Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I feel like the proportions are coming together now, you're on the right track for sure!

That thing is somewhat horrifying. But it's coming along nicely!

Partly caught up with DDakka.

Ta, Tom. Yeah, believe in your measurements, they will come through in the end.

Thanks Snrub. I said it was uglier than you remember.

No progress to show today. But some catching up done.

So, statue mania I see! Good stuff!

Thanks Shas'. Like many hobbies, there is a tendency for a technique of the month.

You will have noticed in the previous photos that I left the eyebrows pretty sharp and distinct, and that they are not so much on the original.

This I left to dry / harden before adding more clay and sculpting the eyes up to the hard edge. This gives a defined guide to sculpt up to without problems of pressing in and distorting the position of the eyebrows.
I then used the same tactic for the mouth area.


I also added a start to the hair, with a comb no less, but it's only rough at the moment. Varying consistencies of the clay resulted in the inconsistencies in the lines. .

These details are now to be left to dry, I'll add ears in Milliput and clean up and sharpen details later.

This is really coming together beautifully. Probably a stupid question, but what approach are you going to go with the paint? Regular metals? NMM? True metallics?...

24K gold plateing or go home .

Interesting, hopefully is working better when the material dries?
Can't wait to see it finished.

Looks brilliant, and second the gold plating, or at least have a go at gold leaf, Brian been messing about with that.

I find fine detail in clay very difficult. Should do better with Milliput.

It's looking really good, your approach to the eyes and mouth is genius and speaks to your experience (and probably past frustrations)

I agree that gold leaf would be a cool approach, but I'm sure whatever you have planned will look great.

Thanks chaps.

I was planning on normal, boring, metallic paint, and a little weathering to make it look old (as in the film).
While it would be an ideal candidate for gold leaf, I don't think that'd be fair on the recipient of the Falcon, that just got black paint.

Camkierhi wrote:...I find fine detail in clay very difficult. Should do better with Milliput.

I've found that if you leave it to cool to room temp' (assuming you are massaging it in your warm hands to soften it for sticking on things) it firms up a little. Also, if you let it dry a little bit that also firms it up more.
Firmer clay makes finer details easier.
All that said, I still did what I always do with sculpting; go back in later and carve away to do the sharper details.
And Milliput is firmer and cures faster, so "easier" for these things.

Heretic Tom wrote:...your approach to the eyes and mouth is genius and speaks to your experience (and probably past frustrations)...

Yeah, even when working with epoxy putties, it's good for large shapes to have a firm base to work on for the finer details.
e.g. don't try to sculpt an entire head in one piece of putty. Make a 50% sized ball first, let that cure, and then cover that with putty to do the details in that. You won't distort the head shape as much as if you had one whole piece of soft putty.

Progress:
So much small but important work, with minimal obvious changes to the appearance.
Smoothing surfaces, sharpening details, correcting shapes, filling gaps, sculpting additional things.
I think the sculpting is done, so on to painting soon.


In other news:
I've finished my Fallout 4 settlement build at County Crossing.
Tour video recorded, edited and uploaded to YouTube. Give it a look.



Thanks for sticking around.

That's both wonderful and ghastly.

That it is Gits' that it is.

It's a shame I didn't get the head at quite the right angle (should be slightly more front-facing), but that was set from how I built the interior structure and didn't realise until I'd got past the nose and it was too late to do anything by then as most of it had dried.

In other news:
The Settlement blueprint is up on the Nexus if you want to add it to your game:
https://www.nexusmods.com/fallout4/mods/39793/

I forgot to take most of the painting-in-progress photos I intended, so here's a comparison from bare clay (and milliput) to primer, to basecoat, to gold (about 5 layers including the base).


There's mixtures of bronze/brown (the basecoat),
bronze/brown + gold/cream/yellow,
Gold/cream/yellow,
Gold/silver/yellow,
Gold,silver.

All over-brushed / dry-brushed.

