a heat pen this weekend inmy storage lol!!.Thanks

[Prince of the Night]

Sorry about the pics guys. How can I fix that. I am going to continue the tutorial sometime today and if I can fix the pics I will. What do I do?

[Prince of the Night]

In this segment I am going to show how I created organisms on the vehicles and on some of the armour.

This is a rhino door and a random piece of a plastic sprue. The best part about doing these types of looks is that is does not matter what you use to melt, any old sprue will do just fine.

I placed the small sprue piece on the door where I wanted an organism and bonded a small section down using the pen to keep it in place. Just touch any where the 2 pieces meet for a bond as they will melt together. Again, not to much pressure as you don't want to melt all the way through the piece.

Now that is attatched , starting from the center of the sprue, start pulling the plastic away from the center with the pen and begin to spread the plastic outward to give it a shape. Get creative as organisms can really look like anything you want them to.

This is the final product, as all I did here was thin out all of the edges of the sprue into the door as to look like a growth. There you have it. Any questions are welcomed and I will answer them the best I can.

Good luck and Thanks.

[Prince of the Night]

I am going to do one more installment on this tut, but before I do I would like to know how to fix my pics so you do not have to click on them to enlarge them. This way you can read and look @ the pic together.

[SteveBerenyi]

if you start a photobucket account you can upload them to there then use the picture icon to put them here. looks like it might be the size of the actual picture. did you use a camera phone to take em? if you used a digital camera, then just up the pixel depth and you should be OK.

But definately start a photobucket account, as you can get MUCH larger images.

[hairyyahoo]

would a standard soldering iron work as well d'ya think?

[Lord Commander Erus]

It should, Hairy... But be wary of the increase in temps, and run it at a MUCH lower temp than max.

[Prince of the Night]

A soldering iron would be great, because you can adjust the temp settings and probably get different effects depending on the heat. Nice thought, I may need to try that.

[liveevil2000]

I just tried my soldering iron and it works like a dream. I tried it on some plastic and all of a sudden, the doors to creativity blew open!!!

I have said it once and I'll say it again ... "BRILLIANT!!!!"
Night you are one clever person. I think I will still stick with green stuff for the organic effects. I feel more comfortable with that. Although the effect looks about the same.

Keep the ideas coming!!!

[Rellik]

very cool stuff been wondering how you do that + rep