Delving into unknown...
Hello, everyone! Looks like i`m about to add some fresh content. So, what`s this all about?
For last 2 or 3 years i`m trying myself as a sculptor. Looks like nowdays just anyone can sculpt cool things or has a friend, that could. So, is a sculpting a tricky thing? It sure is... if you do not know some simple rules and do not have some simple instruments on your hands. I read a tons of sculpting guides (and even wrote one by myself... sigh...). Well... feth, I`m dissapointed. Those guys just have the things magicaly done in their hands, but no one say a word about how stick a lump of greenstuff to a lump of magic sculp putty. You will see a full sculpting process of my last project, with all my tips, tricks, and tools of the trade. From the moment, when it looks like some piece of gak to the moment you can earn some money with it (or, at least, can show it to your wargaming friends).
Tools of the trade(Part 1). Basic tools
My first attempts in sculpting are dating to my, uh, first attempts in painting. Those days even such simple tasks as reposing hands of a plastic clanrat/imperial guardsman was something like heroic quest. Now, when i have some skills in sculpting, i understood, that my path could be much shorter (and safer for my thin purse). So, hope you will find my advises somewhat useful.
Actually, the tools are making the master. I`ve seen some people, that can do incredible masterpieces with a wooden toothpick and some greenstuff, but i`m not that talented indeed. Those things are compulsory choices for complicated conversions and simple sculpting.
1) Yes, this is
GW sculpting tool. Just as simple, as that. Most of
GW hobby products are overpriced and useless crap, but this one is an exeption. You can do almost any type of sculpting/conversion with it. The small things are done with a point and edge/ The flat sides are used for leveling putty. The useful side is a one with a "knife", other one is useful just to digging putty out of the pot, but not for sculpting (although i`ve seen the guide of fast making of ultramarine symbol with it).
BTW, the knife side is totally blunt (and this is good for us, newbie sculptors!) WARNING! While doing your sculpt, keep the tool PERFECTLY CLEAN!
2) Fat needle on a long handle. For those things you can`t do with ?1, as, say eyelids, chainmails, hair and fur works. Do not take thin needle! It will make things rather complicated, at least, at the beginning.
3) Old synthetic brushes. You need your surfaces perfect! Those brushes can do it for you. Those are best putty shapers, i`ve seen in my life. You even can SCULPT with them, but most of the time they are used for "clean leveling". This can be done only with magic sculpt putty, or with putty mixes that include magic sculpt. Don`t forget to put some water on the surface, and clean the brush after work. You will need 1 and 0 sizes, but 00 may be useful from time to time.
4) The world-famous greenstuff. Looks like this is most popular non-baking putty in the world. At least, among
GW fanboys and other wargame-involved hobbyists. The most important thing you`ll need to know about it - greenstuf is sticks good only to other greenstuff. And to your sculpting tools, of course. If your instruments are TOO WET, greenstuff becoming totally useless... But if the tool NOT WET ENOUGH, it will stic to the tool, not to the surface. This can be fixed through coating the surface with matt seal, but, most of the time, it will be hard to stick it where you want. Those troubles are going in after first 5-10 minutes after mixing, so, do not mix too much!
Why we are need greenstuff? It is holds the shape greatly, and this feature is partially added to the mixes that include greenstuff. The chainmails, small jewerly, teeth and other small things are greenstuuf primary targets. Hardens in 4-6 hours, comfort working time (when you put it in proper place) is around a hour.
5) Sanding paper, 0-size. The brushes leveling is not enough sometimes. And the sanding paper coming in to fix the problems. This process can do a lot of dust, so it`s better to clean your working place. WARNING! You can not use it on a pure-greenstuff sculpts.
6) Water pot. You will need some water to keep your tools wet.
BTW, it`s good to have two of them, to wash your fingers after putty mixing.
7) Soft tissue. You will need it to wipe your tools. If you will not do this, the putty will stick to them, not to your miniature. If you will not wipe you leveling brushes, they will be out of action very soon. Also, it`s good idea to wipe your hands after washing them in the second water pot...
