Well... I decided to try and paint the beast... and it totally kicked my ass.

Oh well, I'll strip the paint and try again some time next year. Overall it isn't that bad, but it really doesn't look at all like I want it to.

That was an anti-climatic update, I was thinking "PAINT!!!" Then I "next year" :(

Regardless, good luck "next year".

I gave fair warning about my painting skills, but I did actually get around to painting it. At the very least I can see a lot more in terms of what I should fix when I do any more work on the sculpting of the beast.

My main focus now is to start working on the details of my Harlequin demon project. Better materials, better preparation, and in all likelihood, better, more focused pictures of my progress.

I'll be adding as many drawings as I can, but using a mouse is absolutely driving me insane. I know I will be able to get a drawing tablet soon, just a matter of time really.

Which of the designs do people like the most from the last page? I am going to be focusing on working with my last concept, trying out some armor plates, sashes, and what have you. That will also make the sculpt considerably simpler overall.

That beast looks awesome. One day thats going to look amazing as a painted model.

Thanks Lexx.

Here is another concept pic. She is a cutey huh?

OMG, I'm staring at a multi-breasted devil woman.

Good stuff!!!!!

I like the new stuff!!!!!!!

DC

EXCLAIMATION MARK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1!!!!!1!!!!!!!!!!!

Question mark?

Period.



Hmm... I wonder how painting some pale, necrotic fleshtones over the green would look.

Perhaps stipple on several more shades of green to make it look mottled and... disgusting?

I am going to be getting some supplies to finish painting my eldar army soon, so I will be bound to work on the beast at some point. I am thinking about trying out some different handmade washes. Just experimenting really, in order to make it as hard as possible for me to remove the paint later... . Yeah...

Mottling it up a bit sounds good though, I wanted to do something like that with a few shades of green, and a bit of brownish yellow.

Anyway though, here is my next sexy Slaanesh demon.

Mah' next lovely demon lady, as well as a progress page.

Reminds me of the C'tan for some reason.

Well its next year, did you get some new paint on that?

Concept 11.

Likin' that one the most so far. Looks all graceful and probably a "good guy", but then you look at the mysterious face and sword/glaive and realize this thing might have "questionable moral values".

my favorite is concept 10 that would make a graet lash prince(princess) for my slaanesh army.

Concept 12 (my favorite so far), and another progress page.

At this point, I think I am going to start figuring out the schematics for this project. My goal is to get this sculpt casted up, so I am going to have to take things a bit slower than before. Get the right materials, talk to some folks about casting techniques/services, etc...

Mmmm... Rocker-Slaanesh, I can dig it.

Good Luck Wrex!

Thanks person person.

I've moved the schematic from my last post, and added the 'completed' version to this one.

This is just a rough layout to make sure I can start to get an idea of what I am going to be building.

At this point in time, I am basically going to have to decide between finishing my army, or getting all the supplies I need for this project. If I am going to do all of this right, there is simply no way that I can go ad-hoc with the materials. So I will need to polish my knowledge of exactly what I am going to be working with.

- Wire
- Sculpey/Fimo/Milliput (mixed in various ways to achieve different textures, for different layers)
- Clay shapers, NOT Color shapers... one of which I actually got a bit of superglue on, a while back... and that sucked. (Color shapers are just way too flexible, it gets really annoying)
- Plasticard (mainly to work on any really hard edges, for weapons and the like, I'm not sure if that is going to work for casting though...)
- A bunch of other, random, and probably expensive stuff...
- A proper picture booth, not that I actually have space for that right now... whatever,
- Etc... and so on

If anyone has some knowledge they would be willing to share about casting in general, I would appreciate it. I am not really trying to cast these myself, and at some point, I do hope to get a 'professional' casting job done; at least for the masters. The main problem is just space, of which I have little to none. Casting equipment is bound to leave me with a walkway 1 foot wide through my room... .

Moving along though, this projects time frame is definitely limited to the next six months. I would like to be able to judo chop projects like this in a month or two, but it really isn't feasible for now.

So I went ahead and bought a ton of Milliput I found online at a decent price. Really good price considering how much I spent on my last epoxy order...

I bought-
4-5 yellow/gray Milliput (I think it was 5, at half the price that I paid before, I simply couldn't resist! )
For spreading out the other epoxy, and bulking the frame out.

3 silver/gray Milliput
For general use, details, features, etc...

1 superfine white Milliput
For hard edges, weapons, armor, etc...

