Liquid Green Stuff review

Greetings all, I have a new toy and felt the need to share with you all! Bizarrely Games Workshop seem to have released this with no fanfare whatsoever so here is mine:

Liquid Green Stuff (henceforce known as LGS) is a new non-toxic putty from Citadel designed to fill gaps and holes rather than sculpt with. This fills a hole (badum-tish) that I had previously used Squadron Green putty for. The problem with Squadron Green is that it is loaded with organic solvents that sting the eyes, wobble the brain and carries the kind of warning labels that make you seriously consider walling it off in a bunker. By contrast LGS is odourless and - importantly - water soluble so that you can use the same brushes that you use for your normal rough jobs.

I have two models to test LGS's properties on, a giant who has hairline gaps in his arms and a girt great ugly join at the back of his neck. The other is the Arachnarok spider which has thin gaps runnng through areas with detail.

Yeah, I know, tough to tell from a picture but I was trying to give an impression of the viscosity of the LGS. It is about what you would expect from unthinned paint that had been around for a bit. If you are familiar with Vallejo paints it is roughly the same thickness but a little "stringier" if you get my meaning.

You start out just blobbing the LGS onto the areas you want to fill and then spreading it smooth with a damp brush. I really mean damp, the first attempt I used a wet brush and it quickly formed a wash of LGS.

As you can see from the image above the finish is very, very smooth. While the giant was drying I turned my attention to the Arachnarok:

Firstly a bit of a show off shot, I have magnetised my Arachnarok! This is for two reasons, the first is so that I can use the spider without it's howdah as a summoned beastie or scenario objective (or heck just to make roleplay characters wee themselves). The second is for transport, the thickest foam KR Multicase make is 110mm, the Arachnarok's body alone stands 100mm tall. So the detachable howdah makes transport in a conventional case possible.

Yup, when your spider is bigger than your mug you have problems, this photo illustrates one of the joins that needs filling around the head...

The other is around the abdomen of the spider, both are clearly visible when the spider is finished and as such need filling. Once upon a time we would have had to try to push solid filler into the joins and muck about with it, now, we do this:

With the water soluble properties of the LGS you can slap it on with abandon and then wash it away from the detail like you would with too thick an application of paint. It was while I was thinking of this and waiting for the LGS to dry (it is very fast by the way) that the thought struck me that it might be usable as 3D paint allowing raised markings to be painted on:

Hmmm, sort of, not really. The row of rivits worked better, perhaps applied with a toothpick for consistent size of rivit. Short answer is, not really, let it do what it was designed for.

After the first drying period I was a little dissapointed to see that big 'ol ugly groove still there, the LGS shrinks a little as it dries.

Likewise the arm seams were not yet perfect. Initially I grumbled to myself but then remembered that the whole process for both models had taken about 10 minutes so far. Seriously, I wouldn't have green stuff ready to work in that time.

Simarily the first coat on the Arachnarok hadn't totally filled the lines but I had used a very thin mix to preserve the detail, which, as you can see has worked nicely. I decided to give them both another coat and see what gives.

And WOW did the second coat work, the first one just lays the scaffolding that you build on to get the second coat smooth.

Seriously guys, to get putty this smooth would take me a half hour or so and would waste a bunch of Green Stuff as we always mix too much.

As you can see, the Arachnarok came up nicely as well. It seems that the old maxim of a couple of thin coats works better than one thick one holds true for LGS.

So, to sum up. This stuff is witchcraft, it is awesome. It only does one thing but it does it very, VERY well. Put it this way, I will never again be using a two-part putty to fill gaps, it takes longer, is more difficult to smooth and requires tools. This is ready mixed, quick and needs a brush. You will still need epoxy putties, this will not provide an adhesive bridge between difficult parts, you can't sculpt with it as you can with Squadron Green. Just don't try, for the price of a pot of paint this product will do EXACTLY what it sets out to do. Try it, you will not be dissapointed, best £2.30 you'll spend this year.

TTFN folks and remember, 100 followers equals a prize!