8) Last, but not the least important thing in this set - Magic Sculpt Putty. It`s cheap, it`s soft, it can be drilled, sanded, even BAKED IN OVEN 0__0. In the first 30-40 minutes after mixing it sticks greatly to anything. It has only two disadvantages (one of them, actually, is not a bug, but a feature) - it`s REALLY soft right after mixing, and it`s pure white, so the sculpt will be hard target for photo-shooting, and small details (and flaws) can be invisible for your own eyes. Both can be partially fixed, if you will lay your hands on a grey MS.
But it really have some magic in it. It was a rocket jump in sculpting for me, when i bought my first pots of that putty. Comfort working time 30-40 minutes. Hardens in around 3-4 hours, but you can bake it in your oven at a 100-150C to make it hard in a 20-30 minutes. WARNING! Do not do this, if you working on a conversion, and be sure to make a wire holder (or other type of fireproof base) for a sculpture! Be sure to ventilate your kitchen afterwards.
So, that the most basic items you will need. In the next part, we will talk about tools, you MAY need, while going deeper into the sculpting territory.
To be continued! Sorry for my gakky english! If you have any questions, just ask them!
Best regards, Ivan.
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Tools of the trade (part 2). You will feel some confidence with this
Now, when you know wich items you will need FOR SURE, i will tell a few words about more narrow-specialized tools. Here they are.
9) Nailfiles. Your girlfriend sure has lots of this, but i strongly recommend to buy that separately =). Those are going into the fray, when you need to prepare some big surfaces for sanding with ?5. Mostly, nailfiles are best to use while sculpting in scale 54mm+, as they are fasten the sanding process drastically. In 28mm, they are useful in rough works on hero cloaks, round items like cannons or trminator armours and in house building (yeagh, you will need them for sure to sculpt some planked boxes or barrels!) WARNING! Be sure that the putty is hardened completly. It is good idea not to use ?9 on pure greenstuff sculpts, or a mixes with a lot of
GS in it. And do not forget to change them to new ones from time to time. The best results are achieved with Magic Sculpt, Milliput and other putties like this. Errr... A lot of nasty dust in process...
10) Ordinary file. For something you can`t do with nailfile. It will leave some ugly scars on a surface, so don`t use it in the final steps of work. The scars can be remover with ?5. The files come in a variety of shapes - here you can see a round one, so you surely can choose the one YOU need.
11) Rubber shapers. You can do this item by yourself, cutting an eraser to pieces, but i prefer something more reliable. ?11 is a great thing to work with
GS, if you sculpt a robe, hood, etc. with lot of tissue folds. You can add the final shape with ?1, but your rough works will go much faster.
GS almost don`t stick to them. You can see here most useful forms - flat, sharp, and round sharp. With last of them you also can do a small round holes in the putty. Don`t forget to keep them wet. WARNING! If you try them on a fresh MS, be sure to clean them in the end. MS sticks to shapers rather good, so it is best to wait for some time, while putty becomes harder.
12) I do not know it`s name, but when i saw it in my wife`s cosmetic box, i took it to myself. If i remember correctly, it comes from nail-design kit. I use it for making ideal-round holes in the putty, as it has small iron sphere on its end.
13) File knives. In a 54+
mm sculpting it is one of my primary instruments. It will surely be useful for people, who needs some `cleaning up` after putty hardens. You can fix all your fails with it, including tiniest ones. Eyes, noses, lips and mouths, sharp teeths are shaped greatly with this simple thing. WARNING! Be careful, while using it on pure
GS sculpts. Blunt (or just not sharp enough) knife can do some damage to the surface.
14) Knife sharpener. To keep you knives razor-sharp.
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Tools of the trade (part 3). The Secret Weapon.
Well, looking through internet make me think it is not so secret at all. But for me Dremel Hobby Drill was a piece of gear, that opened the way for REAL THING.
Most of my most successful sculpting projects were done with it, excluding The Final Charge, that was done with (oh, i just barely believe this myself right now) with soviet portable tooth drill, that was used by medics in remote mountain areas.
So, what you can do with Dremel? Almost EVERYTHING. You can drill out orbits and open mouths, you can remove excess putty (and parts, if you are converting), you can do muscle relief, and do pinning on metal casts in no time. When you master it enough, you can literally carve things out of your hardened putty. In 28
mm, thought, Dremel`s capabilities are rather limited, but it is still a VERY HANDY device. I am strongly recommend the model with rechargeable accumulator, as more powerful drill can send putty shards flying right into you precious eyes, and, well the one i have in the past (it was marked as Dremel too), fell apart in my hands, trying to handle baked Magic Sculpt figure.
