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Its true, I am finally diving into a full-fledged figure sculpt for the first time. Now that I have all these casting materials, I want to put them to some good use and make something worth selling! The only way I'll be able to do that is with some practice. For starters, I decided to go with a large model that I can exaggerate proportions to make sculpting easier.

Below is the sketch of the basic design I plan to use. I'll be using bits for the head and wings, so this mainly focuses on the body. This design shows the proportions of the model, and I have yet to add armor or any other such adornment to the model. Let me explain some things: The feet are going to be hooves, so I have yet to sketch those out until I can look at some other miniatures or real-world examples. The legs are going to be covered in coarse hair or fur. Think of the Hell Knight from the old-school Doom games. I'll be draping a loin-cloth of chainmail or some-such covering across the groin area, secured by a large leather belt with a skull buckle.

I haven't decided which way I want to go for the head. I am planning on using either a Minotaur head from the fantasy line, or a Bloodletter head. I have bought both from bitz retailers and will wait until I can compare them directly before deciding which fits better.

The weapon probably will not look like that in the finished product. I will have to find a suitable design to use, but that one illustrated won't be it, I assure you.

Now to build the armature, the foundation that you build upon.

I made the armature from floral wire, found near the sewing section in my local wal-mart. It comes in green rods, and it slightly more pliable than a jumbo paperclip. I twisted together lengths of it until it resembled the basic underlying skeleton of the piece I desired. This is where you will decide the pose it will take.

Below is pictured the finished armature with some additional bulk from 2 part epoxy putty, the kind you find in the adhesives section at a department store. This putty dries very hard, and doesn't have much working time and is quite rough in texture, but these qualities make it perfect for making the foundation of the miniature. This makes the greensculpt stronger, which allows it to better survive the mold-making process. The greenstuff will completely cover it, so there is little to worry about in the way of thumbprints or other screw-ups.

At this stage, things do not have to be perfect. As you can see, I didn't match the proportions of the sketch very closely at all. I just made the basic shape (a little smaller than the sketch) that will be filled in with greenstuff as I go.

I plan on working from the legs up. Sculpting is a very long process due to the long curing time of greenstuff, so this may be a very long project. I'll need some support to see it through, so make sure you guys give me lots of harassment to finish it up!

--FP135

Why is the right leg's bottom slanted :x

I knew it was a matter of time before somebody noticed! I corrected the problem. The advantage to using a wire armature underneath is that you can break the joints to reset them if necessary.

I needed to secure it more firmly to the gerber lid, so I am waiting for the superglue to dry before I can continue. I had errands to run so I'm a bit behind what I wanted to accomplish for the day, so forgive me!

Turn your head and cough... no but seriously I haven't been getting as much done with this as I had hoped to. I'm getting closer to finishing him, but he still needs some work.