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Ok, I was going to wall of text, but I'll wait until I actually have something to show you. Basically, my question is going out to Dakka's sculpting community, and I'm looking forward to some feedback!

I really love this little lady.



and I have every intention to use her in Inq 28. Now, the problem herein is that she is this big.



(The credit of such lovely painting is sadly, not mine) whereas, I want her to be taller, more or less human height. Now, how would I go about doing that? How would I go about making a Dwarf (23mm tall) into a human (28mm give or take) . I'm a fairly competent sculptor, so I'd like to believe that gap filling, and minor sculpting from scratch should be within my ability.

And just for the record, no, I don't want her to be a squat. I hate Squats.

Any takers to help me out?

What about extending her legs a bit. Just above the knees. Giving her longer thighs.
And adding a little bit to her stomach. Her midrif is crying out to be cut just below the top and above the belly button.

As mentioned, extend the legs and torso, I'd do arms as well. Can use another model as reference, alternatively do the math from another source like your own dimensions. Or if you can recruit a female for measurements, careful how and what you ask for though!

I'd carefully cut/saw the limbs and extend them by pinning them in place and filling in with greenstuff. Personally I'd extend below the knees, as she looks to be wearing kneepads which would otherwise end up awkwardly low. Or remove the kneepads and resculpt the pants a bit after legextensions. For arms I suspect both sides of the elbow as not to disrupt proportions.

Oh good call on the arms. Didn't think of that.
Also your right about the legs. Cut below the kneepads and lengthen the shins.

Ok, so I've ordered Hayden, and due to your comments, I also picked up one of Kev's armatures as well. The armature was primarily for the proportions, and if I balls up chopping, I can maybe substitute in limbs? I invested in a resin Hayden, despite it being three times the price of the metal. Go figure. But, I think the price is worth it considering I will be snipping Hayden up into a dozen pieces, and Resin is easier to play around with than Metal.



So. Here's what you guys have helped me come up with! I think you are definitely right when it comes down to her legs. They really need to be longer, and it was always going to have to come down to extending the legs, or getting suitable replacements. In the picture, I've extended them just under the knees by a little bit (maybe a mm or two?) which I think already gives her nicer proportions, as opposed to the Dwarf Knee>foot style she had going already. I've held off of fiddling with the thighs yet, as I'll await to see if you folks thing it'd be necessary, but I've also taken the opportunity to extend her torso. Does it look like it works? Not sure about fiddling with the arms, one of them (holding the gun) looks to be in an awkward position to do snipping with.

 ghosty wrote:
Not sure about fiddling with the arms, one of them (holding the gun) looks to be in an awkward position to do snipping with.

Wouldn't have to snip it as such, if you file down where the forearm meets the upper arm on the topside and then extend the elbow and forearm slightly downward with GS it'll make the arm longer without having to snip nor move the weapon.



See how she looks without extending the arms first I suppose, really depends on how fiddly you are with the measurements. Might look ok even if you don't extend the arms.

Edit: apparently my demonstration picture was removed from the gallery.

To give my honest opinion... if it's not broke don't fix it. I know plenty of 4-5 foot tall people, and her face and proportions bring her into scale. Dwarf scale is like 3-4 foot tall.

If you really want a taller model than find a taller model. There are plenty of 'sci-fi' chicks out there. It is not worth it to sculpt, it's hard enough to do a true-scale marine but altering the human body takes a lot of skill to make it look realistic, I would not recommend unless you are an experienced sculptor.

 Meade wrote:
To give my honest opinion... if it's not broke don't fix it. I know plenty of 4-5 foot tall people, and her face and proportions bring her into scale. Dwarf scale is like 3-4 foot tall.

If you really want a taller model than find a taller model. There are plenty of 'sci-fi' chicks out there. It is not worth it to sculpt, it's hard enough to do a true-scale marine but altering the human body takes a lot of skill to make it look realistic, I would not recommend unless you are an experienced sculptor.

This. It's kinda characterful (and cute!) that she's short. And that's not too short: that's 5 ft. at least. 5 ft. tall is average for asian ladies.

I do see and agree with you points, to an extent, and it would certainly be easier to leave as is.

However, Hayden will be in a big mans world, and sizing her up is a necessity. Height wise, she's about half the size of a space marine, and in inq 28, they'll be true scaled, meaning she'll end up being about as tall as their shins. On top of that, I'd like to improve my sculpting technique, for bigger projects to come!

 ghosty wrote:
I do see and agree with you points, to an extent, and it would certainly be easier to leave as is.

However, Hayden will be in a big mans world, and sizing her up is a necessity. Height wise, she's about half the size of a space marine, and in inq 28, they'll be true scaled, meaning she'll end up being about as tall as their shins. On top of that, I'd like to improve my sculpting technique, for bigger projects to come!

based on that picture, I still don't see it as an issue... personally. Even if you have the marines true-scaled, the whole point of that is that they tower over humans. Also I doubt she would reach only to their shins. More likely to the waist.

But if you want to improve your sculpting technique, this is certainly a good way to do it. I'd try looking at some pictures of proper proportions for the human body, and keep in mind you will most likely need to resculpt each limb, at the joint, including the waist... and those are the areas of most detail.

Trial by fire it is then! Thankyou though, I really am grateful of the replies I've got on this, it's nice to see how responsive Dakka can be when they want to be!

@Meade - I've invested, along with Hayden, in buying one of Hasslefrees Female armatures. I'm not entirely sure of what to use it for, other than for help with scale, but I'll think of something, and, whatever I use it for, having to sculpt most of it will lend me a hand with improving!

Good luck with the conversion ghosty. Shows us how it turns out.

Might just do a head swap? Hasslefree have a few other figures who have a similar look, which isn't dwarfish. Swap out the heads and soldier on.

Another possibility is to "cheat" a bit by simply putting her on a taller base.