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I am planning on reinforcing everything with a inner chickenwire frame. The entire torso will be filled with hot glue on the inside so it can help support the framing on the model. The arms will be supported by a sub-structure of coat-hanger wire inserted into custom ports along the plastic. That reminds me to get a mini table clamp, although they seem awfully overpriced for 5 bits of cheap metal. Something important to keep in mind is this is more of a "skeleton" than an armature, and will form a main part of the models surface area. I plan to economize my use of the green stuff and milliput by mixing them to achieve a more clay-like nature. From what I have read green stuff sounds a lot like soggy bread, or noodle dough sculptures. Yes I make food sculptures; don't worry it usually involves a carcass of some kind and I bring the floss out for a puppet show ( )... Hmmm. Anyway the green stuff sounds like it has a dynamic nature that can be used in stages during its curing process. Different mixes and ambient room temperatures effect how AND when you can work with these epoxy putties, so I will have to keep that in mind, and employ what I call the slap-dash scraping and sanding technique. 1 part Yellow-gray milli" to 1 part green stuff is my initial plan, the green stuff itself will be mixed with a high ratio of Yellow (yes I know this is getting confusing, think Yellow-gray, and Yellow) part to blue part.

On top of this I have added enough struts to make the torso look like a bridge . I will also support the elbows with strips of welded plastic. I'll see if I can put up a few pics of what I have done so far.

I called my local hardware store for some prices and current stock. For milliput they carry 3 types= Super fine white (23.99$), Silver-grey (25.99), and my personal favorite (I wonder why?) Yellow-gray (14.99$!). All come in 4 oz. packs (both tubes, one tube... dunno I forgot to ask) and after reviewing the milliput site Yellow-gray appears to be a more industrial grade, whereas the others are more suited for fine work. I am going to try a blend or two that I read online, but any information on the Yellow-gray milliput before I run headfirst into this brick-wall would be great.

I dont think that there would be too many problems using sprue . . .

Once you get it all done together and hot glued with the wire and things, it would probably hold together quite well. Then once the milliput goes on and drys rock solid youll have a good base

In answer to the milliput question, I reckon would be fine to start a base with. Ive found it can be abit iffy in big quantities trying to use it, but keeping it lubricated and not trying anything too fiddly and it would be fine. I havnt used the other type so cant really comment on that

WOWZAZS I just made a mess of my trousers
that thing is going to be huge
and its damb scary
fabulous drawings i like the idea of you planning it out
Excellent job
ABH

So I went and got all of the supplies I need (I hope) besides the green stuff. I am planning to use the yellow milliput mixed with a smidge of vaseline to keep it from cracking. I will do a test mini-sculpt with this mixture before proceeding, I'll make some sort of demonic Charlie Brown head ( ). At this point all I need to do is add the wiring inside to create a basket in the torso to do the glue. Please do note that I am most definitely taking the long way around on purpose. Formal models do not use plastic regularly; instead wire frames and/or wire armature are made for proper sculpting. The main goal here was to help me design conceptually in 3-d; all welds are easily changed and I put around 2 hours of time into making this so far. My second goal was to incorporate the plastic "skeleton" into the final model, making the model very deep and dynamic in the final product. Now that I am done stabbing at bats in the dark, I can see what I have made with a lot more clarity. When drawing your concepts limit yourself to around 10 minutes a piece; you can easily achieve this by working with simple shapes and textures. Your second set of conceptual pictures should take you no more than one hour each; yet again achieved through simple techniques this time with a bit more experience and hand control. If you zoom into my drawings you can see the pencil techniques I have used with relative clarity.

As I said before wire frames (using chickenwire mainly) are commonplace in the sculpting/ modeling industry. Making them requires a bit of practice and gloves. This wire will cut you so badly it is not even funny. There is wire products made specifically for this although I doubt it is much better than the regular hardware supplies. A nice thing about wire is that making simple forms is quite easy and requires little to no forethought. The simplest way to start a body would be taking a cylinder of low gauge (1/8-1/4") chicken wire or something to that effect, then simply begin forming the basic shape of a torso, head, arm, etc... These chicken wire frames are best used on medium to small sculptures that use lighter materials so that no filling is needed besides a wire support structure inside.

I will update before I start to sculpt this monstrosity.