Due to the fact that I can't bake Sculpey after I finish the project, it made no sense for me to try that. Not too bothered really, I am loving these Milliput epoxies.

I'll be spending gathering the rest of the materials this week, along with doing a bit more research into casting. I am pretty sure that as long as I use proper armature wire, I shouldn't have any problems with that at all. I also need to remember to get more sculpting tools, but I am going to have to figure out which store can supply me with all I need locally. Not a huge fan of the idea that I would have to go in two different directions to get separate items.

If all goes well, I can finish this project within the month, that would be awesome. I am starting to think about making two different models, since I am going to have enough materials to make at least 3 sculpts, of this size. This is going to be a lot of fun, .

I messed around with the last concept I was working on, making it a bit more demonic.

This will be my first sculpt, my second is still up in the air. I'll probably set up the armature for at least one model today, perhaps tomorrow.

I like it... are the legs actually going to be that bloated? Looks more nurgly... reminds me of some certain minotars although not nearly as bad

Any idea on when youll attempt that nurgle guy again?

Hey Buttler, how's it going.

The thighs won't be quite that big, but considerably close though. I want to make sure the model has some nice curves, that I won't be able to get with a thinner leg. All of the models will have 'chicken legs', and I will most likely mess around with the leg proportions later.

The Nurgle-demon will get painted again sometime this year, not really sure when.

Looking forward to it!
Edit: You have any plans for a Khorne Daemon?

I am actually, that will be my next project. I like the concept of Slaanesh quite a bit, but Khorne is simply an easier idea to work with. All in all, I promise...
BLOOD FOR THE BLOOD GOD!!!
.

Here is my current progress, and a bit of a mini-tutorial on setting up an armature.

Making your armature-

There are a million and a half ways of doing this, and none most of them are pretty simple.
I chose the most direct approach because of limitations in my workspace.


Supplies-

- Armature wire
1/8" works for most smaller sculpts. I also got 1/16" for wrapping things together.
Larger sizes begin to get pretty expensive. If I were to go back and resculpt my Nurgle-beast, I would likely be using a large amount of 1/4" for the main structure.

- Simple block of wood
2x4 is plenty stable for a small sculpt, a 2x6 gets a bit too big for most projects.
Cut your block of wood (if necessary) to around 1'. If you are in Europe... ummm... gimme a seond here... yeah, google it.
I'll post pics, there shouldn't be any huge misunderstanding here.

- Assorted pliers if you feel it necessary
All you really need is sturdy wire cutters, and your hands. The armature serves as a structural starting point, there is no real detail involved in setting it up.

- Drill with bits
You'll need whatever size Armature wire you are using for your main structure. In my case, an 1/8" bit was used.

- Aluminum foil
This will be used in combination with epoxy putty (often used to 'glue' things together on the armature) to bulk out the frame.

- Calipers (optional)
A very useful tool that I actually don't have right now. With a caliper, all you really need to do is print a page of your figure at scale (D'OH! No printer either for me...),
and use the caliper to quickly reference your sculpt. Measure, tighten, and transfer, very simple way to keep your model's proportions accurate.


Construction-

1.) Take your armature wire, and uncoil enough of it to represent the lower legs, and torso. 6.5" in my case, per side, for a total of 13" roughly.
Add at least 2.5" to each side, so 13" + 5" in my case. Cut the wire to that measurement, and fold it in half.

2.) Get your block of wood, and drill one hole with the bit you need. Make the hole to the side of center mass slightly. Drill the hole almost through the block of wood,
or all the way through, it doesn't really matter.

3.) Take your armature wire (now folded in half), and stick one end into the hole in the block of wood.

It should look similar to this.




4.) Cut another piece of 1/8" armature wire, at the lenth needed for the torso/head. In my case, roughly 3.5" + 2-3 inches for wrapping.
I ended up with a roughly 6" piece of wire. Cut 3-4 inches of 1/16" wire to wrap the armature together.

5.) Roughly position your torso wire, so that the excess can be wrapped around to secure it in place. Follow with the smaller wire, so that the piece is solidly in place.

Something along these lines. Nothing fancy is necessary.




6.) Cut a piece of 1/8" wire, to the length required for the arms. Roughly 10 inches for me. Add an extra inch for wrapping, and cut a few inches of smaller for the same.

7.) Wrap the larger piece once or twice slightly beneath where the shoulders are to be located. Follow by securing it with the smaller piece.