So, let`s look, what we have here.
Dremel itself has 2 power modes - high and low. First is best used with sanding drill heads and in rough works. Second is ideal for neat work. In that mode you draw a picture on your surface.
Although the drill is announced as hobby gear for metal graving, its capabilities with metal is rater poor. But it is good enough for our hobby, indeed. Beware, while drilling metal: it is heating quickly because of friction.
The drill is quite heavy: around 300g with accumulator battery. So, be sure you found a good base to rest your hand on.
On the pic below you can see the drill and drill heads. A, B and C must be bought separately, other are included in the basic kit. Those 5 heads are, in my opinion, most useful in the line. Drills for metal really CAN be used to drill metal.
A) It is really good for sanding and rough works, but it can be used more precisely in big scales, if you confident enough with the drill.
B) The head for a very cautious people. It can be used freely in 28
mm, and good enough to drill out warhammerFB goblin eye.
C) A compromising variant between A and B. Do not have much use in 28
mm.
D) It affords a good level of control, and can be used for quick and clean removing of excess parts in 28
mm, and great foe big scale sculpting.
E) Tiniest drill in the kit. I is harder to handle, than B, but can do almost everything except large areas sanding.
So, here it is. Of course, Dremel is making out a TONS
od electrically charged dust, and the accumulator run for 30-40 minutes in high mode. But, without this thing the sculpting and converting is impossible for me. When i used it first time, i felt myself as a cave man that can shoot some mammoths with minigun. Hope, you will appreciate it too.
Next part is the final in the equipment line. It will tell about some strange, bot useful gear that are used not so often
Best regards, Ivan
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Tools of the trade (part 4). Strange, but sometimes useful.
At last, final "equipment post". Most of the things you will see here are very, very optional gear, but sometimes you just NEED those things. Most of them WAS NOT used in the project you about to see (they do not even have a number), but this is the guide for rookies, right?
And, here they are. Hand drill, couple of optional heads for Dremel, 2 really strange-shaped putty shapers and some spatulas. Let's start with a hand drill. This thing you need if you want to drill shallow holes, not the oil wells we drill for pinning. By the way, as i noticed, the most useful and widely used drill size - 1
mm.
Spatulas you need for very large shapes (flat one) and for modeling in hard to reach places. As you may have noticed, this is all dental tools. Note the circular end of one of them - it is more useful than many of the tools shown here. But I do not use it very often - maybe just not used to it.
Shapers were just in the set pieces and five. Unlike the previous three, numbered, these I have used a couple of times in four years. Dremel heads mainly suited for rapid Sanding surfaces except the second and fourth from the top left of the picture. These are used for the fixing of a very serious flaws. The last time I used the one that more - cut in half 300mm girl - the whole room was littered with drifts of Magic Sculpt…
Is that all? Nearly. Very soon we move on to modeling, but before that I have to mention the things that are not on the pics, but are very useful to you. Those are staples, wire, and handle for your figure. Staples are used for pinning, wire is good for frame making, and the handle will not allow the finger grease to get on the figure surface. Be sure to get a heat-proof handle, if you want to bake your mini in oven!
Aw. Hope it was not too boring to read all of this. The start of the modelling process in the next part!
Best regards, Ivan.
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Sculpting Begins! (part 1)
Yes, this is what you waited for (at least, i hope you waited for it =)). The first part of the guide, dedicated to the sculpting directly. Let`s start, then!
So, you have the cool idea and some of instruments from previous parts of my guide. What you have to do firstly? There are some really different opinions about that. Some sculptors (and some of them are far better than myself) are saying, that first two things you need to do is a paper sketch of you cool idea and the wire frame for your sculpture. And, generally, they totally right. BUT...
I thank that you do not need the frame for a 28mm. It is too small, the proportions of a human body (and other types of bodies) is rather twisted here, so do a wire frame only if the pose of your figure is really strange and unreliable ( space marines desperate jumps-for-cover, genestealers hanging from ceilings on a thin slime drool, and so on). In other cases, i think the frame is an excess step.