Here are some pictures of the model with the hot glue used. I actually found the price of glue sticks very unreasonable. I will have to consider ordering them online as both stores I stopped at charged like 7$ for 24 sticks, and I have already used 15 of them... Online they cost at least half the price, I recommend doing some price checks on your hot-glue sticks before buying them. The gun was about 7$ as well, around what I expected.

Your picture



Reminds me of this >< ( sorry im just weird )

ROFL

That looks like the program they used for that flying ninja game. Man... what was the name. Hilarious stuff, you just fling a stickfigure guy around and try to kick other stickguys in various vulnerable areas. Ooooh that is a tongue twister. Try it... lol. The game had no real technique that I could figure out, the stickguys just wobbled around and spinned in an unalterable direction drastically when you would move them.

Here is a Yellow-gray milliput foot thing that I made to test out the properties of the gunk. I'll see how it responds to acrylics at some point as well, I'm pretty sure they will work fine. The milliput was mixed with a bit of water, then shaped with a wet cue-tip and my fingers. It felt surprisingly like clay when it was wet, but it responded very poorly to heavy shaping and cutting. I see this stuff (so far) as a pretty "flesh" to supplement the hot-glue in areas that need a bit more strength (shoulders, head, etc...) as well as providing a rough shape for my milliput/ greenstuff mix. I'll do all of the fine detail with only greenstuff.

Here is the "zombie" foot. The milliput did not do that well for wounds.

firstly: omg lune you are strange (and have changed your avatar AGAIN!!!)

secondly: cool foot. i advise you wait until the milliput drys before putting in wounds.

Methinks there must be a cheaper alternative to glue sticks . . . that really is expensive as feth

Good to see some flesh on the bones and is getting ever more exciting to see the final piece

So I have put a layer of the milliput onto the back of torso. It is working out to be much too expensive for my current budget. I'll stop at a store and get some Das clay, which is probably what I should have done from the start. At only 5$ pound or so it seems to be the cheapest alternative I can find. Applying it in coats should help avoid any cracking.

For my detail I plan to use a mix of milliput and green stuff, although the green stuff is appearing to be cheaper and a better choice overall. I am not sure I even need any milliput at this point, nor could I afford enough to complete this project withing a reasonable price range.

Here is a picture of the torso.

First off wrex, the sprue skeleton is pure genius. I have litterally dozens of sprues that I thought I was saving for something.... but I had no idea what for. Thanks for the inspiration!

Second, try Ebay for cheap greenstuff. Lookup "kneadatite" and you can find pretty big rolls on the cheap, if you haven't secured a source already.

Looking good so far - one thing you can do to add cheap bulk is used scrunched up tin foil (aluminium baking foil) - it's a lot cheaper than milliput!
Another time, if you start with a wire armature, you could use polymer clays - no good with a sprue armature though, because you have to bake it. But something like Super Sculpey Firm Grey works great for this kind of large scale sculpt. And they're usually a lot cheaper than epoxy putties.

Looking forward to seeing more!

metallifan wrote:They look like they're going to be Apoc sized. Is it just me or does anyone else mess their pants at the thought of meeting one of these in a dark alley?

I wouldn't want to meet one of these things on a bright sunny day in the greek isles!

What kind of deamon is it?

Thank you for your responses. I appreciate it.
It turns out the Yellow-gray milliput is perfect for what I am doing. It is rock solid after around 2-3 hours, seriously awesome stuff. I will still work with Das clay to save some cash; I will try using aluminum foil as filler for another project. In terms of the background of this beast, I am not sure at this point. It has the essence of a tzeentch flamer and a demon prince. I do not actually play Apocalypse so I would have no clue how to make this actually work in a game. Off the top of my head I would call it a tzeentch demon lord of the plague, something along those lines. I am planning on making the model quite putrid overall, making the worm-like head even more disgusting. I have taken some time to think about the base and I am beginning to think that a "spilled guts" sculpt would fit in with the models style. The stomach and organs could have eyes, mouth, and all sorts of other out of place parts. The intestines could be working like legs, and they would each end in a vicious alien mouth, they would basically be miniature versions of the main head. As a last effect razor wire wrapped through the "guts" base and spiraling up to the arms would be pretty cool imho. I could even throw a guardsmen or marine into the coils to give the model a bit more pizazz. I couldn't think of a simple way to make a "void" base so I will go down this way instead. Adding extra sub arms may happen at some point, perhaps some gut-stained demon blades for hands. I'll take a bit more time as I work on the rest of the core to think about what textural effects should be used. Any input on this would be nice. For now I am thinking about using rotting flesh, exposed muscle, bone, detailed guts.