8.) Repeat steps 6-7 with slightly less wire for the lower arms. Set accordingly.


That is your basic armature. Good times, this project officially gotten into high gear.

Should be interesting to see how this comes out after you got it completed!

I've added a bit of foil to bulk the model out, and written up a sculpting guide, which I will be following myself.





Sculpting Guide-
(Mainly using Epoxy putties)

1.) Mix up a moderate amount of epoxy putty. I am using Yellow/Gray Milliput for sake of expenses.

2.) Apply the putty in thin layers/chunks, to the model. Increasingly forming the main mass of the model.

3.) Use a sponge/wire brush, to increase the depth of your first layers.

The sculpture should look something like this.

4.) Mix up a moderate detail mix (in my case, 2 parts Yellow-gray (Milliput), 1-2 parts Silver-Gray) batch of putty.
Balancing the amount you use, to the scale of time you are working in, will save you mixing multiple batches.
Working with stale putty is not possible, so less is always better. Slow and steady, build up in thin layers.

Progress should resemble this.

5.) After filling in all of the necessary areas with moderate detail. Mix a detailed batch (1 parts Yellow-Gray, 2-3 parts Silver-gray),
and apply slowly. Your starting to form the crisper edges of the model at this point, and all progress will be slowed quite a bit. Patience is key.
There is no suppliment for tenacity.

Example.

6.) Follow through with a light touch-up of high-detail mix (1 part Silver-gray, 1-2 parts Superfine-white), finishing your crisp edges, and bringing
some of the thorough detail to the features. Keep in mind the next stage (which in all rights should be considered first), where you complete any detail.

Example.

7.) Mix another high-detail mix, as you see fit (same as before essentially, you can start getting really creative at this point, using various epoxies to
form advanced textures/details). At this stage your features should be well defined, and understandable. Follow through with a thorough smoothing/blending,
with a wet brush/light sponge.

Example.

8.) Take any amount (bounds of reason of course) of time needed to fix any details/features. Keeping everything recognizable is very key to making a model
that will be able to present itself as distinguishable. Swords are swords, Eyes are eyes, and any combination therein NEEDS to have very solid references.
Take some time to study the shapes that you are working with, and the geometry that those shapes possess. If your sword looks the same as your leg, you need
fix something. Just like working with legos, nothing makes sense until the pieces are able to repesent themselves, through their structure. A head is not a foot,
in other words.

Notes on style:

There is too much style...

Then there is way too much style...

Then there is a lack of style...

And there is always the personal opinion associated with any of the above.
Style, in short, is simply a matter of proportions (as detailed as they may appear), and if it is not, I can almost gaurantee that it is a mess; regardless of quality.


I am hoping this project will be able to kick ass in the time frame that I have attempted to set up as a standard, given current conditions. 1-2 months, come on beasty, rock house.

AWESOME SAUCE

yum



DC

Solid start.

While I was expecting my sculpting supplies yesterday, and got a mild fever instead... I got tired of thinking about the lack of materials, and did a rough sketch of the model in progress.

I may do a few more of these from different angles, but I am just trying to make sure I don't overcompensate with my armature, due to boredom. I have been tweaking this damn thing for days now, I really need to be careful that I don't go into sculpt-mode on it.

If it turns out like that picture, than this is going to be AWSOME! Although Im not too sure about what appears to be hair... seems odd for Slaanesh

I will be finishing the concept for the head/face, while I work on the rest of the model. I had a bit of a hard time, getting the face to work very well on some of my concept designs.

I figure I can always make a helmet, but I was hoping to work a destructive expression into the face. As soon as I get some clay on this she-beast, I should be able to figure out a good style that will compliment the model, while maintaining a bit of individuality.

So... after I thought that USPS had made a mistake with my order... I found out that I am a dunce, who has lived at too many different addresses.

Man...

Hopefully the fact that I put down the wrong street, with the right number, does not mean that my order is lost to the void forever. I will have to stop into the post office, where I will have to wrangle some customer service out of the people behind the counter. This does not look like it is going to be my week at all, what with class starting, and a possible storm coming. At least I am not that sick anymore.

I have been painting up my Guardians, and I will attach pics later tonight. All in all, they are the only thing that seems to be going right today... OH! Did I mention that my apartment building almost burnt down because of some moron who left a hotplate on in his room? Yeah, a fantastic beginning, to a fantastic week... .

