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I'll agree with the others in this thread when they say that it's very subjective.

Those sculptors who have not yet been mentioned who are of extremely high standard are Joaquin Palacios, Juan Navarro Perez, Pedro Fernandez Ramon.

While I also agree that MIKH is extremely talented as a sculptor, he is a dishonest person who has scammed me out of the deposit of a commisison, so if you consider those aspects when making up your mind of who you consider is the "best", MIKH is dropping quite far down my list.

Chikout wrote:
Simple question. Who in your opinion is the best sculptor around these days? I have always liked Alex Hedstrom but I have been looking into stepping away from Gw recently. Whose work should I be checking out?

Just to point out, at not point at all did the OP actually ask for a single, undisputed best. He just wants to check out sculptors he may not be aware of and is asking us all for our personal favourites... His thread subject is a bit misleading for that but c'mon guys, let's just try and answer him and not point of the flaws of subjective hierarchy lol..

For me personally, I have no single person but follow a great many. I honestly wouldn't be able to choose one or even a few, there are so many talents out there, and I just add them to my facebook collection to keep an eye on their latest works.

One interesting thing here though is the difference between physical and digital sculpting... not 1:1, especially if plastic production is a concern... I would almost split my assessment down that line personally.

A lot of sculptors have moved from physical to digital sculpting.

I got to talk to Bobby Jackson (sculptor responsible for a lot of Reaper, and some great stuff from Mercs, CMON and a lot else besides).

He used to sculpt in green stuff only, and now only sculpts in digital.

One thing to note- he's very cautious to make sure that his digital sculpts do not look digital. He generally keeps away from copy/paste functions that digital sculptors can use.

I find this interesting. None of his sculpts look digital as a result.


Some companies have gone in the opposite direction, and embrace the digitally sculpted look (Wyrd, GW).


By the way, Wyrd has some nice sculptors, but they do not credit them at all anymore.

That's a very good point about copy/paste from digital sculptors generally being a bad idea

Andrew Rae from statuesque (also on my list) has mentioned it specifically too, how do you improve if you're just poking around and changing details on an already mostly sculpted digital maquette?

It's really evident in faces where one half has been sculpted then mirrored, real peoples faces just aren't that symmetrical (try it yourself with a mirror, you'll see 2 'not quite mes')

the exception is mechanical stuff where symmetry IS meant to be total

the exception to the rule is where something is being suc

To be fair, that's fine for one off models. When you're going for a cohesive look among a faction, having people with the same features across the faction helps with that cohesive look.

That's not to say some companies don't overdo it, and Wyrd and GW are good examples, but they're creating ranges with some uniformity among them. Copying something to use on another (for example, Lilith and Tuco having the same leg armour) makes sense.

Another example is Corvus Belli. Since their move to digital sculpting, they've been churning out linked team boxes where they used to release them very sparingly. The ability to create female and male bodies for a unit, pose and equip them lets them make 5 sculpts at once (1 in a blister, 4 in a box) that are uniformly the same, which is their goal since those boxes are basically squads in the same gear. But then they overdo it at times, like a Morat unit that is just a heavier armoured unit with a few armour plates removed.

But again, it depends on what sort of model range your making. Reapers style of one off RPG pieces is a bad fit for copying elements between models. GW, Wyrd, CB, etc are creating multiple ranges that need to look cohesive in themselves, and that sort of functionality is a massive boon.