Monday 30 November 2009

Tha Work Thang #18: Skeletons and Radicals.

Just a quick update on what I have been up to. Below is the skeletal cyclops for D&D miniatures.
This guy turned out pretty nifty if you ask me, good job the sculptor! I never know why the sculptor isn't credited anywhere?

I also have a few pieces in "The Radicals Handbook" a Warhammer 40k Dark Heresy book published by Fantasy Flight Games.


Thursday 12 November 2009

Da Life Ting #10: Cobalt Troll

So, following hot on the heels of the silver dragon, here is my next foray into the world of sculpting. I wanted to do a monster this time and fished about for some things I could use as a base.

I found a cap for washing liquid which had a good shape for a neck and shoulders. To this I attached a polystyrene ball, ( I found these in the local craft shop and thought they would be good to model heads around.) I used a plastic lolly stick held on by a lump of super sculpey to hold the head in place. You can see these stages in the process shots.

I had no idea how this would all react in the oven, I was hoping that once covered in the clay and packing the inside of the model with aluminium foil would do the trick.
The monster evolved quite organically, I just went with what seemed troll like to me.

When he was sculpted I took him off to the oven. All was ok, no noxious fumes or anything. However, the polystyrene ball had completely vanished, leaving a hollow head. At least I could also dispense with the lolly stick now.
Onto painting, I was originally going for more of a stone colour for him, but quite liked the blue. I decided to name him a Cobalt troll because of the blue colour. So, there you have it...The Cobalt Troll!

Thursday 5 November 2009

Da Life Ting #9: Silver Dragon Update.


So here is the Silver Dragon after painting so far. I used mostly metallic acrylic paints on him.
It's nearly at the stage I envisioned him in my head.



Sunday 1 November 2009

Da Life Ting #8: Sculpting a Silver Dragon

This weekend I eventually got to try something that I have been wanting to do for a very long time....having a go at sculpting my own figures. Almost a year ago to this very day I had the pleasure of sitting next to Mr. Sean Green, sculptor extraordinaire at Game'08 in Manchester. I saw at first hand his fantastic models and he gave me a few great tips on modelling. Anyway, this week I bought some SuperSculpey and decided to give it a go.

Without giving it too much thought I decided to do a Silver dragons head and dived straight in, I scrunched up some silver foil into a rough dragons head and neck shape and started applying the sculpey clay on top. I got to the stage seen in the first two pictures and left it there for the night.

The next morning I was faced with the problem of the crests on the dragons head, neck and cheeks. I decided to use a card base, which i would then cover in sculpey. I had no idea if this would work or would even survive being baked in the oven.

But, eager to crack on, I threw caution to the wind and went ahead with the modelling.

I bulked up his rather skinny neck, worked on the horns, started applying ridges to the neck piece, inserted small ballbearings as eyes.

Next, I added on the cheek crests that I had sculpted seperately and went about applying all the fun detail, like eyelids and pock marks and the scales ( I rather rushed the scales, but was enjoying myself so much I just wanted to get him baked and painted up!) So below is how I decided he was finished, I thought it was pretty cool for a first go and can't wait to try another one (maybe a Red Dragon next time.)

There are plenty of things I would take more time over next time, the scales, the thickness of the neck spikes for example. With trepidation I put him in the oven and hoped for the best, and lo and behold he came out fine. Nothing broke off or burned, so well happy.

I will post again to show how he came out after being painted, and I will see if I can mount him on a little stand for presentation.