S.E.E.D.POD Information hub
Congratulations on your new sEEDPOD!
This is but a skeleton of a page…
Friends, these little pod critters came in just under the wire for SDCC/GenCon this year.
My plan, which I will do after my wedding this September, is to film myself prepping, painting and finishing these little loves for you so you can watch and follow along.
Movies will be posted to my Youtube so Subscribe here to be notified when they drop.
But I can’t leave you hanging like that! I shall do my best in text form!
Please excuse any typos. I’ll fix them soon!
Prepping
First, the 3d prints are FRAGILE. Work closely over a table.
Get the following: nail file, piece of fine sandpaper.
For the shark, sand the “print pimples” of the “ears” and around the outer tail fin. For the base, you can sand the bottom if you want, but it’s not really needed. There might be a print pimple or two, but I think I cleaned them up pretty well for ya!
Washing
DON’T skip this.
Rinse your prints off in the sink. Work near the bottom of the sink and don’t drop the 3D print.
Let them completely dry on a paper towel
Priming
A grey primer works best but if you’re trying to save some cash, get the cheap white discount spray paint from Lowes/Home depot. Should be about $2.50 a can.
Go outside and put a drop cloth down
Shark
Hold the shark by the tail and spray under the “chin”. Keep the spray can about 12-18inches away. Aim for a light coat.
Place the shark on this side and spray it - all the angles you can get to without flipping it. Light coat.
Wait for it to dry
Flip the shark and spray all the angles you can see. Light coat.
Wait for it to dry.
Base
Put the base on the drop cloth and spray all the angles you can see without flipping it.
Wait for it to dry
Flip it over and repeat.
Painting
I use citadel paints because I paint and play Warhammer with a group of people who are all colorblind. Since the citadel painting tutorials use the names of their paints during the tutorial, this lets them paint and follow along. You can use any paint you like and, often, there are charts that list the name of the Citadel paint and the other brand’s paint that’s the same color. Other brands are often cheaper. I do not recommend normal craft paint from a place like Micheal’s or Hobby Lobby for adult painters. For kids, yeah sure, the cheap paint is fine.
There are a TON of mini painting tutorials on youtube already that teach you how to thin the paint with water, hold the brush, etc. If you totally new to mini painting, they’re worth your time. Send a few hours on these.
Get these colors for the shark
The Fang, Russ grey, Fresian grey, white scar, evil sunz scarlet, wasdakka red, fire dragon bright, flash gits yellow, Temple Guard Blue, and nuln oil
How I painted the shark
With a large brush, paint the entire shark with The Fang and let dry.
With a large brush, paint the entire shark with nuln oil. Be very careful you don’t get pooling of the paint where you don’t want it. I paint the full shark, lay it on it’s side, wait a few mins and check to see if I got some large pools while it’s settling. The nuln oil should still be wet - just spread those pools out. Let it fully dry. This is be a bit, go eat lunch or something.
Get a small makeup brush. Drybrush Russ Grey over the entire shark. Let this dry. Should be fast, only a few minutes.
No need to wash your brush, just wipe it off. Then get some Russ grey on there, and dry brush that on the shark.
Final dry brush is Fresian grey - just very light and where you want that extra highlight pop. Wash your brush.
Mix up some Fresian grey, and white scar 50/50. Get a smaller drybrush and drybrush under the chin, the inside if the fins, and the belly. Sharks have white undersides.
Make sure your dry brushes are clean and dry before starting this next bit.
The the little pouch on the shark’s back. Start by painting it with wasdakka red with a normal brush. Let dry.
Get the tiny dry brush again and dry brush on evil sunz scarlet.
Now your going the make a little gradient from red (bottom of the pouch) to yellow (top of the pouch).
You don’t need to wash the dry brush, just wipe off between colors. Layer on fire dragon bright in the smaller area than the evil sunz scarlet, then layer on flash gits yellow, in the area smaller than the orange fire dragon bright.
You can get a bit more fancy and mix intermediate colors too. So it could be like evil sunz scarlet, then evil sunz scarlet/fire dragon bright, then fire dragon bright, then fire dragon bright/flash gits yellow, then flash gits yellow. But, if you want to keep it simple, it’s red, orange in the smaller area inside the red, yellow in a smaller area inside the orange.
Get the evil sunz scarlet and paint the little “angler fish lure spheres” on the end of the each “ear tentacle”
Then I painted the eye Temple Guard Blue and added a White Scar /Temple Guard Blue 50/50 mix highlight.
Final step, I added two coats of nuln oil to the webs on it’s “ears”
And done!
Painting Continued…
How I Painted the Base
The simplest way to paint the base it this: prime or paint the base silver (Iron Breaker works), wait for it to dry, paint the bottom of the base with nuln oil to make the Astra Fauna letters pop, flip over and pinch the middle to hold it. Then paint the rest of the base with nuln oil. Rest the base on top of a tiny jar that fits into the center. Wait for the nuln oil to dry.
That could be it. You can stop here.
You can also get some rust paint. I like “Dirty Down Rust” best but it’s expensive, and add the rust paint to the base if you like to give it a “lost in space look”
And you can always just back with silver or Ironbreaker to drybrush in edge highlights if you like.
And done!
Lighting
Every SEEDPOD comes with a little light
There’s a plastic “stopper” over one the batteries. Remove it.
Click the On/Off button to turn on and just keep clicking it to change the colors to the one you like.
The base does rest perfectly on top of the light as it is but, I recommend cutting it to size to encase the light in the recess. The recess in 42mm or 1.65 inches wide.
You can stick the light into the recess with sticky tac/fun tac or you can use the inner groove to slide a strip if mat board or plastic to lock the light into place. Or just place the base over top of it.
But, I’d really recommend getting a light up display stand - because they’re awesome, and run via USB.
Resin Casting
My time grows short. If you get here and want guideance, feel free to email me at sarah@sarahdahlinger.com
The short of it. Working with resin is hard and I “cheat” by using a pressure pot and an air compressor. So, buy a clear resin, follow the directions EXACTLY.
Do a trial run where you encase some other cheap plastic toy in resin first. Odds are, you’re going to mess up. I sure did….so…many…times…
When I finalize the page, I’ll do some movies of me using resin and try to address all it’s oddities.