Here is a picture of the torso as well as an interesting face I may think about making for this model as an alternate head. Can you guess where this image is from?

I really like your thoughts on the "inner workings" so to speak. Spilling guts is a must for anything plague worthy, adding heads and eyes on the exposed parts does sound a really awesome idea and will be awesome to see it actually brought to life

Glad to see your having luck with milliput modelling, has inspired me to try out scratch building my own squig for my warboss

Looking good! I am following this with interest as my next project will involve sculpting a hierophant for my other son. Maybe I can pick up some good hints.

Thats is really really scary

Craziness!!

But I like it! It's very interesting to see the sculpt as it progresses.

-Alex in Alaska

I have ran into a brick-wall with my materials. There seems to be no stores that carry Das-clay, but they carry other air drying clays. At this point I guess I have no choice but to try another option. Although I will be getting materials online I would like to take some time to continue experimenting with multi-media. If the air dry clay that I end up getting can stick to plastic, hot-glue, and green stuff I think this will work. If not I will have to buy milliput in bulk from somewhere, just because it does EXCACTLY what I need it to do.

I shouldn't be so pessimistic but I doubt I will find a clay that could potentially work as well as Das-clay. Frustrating. The only place I can get green stuff is at my local gaming store, so I am bound to buy my green stuff online. I also hesitate to use Ebay, but I should be able to find a legit company that I can buy direct for cheap. Not a huge fan of sending my money to someones garage quite honestly, threre is really no practical way to just get my stuff if any of these "garage-companies" decide to douche me out of my cash.

Wrexasaur wrote:a tzeentch demon lord of the plague

Eh?

If it were to be an new Apocalypse demon. That would be what I would call it. Not a fan of fluff mongering so this guy hardly has to be directly linked to the army.

To make it clear I will call it the "Non-WH40K related monster of a thousand eyes who reeks of rotting flesh and dismembered guts which enjoys a nice cooperative table-top game or two as a substitute for a model of equivelant size". Very Monty-Pythonesque title if you ask me. If I got slapped with a lawsuit for some outlandish reason I would simply have the monsters title take the form of the legal papers. And now we present his 10 page name, with a beautiful binding and nice sterile lettering.

If someone could take a second to explain how this unit could be added to an apocalypse game as some sort of new demonic super-heavy tank, that would be nice.

I think your best bet to making it apocalypse worthy would be to make it just an increased size chaos titan. Give it some structure points and stuff

Id offer more help but my apocalypse rulebook has been taken hostage by my stepbrother . . I fear to never see it again

And who says it has to be any kind of chaos god, just go with chaos undivided, that way you dont nessecrily need to base it around one god or whatever, I would go with it bieng more nurgle than tzeetch if you ask me

I went out and got some air-drying clay and it looks pretty promising. The brand is Amaco, and this stuff can be air-dryed or baked in a ceramic kiln as well. It looks and feels like regular clay that I have worked with and made regularly, just lacking the same grit, which is a good thing for this project. I have also bought a few tools and made a few as well. In terms of tools you can easily make or find anything you need. The main difference in store bought tools (besides the often preposterous prices) is the quality of the materials they are made out of. If you have a chance ask your dentist for some old tools he has laying around because they are pretty much the highest quality you can get. Ordering medical tools can't be cheap so getting free spare ones is a great alternative.

I do suppose it is more nurgle overall. It is mainly the "face" and head that makes me think of tzeentch.

if your useing a low temp glue gun try a local dollar store you get 30 for 1.00$

OMG The dollar store...duh. How did I forget to check there.
Thank you for the reminder.

So far great progress. As for the hot glue, goto a Family Dollar or any dollar store and youll get the bags of the hot glue sticks for a BUCK good hunting

Update. I'll do a bit more work to use the clay I have out tonight. Tomorrow I will see how the clay turned out.

Wrexasaur wrote:ROFL

That looks like the program they used for that flying ninja game. Man... what was the name. Hilarious stuff, you just fling a stickfigure guy around and try to kick other stickguys in various vulnerable areas. Ooooh that is a tongue twister. Try it... lol. The game had no real technique that I could figure out, the stickguys just wobbled around and spinned in an unalterable direction drastically when you would move them.