Meh. ( )

Anyway, here is my painting progress. Pretty much done with the Guardians except for a bit of cleanup, then basing. I still need to work on the arms for the WL, magnetizing and all that stuff. This is the first time I have actually enjoyed painting minis, not the best results in the world, but I think they came out pretty good.

I still need to set up a proper photo booth at some point, I have to think about how I will go about doing that. I got a few ideas going.

Well then... it took me a while to work out my order, but I should be able to get my supplies (and the rest of my army) some time next week.

In the mean time, I will try and polish the design a bit, so I can just get to it when the Milliput arrives.

Here is the final pose (basically), and a demo sculpt.

I started to add a bit more paint to my first demon. Not sure what I am going to add to it, but if I can add some detail to this paint-job, I may not 'have' to re-paint it.

Still waiting for my order of sculpting supplies and the rest of my army, hopefully it will arrive this week.

The head fell, and the long tusks broke (not entirely unexpected...), so I had to file them down and even them out a bit. I am not sure how I missed this before, but I will be making a hippo-demon-gopher mouth, when I can start to add more options to the model. More weapons, alternative heads, and arms as well.

I hope the sculpt will live up to the concepts.

I should have no problem working with the Milliput, it is a very friendly material to use. Green stuff would not allow me to sand, or drill effectively, so I will only be using it for very minute organic detail in the future.

That aside, I have still not received my order, hopefully it will be arriving soon.

I got bored though, and started to work on my next concept, which will be a Khorne demon. I may switch between this and my Tzeench concept, so that I can easily keep the styles similar. I will have my Apoc demon force in no time! . It would be nice to be able to finish all the sculpting up this year, so I have made that my goal.

Also, I took a bit of time to mess around painting my Nurgle demon, but it is really eating up my painting supplies. Hopefully I will be able to take a good amount of time to work around my space issues in my apartment, so I can set up a photo booth. Getting a bit tired of trying to show the paint, when my camera won't cooperate with me. I can't get any good pics of the paint, so I will just have to wait until later.

Here is my first sketch of the Khorne demon, though.

great stuff! keep up the awesome work, I can't wait for the khorne one

The whole thread is mega.Nice work

Khorne Demon is looking brutal.

No offense get a new concept before you even get the materials and not even done with your "KoS" just seems unorganized. I hope your concepts live up to the model, its easy just putting concepts up.

Not sure I follow what you are saying, enmitee. I have been waiting for my materials close to a month now due to a mistake on my part initially, followed by a minor mistake due the company, and the confusing practices enforced on internet sales due to GW.

It is all very complicated, so I will just skip the details. Directly to what I think your point is, namely, (why are you starting a new design already), I am moving onto the 'next' concept. This is due to the fact that I have already ordered the materials, and I have been waiting a very long time to receive them due to extenuating circumstances. After waiting for weeks, I have gotten bored, so I moved along my checklist to the next project.

If I were to do all of this by 'standard' procedure, I would be going through the design process for my entire Apoc force, prior to ANY sculpting at all. I have literally no questions about that part, and it would take me several months to carefully design an entire army. On the other hand, I wanted to start this BLOG so I could share it with Dakka and beyond, as well as having some play time on the side, doing what I enjoy.

My current mission statement, would be along the lines of:

- Make it demonic.

- Have fun doing it.

- K.I.S.S.

I like simple, elegant design, and I plan on pushing as much of that as possible, into this project.

...
...
...

Zid wrote:great stuff! keep up the awesome work, I can't wait for the khorne one

Bash the Bosh wrote:The whole thread is mega.Nice work

person person wrote:Khorne Demon is looking brutal.

Thanks guys.

I'll be finishing the Khorne demon design over the course of this month. If at the end of the month, I still have not recieved my sculpting supplies, besides being pretty fed up; I'll start my Tzeench concept and buy supplies locally... though at a price that I don't enjoy paying...

At the very least, if I don't get a sculpt started by the end of the month, I will provide polished designs for both the Khorne and Slaanesh models.

Next Khorne demon concept.

Oh wow, I wish I had seen this before you had gone through all that. I have a much easier way to create the frame. For the body get some aluminum foil and crumple it up into the basic shape. Then coat that with super sculpy(a polymer based clay that you have to bake to harden) or just the regular sculpy. Then bake it and the result will be the basic shape to apply your green stuff to. Its pretty solid and you won't need any other support.
For the hand use a metal coat hanger and some florists wire. Cut and bend the coat hanger into the desired shape and use the wire to bind it together. Then coat that with the sculpy to get the basic shape and provide structure. Bake and done. The whole process to create the underlying frame for your model would have taken you an hour including bake time.

