plastic crystal/rock?

thanks for the idea. ill go look around the net for the star trek stuff

The vacuum machine you guys are talking about is called a vacuform table. Small ones aren't too terribly hard to make or very expensive.

Some of the Star Trek TNG toys from Playmates included various colors of crystal formations, all the same sculpt. Might be something you can find for pretty cheap.

Also keep you eyes peeled for Christmas decorations... A lot of the stores are already creeping their Christmas stuff out, and crystal/icicle ornaments can usually be found... A few of our local hobby stores (A.C. Moore and Hobby Lobby) are starting to put the holiday stuff out and you might find something useful...

They used to make a toy kit that did just that. I can't remember it's name but the idea was to lay the sheets of plastic on top of toy cars or objects and you would get a new car or whatnot, it was a pretty lame toy but cool tool.

They used to make a toy kit that did just that. I can't remember it's name but the idea was to lay the sheets of plastic on top of toy cars or objects and you would get a new car or whatnot, it was a pretty lame toy but cool tool.

I tried something like what you're describing one time when I wanted to make a transparent abdomen for a spider figure, but, alas, it didn't turn out very well (I used a wood burner, rather than a hair dryer though). It is possible to warp/shape plastic with heat though, so it would seem to be at least theoretically possible to do something like that.

I know that they have those machines (not sure what they're called) that you can use to vacuum press transparent plastic onto forms to create all sorts of cool stuff, which would be a really neat thing to have, but I imagine that they're expensive contraptions. If you had one, I bet you could stick a bunch of real crystals on there, pointing upwards, vacuum press the plastic sheeting over them, and make dozens of hollow crystal castings at once in no time at all (all you'd have to do is cut/pop them out of the sheet afterwards).

What Id consider doing is sculpting the shapes you want with whatever you sculpt of choice is. Then lay some styrene (toy packaging) over it then let it sit under a hair dryer for a good time. Maybe put some vaseline on the sculpt to keep it from stickin some.

Have NO idea rather the will work or not but hey worth a shot.

thanks for the ideas guys. patraw, I doubt I could make them as flawless as the one you made but thats a pretty good idea!

Things that may seem easy to you may not be as easy for the less skilled artists of the world like myself Amazing work!!!

If you just want to make straight crystals, they're pretty easy to fabricate out of sheet plastic from toy packaging, using basic geometry, like I did with the one piercing my Dread Knight figure's chest:



If you visit my web page for the figure, and scroll down to the construction process photos, there are some pictures of how I made it, including the 2-dimensinal pattern:



Alternatively, if you can track down a McFarlane Toys Total Chaos Series 2 Quartz figure, he's got a bunch of crystal formations all over his body that you could cut off and/or make casts of. I've got one, but he's still MOC, and I want to keep him.

Real crystals or glass cut like them can be purchased from some jewelry and novelty shops, or if you want more rock like shapes in clear go to a pet shop and look around there landscaping materials for fish tanks. Bags of clear rocks can be purchased in almost any color for very cheap like $1.50