Plants From Sprue
Rob Russell from Dungeoncrawlers made these incredibly tiny plants from sprue. Each plant is only a few millimetres tall!
Rob warns that his method (explained below) involves cutting towards your fingers with a sharp knife so we suggest making a 'guard' by making a hole in a suitably thick piece of plastic card and pushing the spue through the hole before you start work on it. Also remember that a dull blade can be more dangerous than a sharp one because you need to use more pressure to make a cut.
Rob explains: I start by making cuts around the sprue at the same level. I always start on the corner edges. Then I move down the sprue and do it again. I then go back up to the first level and cut the leaves deeper to overlap the lower row. When I'm happy with it I twisted off the center stub. The final step is to cut it from the sprue, making sure that the flat side of the clippers is towards the plant.
The following pictures illustrate Rob's method:
The thing to understand (as illustrated by the pictures below) is that the greater the angle of the knife, the deeper the cut and the thicker the "leaf". The closer the blade is to lying flat against the sprue, the thinner and curlier the "leaf" will be.
The pictures below show a few variations including a carved mushroom:
This final picture shows the same base that we showed at the top of the page, before it was painted. Rob points out that the plant on the bottom right was made by sticking individual leaves to the central stem. Yet another variation of this superb technique.
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