I just refound this thread and read it.........................pure awesome.....................

ChaosDave wrote:Oh wow, I wish I had seen this before you had gone through all that. I have a much easier way to create the frame. For the body get some aluminum foil and crumple it up into the basic shape. Then coat that with super sculpy(a polymer based clay that you have to bake to harden) or just the regular sculpy. Then bake it and the result will be the basic shape to apply your green stuff to. Its pretty solid and you won't need any other support.
For the hand use a metal coat hanger and some florists wire. Cut and bend the coat hanger into the desired shape and use the wire to bind it together. Then coat that with the sculpy to get the basic shape and provide structure. Bake and done. The whole process to create the underlying frame for your model would have taken you an hour including bake time.

Sounds like a decent way to go about it. I was intending to work along these lines initially, mixing FIMO + Sculpey, for my main sculpting material. Unfortunatley, I don't have the means to bake sculpey, so I can't really do that.

There are issues with using anything besides formal armature wire, though I am not fully versed in them. Many materials will have coating on the wire, that can stain your sculpt, which isn't a big problem. When it comes to baking, the fumes can damage the kiln, and poison your house with nasty chemicals. I tend to err on the side of caution, and avoid as many complications as possible. Milliput is a very direct, friendly material, that requires little of the person working with it.

I should be receiving my sculpting materials (and the rest of my Eldar army, YAY!!! ) soon, perhaps by tomorrow as the shipment has already reached the local sorting facility.

Here is my latest concept for the Khorne Demon.

Sweet.



My materials have arrived. I can now, and already have started to bring the demon to life.

I finished up the last of my old Milliput, bulking out the torso previously (last week I think, I had a small amount left over from my last project). I'll have to wait a few hours to do any more sculpting, but I have already roughed out the torso a bit more, along with bulking out the thighs a bit.

After some thought, I've decided to wait until the end to compile a picture-based tutorial. For now, I'll be adding pictures as I progress, in real time so to speak. Here are a couple of pics though, nothing that interesting so far.

The khorne demon needs to look more like a hound (seeing as khornes got a wolf head) I think. I mean, common, a khorne apoc demon would essentially be the avatar of khorne himself (as would any apoc demon I think!)

I'll do at least one beast-style demon. From what I can find, beast-heads are actually pretty uncommon for Khorne in general. Most are more along the lines of an Ork head, or to be more specific, like the Hulk. Large jaw, smallish forehead, mildly neanderthal like. The common trait among the designs I have seen, is the inclusion of lots of horns (or phallic symbols generally, you take your pick), and very defined musculature. The closest thing to existing people, would be a guy like Andrew Sheridan, or Jonah Lomu

These guys are built like a bulls, it is a pretty awesome physique. Khorne tend to be a bit more emphasized, but I am going for a slightly less toned version. I can do musculature, but I don't want to bite off more than I can chew. My space, and tools are limited, so I have to make sure to work within those confines.

Here is the link to the Forgeworld Demon Prince. Take Johah Lomu in his peak condition, Orkify him by slightly adjusting him wider (proportions wise), and pushing the head forward to top-mid chest. Orks and Khorne seem to have an extremely similar base structure.

Anyway, here is the next stage on my Slaanesh sculpt. You will see the layers progress as I continue, it will be a lot more balanced as time go on. I need to adjust the arms a little bit, and possibly the legs as well.

looking good

NICE. I will be watching this one.

Thanks guys.

Here is a bit of progress on the sculpt.

What kind of wire do you use for the skeleton?

Armature wire, which would be aluminum wire, generally speaking. You can get fancy pre-made skeletons, but I would advise against that.

http://www.dickblick.com/products/armature-wire/

After a bit more Milliput, and some sanding.

awesome

Nice work. i really dig your concept sketches. they are honestly scary without being too pantomime. will be watching this thread eagerly.

Thanks for the support.

Here is some more progress, prior to sanding. I am starting to rough out the details, and I may have to go back and carve a few parts into shape, before sanding again. I made some minor mistakes with my armature, so the pose is a tiny bit off. I'll be working to overcome that, through this week. As soon as I have finished the main features, I will go back and work on details like armor, and things of that nature. I am not sure what I want to do with the legs for now, so I will figure out everything else before then.

Updates.

Lookin' good!