Carving Sprue Plants

I was asked to write a “how-to” on making plants out of sprues.

“What are sprues?”, you ask.

Sprues are the plastic frames that multipart models or minis come on. Most people cut the pieces off and throw out the frame. Not me. I never throw anything out (much to my wife’s displeasure).

I wasn’t going to write this up because it’s insanely easy and fast.

Let’s start with the finished product:

I have to warn people though, you will be cutting TOWARDS yourself with a VERY SHARP KNIFE! You will cut yourself eventually. Don’t say I didn’t warn you. This will also be a very short write up as I’ll let the pictures do most of the talking (sorry, a couple are fuzzy).

The list of materials is: Sprues!
The tools are: Hobby Knife and Side Cutters (bandaids)

The thing to understand 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.

Our doner sprue. You need it to be long enough for you to hold onto. Too short and it’s impossible to work with. Lots of wastage but who cares, left overs can be used as sprue rubble.

I start by making cuts around the sprue at the same level. I always start on the corner edges.

I move down the sprue and do it again

I go back up to the first level and cut the leaves deeper to overlap the lower row.

Do this until you are happy with it. I twisted off the center stub but you can just cut it off.

Top down view.

Cut it to size, make sure the flat side is to the plant.

Tada! One plant.

I did exactly the same thing to this plant but kept it at one level and… for added effect, made tiny tiny cuts in each leaf. Careful, the knife goes through these thin bits like they were butter.

Lets make a bigger, curlier plant now. Make longer, shallower cuts. This time the first cut makes the bottom level of leaves.

Around and around we go.

Make as many levels as you can and cut off the center stalk (or not).

That’s it. The three plants I showed you and then a mushroom that I carved. If you are really really really bored, you can cut out individual leaves (the two little bits on the right) and use them as needed. And No. I don’t plan on doing a basing and painting tutorial.