I think it's now gold enough, just the eyes and a gloss coat to do.
Good thing too as it needs to be ready for mid-next-week.

I think you're doing an excellent job.

Looks shiny and ancient

Looking great

I could see some royal society of Archeologists modify that thing by hollowing out the mouth and turning it into one of those parking validation machines . “We lost Sir William and three Sherpa during the climb to get to the temple of Xhositquatsit, and young Stephen lost his left leg in that awful spike trap, but now we no longer have to wait for Suzanne to validate our parking. Anyway God save the Queen.” And then everyone in the room (especially those not paying attention) say “God save the Queen” and takes a drink.

Thanks Gits' and Graven'.

Thank you Theo'. God save the Queen!

Now that it's been handed over I can show you lot the finished piece.
Didn't get the time to do the weathering I intended, but it has a nice aged gold look anyway.

Eye progress first (I remembered to take photos of each stage this time).
Paint white.
Blend black into edges to give 3D effect.
Measure out and position dots for the centre of the eyes. *check that it appears to be looking forwards
Paint in brown for the iris
Shade, colour and detail the iris, resize the pupil to match.
Gloss coat.


With that all done varnish the whole thing.


And I can relax for a while with no presents to get done for months.
Normal service will resume soon (I have actually started the flesh on the tripod).

That's one fantastic idol, would be honoured to raid it from a tomb!

Very cool, looks authentic!

The eyes have it excellent indeed

Thanks all.

And now back to the bloat drone.
Fleshy bits done.
Looks a bit flat in the photos, but has a bit more colour to it IRL. That should stand out more once the contrasting armour colour is on.


Not sure what will be next on the building desk, this should be the point where I start job searching more seriously. We will have to see.

I love the more human-like tones to the flesh. I always thought it was so much more disgusting to have the flesh look almost recognizable, compared to the more traditional fantasy green flesh that GW puts on their Nurgle models.

Amazing recreation on the idol. The drone will really be something, too. Heck of a project.

I like the flesh tone as well .

Idol came out great! and wondering how that bloat thing will come out at the end?

Thanks Gwyn'. Yeah, I prefer a more realistic look to things. There is green as well as blue, red and yellow in with the flesh tones.
I spent a long time researching dead skin tones from photos on Google for the pox walkers, so I'm going to put that "experience" to use as often as possible.

Thanks youwashock.

Thanks Theo'.

Thanks shas'. I do too.

Been blocking in the base colours for the other parts of the drone:
Steel (with a touch of orange) for metallic parts. Will get rustier.
Brass bits. Will get verdigris-ier.
And purple for the armour plates. Will get faded and weathered to the point of not much of this left showing... is the plan.


In other news;
I put up a couple of mobile device wallpapers on my ko-fi page. Nothing exciting, just my painting board surface.
While many of you may be able to take your own photos of your own boards, I though someone here may appreciate them.
Example screenshots (quite large pictures):

Link to my ko-fi page to get the "plain" pictures: https://ko-fi.com/theminidetailsofdrh
They are free for anyone. But I wouldn't say no to a coffee while you are there.

I absolutely love that purple. It's like a ripe bruise. There's not enough purple nurgle. Looks ace.

Purple , that’s different, not bad, just different .

I guess I’m strange, my desk gets very little paint on it, but neat to look at.

Thanks Graven'. Good way of thinking about the purple.

Thanks Theo'. Different is good in my books.

My desk gets no paint on it , I have a wooden board that has been in use as a modelling and painting surface for...a long time... it was in use before I started modelling ~3 decades ago.
It's had so much build-up of glue and paint I now have no qualms about using it as a pallet for small quantities of paint while blending etc.

Progress...
It's not had as much attention as it could have the past week or so, but enough has changed now that it's work showing.


Still a lot more weathering to do: Streaks, Verdigris, orange rust, silver highlights (rubbed off metal edges), etc.