Regarding the sketch, i think that you do not need it, too. I`ve seen lot of outstanding sketches, that did not survive the collision with a real world for my five years of art education. When it comes to miniature sculpting, it is 99% of them. Even when it comes to profies, you see a fething great art on a miniature box, you`re opening it... And than you`re seeing something totally different from the boxart. I`m not a professional, and if you`re reading this, you`re likely not one of them too. So do not waste you time on a sketch - you imagination and your common sense will help you to see what is good for your project, and what is not.
What you need to know, while working with any kind of hobby putties?
1) First and more important: LET
IT HARDEN ENOUGH. Be patient - most of the things just can not be sculpted outright. That`s why profie sculptors oftenly running two or more projects. while one set aside for drying, you can switch to other ones.
2) Do not be greedy.
Mos guides i red are saying that you must mix a very small amounts of putty, cus you will not use it all for sure. But even after 4 years of `serious` sculpting i find it hard to mix putty in the proportions i need. MS can give you an unpleasant surprise, if you will mix not enough of it - sometimes it`s just refuses to harden. So, NO nano-doses of putty. Generally, your putty blob must be no less that your little finger`s nail.
3) Proportions. You have the hardener, and the putty itself. When it comes to MS, they are signed on the pots. Regarding greenstuff, the hardener is blue.
By putting more hardener, you can get a viscous mass, that have a reduced comfort sculpting time, but a very newbie-friendly and sticky enough in first 15-20 minutes of work. When it hardens, it can be sanded and sliced perfectly in case of
GS. MS, mixed and hardened in this proportion, is worse treatable with knife and sanding paper, than its normal mixes, and it can easily get your sanding tools out of action.
The hardener is will always runs out faster, so be sure to use high epoxy containing mixes for your rough works.
4) I know that sounds mad, but if you can borrow bits from other miniatures, DO
IT! You need sculpting for truly unique things only, that can not be bought for money. To make it simple, just try to sculpt a bolter pistol with
GS. It will consumes more time, that the character, armed with it.
Let`s see, what i`ve done here. I used some plastic parts and a lot of outdated MS to make up a rough composition, ans used ?1 to do this. You will have around 40-50 minutes to alter it, and remove/add some parts. All those lumps are perfect frames for the dead goblin bodies, sandbags and other stuff. As you can see, i added not so much putty, leaving a lot of free space - the space for my future ideas. Then i put it in the warm place to fasten the hardening.
If you have some questions, regarding this step, ask them here. I will add the answers to the guide. The bigger pictures are available on my Patreon page.
Best regards, Ivan.
I will be grateful for your Patreon support.
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=401971&ty=h&u=401971
Automatically Appended Next Post:
As you may remember, with this
http://www.dakkadakka.com/dakkaforum/posts/list/681291.page
miniature i said my personal farewell to the world of Warhammer Fantasy Battles. But i also said that before old-good
FB will disappear in a depth of oblivion, i will take you to the every corner of its world with those busts of mine.
So, next stop is Naggaroth.
The base for this conversion was a classic out-of-print 1/9 Pegaso Elf Huntress bust. If you ask me, i will say that this bust is not the best out there - it has anime-ish face proportions, it has horribly sculpted fur coat, covering 50% of the model, it has strangely shaped ears (more half-elf like). The last, THIS IS AN ELF WITH THE AXE 0____0.
But she was perfectly suited for my project.
The dark Elf Corsairs champions actually was equipped with axes. Well, they are pirates, after all, and the pirates like the axes. I went on a long journey through the google to find that oldschool metal chap:
So, I launched my
DE corsair bust project.The face was resculpted totally. Do not know, if she will be a real beautie, but at least i can take some pics, showing her face from the front side. I added some length to her ears, and now into restyling her equipment in a sea-related style.The sea dragon cloak texture was done with the foil stump you can see on the first pic. If you will have some questions - ask them!
Best regards, Ivan.
You can see the article about my sculpting tips here -
http://www.beastsofwar.com/groups/painting/forum/topic/a-big-sculpting-guide-part-1/
I will be grateful for your Patreon support
https://www.patreon.com/user?u=401971&ty=h&u=401971 .
