Home made putty

Introduction

The go-to putty for miniature modelers is, of course, green stuff. You can use that to mend broken miniatures, decorate them with hand-made purity seals and ribbons, fill in the gaps etc. However, sometimes you just need a lump of material somewhere, emulating a hill on a base. For that, much cheaper solutions exist.

My solution

Well, it's actually my wife's solution. She found this recipe on the internet, and prepared some to create Christmas decorations. When the putty turned out to be unsuitable for her needs, I was happy to jump in and put my hands on it.
So far, I've used it for the basing of two miniatures, but I'm planning on using it to create all sorts of markers in the future.

For this Daemon Prince, I've used the putty to fill in the middle gap of the metallic washer and create a small hill on the base.

The Masque of Slaanesh is an older, metallic model, intended for slotted bases. It looks silly when mounted on a washer; but that can be fixed by creating a small hill around the metal mounting.

How-to

Ingredients

• 2 units of baking soda
• 1 unit of starch
• 1.25 units of water

where "unit" is whatever you want: cup, teaspoon, liter, gallon etc.

Preparation

***Disclaimer. The original post makes it look easy, but I didn't actually do this myself, so I can't comment on that.

Put everything in a bowl and mix it up; it should look milky. Beware that the bowl and/or the kitchen spoon might get discolored.
Start boiling it on a medium setting. Don't rush it. As soon as it starts boiling (for the cooking-illiterate: bubbles in the fluid), start mixing it. Don't let up until it becomes a hardened mass. It might look funny in the process; just keep mixing. This should take around 10-15 minutes, depending on the quantity.
When the mass has hardened (it's not flowing around and sticking to the bowl, instead becoming a lump in the middle), pull it off the fire. Use the kitchen spoon to move the putty from the bowl onto a plate (or into a box) and immediately wrap it in tin foil or a plastic bag. The goal here is to prevent it from drying out. Do this as quickly as possible; 5 minute of lying around is enough for the surface of the mass to dry out completely and become unusable.
Leave it to cool off. You can leave it like that for hours, provided that it's sealed tight. Once cool, start using it or wrap it tight in a plastic bag and put it in the fridge. It stays usable indefinitely (or at least a couple of months, like mine, which is still in the fridge and perfectly fine), and it's completely odorless.

 

When you need some, just open the bag, chip off a small piece (or whatever quantity you need), and seal back the bag. Apply it to the task at hand, then leave the miniature at room temperature. It should dry completely over night. If you're in a rush, the mass becomes paintable in about 10-20 minutes. Just be careful not to move it around, as it remains still malleable at this point.