Surely you aren't referring to Teenage Mutant Ninja Puppets? http://teenage-mutant-ninja-puppet.10001downloads.com/

(If anyone could tell me how to fix it so that I can just make the word a link instead of posting the address that would be great)


On topic: I think this project is a great example of how to do something with sprues, the only resource most war-gamers have in abundance. But I'm not sold on the use of the clay as it seems to have started... dripping... but this might eventually contribute to the daemon's rotting appearance so I don't know.

I saw a different version of the same game. Fun stuff.

In terms of my project I am beginning to doubt the viability of using this many materials. The air drying clay just lacks the strength to avoid crumbling. Perhaps it needs some more time before I pass any final judgments. The clay on the hand was basically a waste of time so I just took it all off. I may be able to make a base out of this stuff but that seems to be the limit for it's use. The clay looks wet because I put everything together using scoring and a clay "slip" mix I made. The "slip" is just a watery version of the clay, this technique is very common for putting pottery handles and sculptures together.

On a positive note I did find a good deal on green stuff. At 10$ a container I simply can't complain. Too my astonishment milliput ends up costing quite a bit more than most of the Kneadatite I have found. I am interested in using some of the different types of Kneadatite, and I think the Brown/ Aluminum would be an even better alternative to the Yellow-gray milliput, as well as being A LOT cheaper. In total I would have to end up spending around 60-80$ on this model using only green stuff so I will see how this clay turns out. If it's a total flop, I will gladly use the Amaco air-drying clay to make terrain. It seems to hate blending with any other material, so I doubt I can tell it otherwise. I don't want an angry lump of clay sitting in the corner waiting to get it's revenge.

This project WILL be completed, I just need to sit down and run some numbers if the clay poops out on me. My main goal in this project IS to save money. Overall I may not achieve this as I am obviously more interested in finishing the model itself. The sprue skeleton has been very helpful throughout all the stages of this project, so next time around I can finish the model in as little as a week (depending on the materials used).

So far the materials that have proven effective are=
- Sprue bits
- Yellow-gray milliput mixed with petroleum jelly for consistency
(DO NOT be afraid to ask how old materials are when buying them; totally not cool to sell old epoxy)
- Low gauge reinforcement wire mesh (chicken-wire or equivalent) tied on with wire or zip ties
- Hot-glue to fill cavities of non-sculpted areas (if you are paying more than 2-3$ for 30 sticks you are at the wrong store)

So here is a update on the clay. I can't say it is as bad as I expected, because the label warned me of this reaction. It has begun to form MASSIVE cracks in the areas where is is connected (in any way...) to another kind of material. Basically what I expected, but not as crumbly and weak. Overall I would still consider this stuff fantastic for base and terrain making, but it is still sub-par to milliput as a solid material. In terms of price you can't beat it, but it can end up causing massive delays in you projects (which is not my style personally), because of the prep-work and layering involved. You can spray shellac over the clay to get a stronger surface, but I doubt my model will appreciate being sprayed with the stuff.

Here is a picture of the cracking. I will have to super-glue the cracks. In terms of clay this stuff is layered quite thin, and only cracks like this next to the other materials; so making the process any more complicated is a no-go for me. Slip did not work so super-glue will have to do it's job or this model will not be using the clay at all. This clay has a lot of quartz in it, which I believe is the main reason it cracks so much and is able to "air-dry". All clay "air-dries" and I have yet to see how this clay is any better than regular stuff that I could make from materials in my back yard and a few screens.

Fun times with art supplies and the world of overpriced goods

Went and got some cheap glue sticks. After thinking about using super-glue to improve the integrity I decided that hot-glue would be a more supportive material. Super-glue tends to be quite brittle and I think that would compound the problem that I already have with the clay. Hot-glue is also going to save me a lot of green stuff for the guts, it actually looks eerily gut-like. Here are a few pictures. At this point I am going to think about how to put the shoulders together. Any advice is appreciated. I was planning to use a beer-bottle cap coated in petroleum jelly to make a mold for the magnets housing. I will probably make these joints with milluput and green stuff for strength. Possibly hot-glue reinforced with wire instead to save a bit of money. Would I be able to do something with sprues? I'll have to ponder that for a bit; I can't imagine super glue being able to last under the magnets strength. Remember that I plan to use more than one magnet for these connections. It may be possible to use the bigger magnets, but those things make my computer extremely nervous.

Most of what you see in this latest picture IS NOT going to form the final surface of the model. I may even use layer of foundation paint to further sculpt the model.

Any advice is appreciated.