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Here are my two of my three current projects, the two that are for me.

A waywatcher, just finished the sculpt, now to paint!


A wood elf dragon in the armature stage:


And my last finished project, the previous waywatcher.



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A DnD mini I've been messing with... I don't play, but this is what I've been working on the past few days. (Had to stop working on Warhammer stuff, I think it's bad protocol to say, "Sure, I'll get to your mage, but not until I finish my own army of thirty-forty figures!")

Anyway, this mage is based on some screenshots I was sent for reference, from Skyrim, something else which I don't play...



I have some other WIP shots and a couple of the reference pics on my blog too.
http://www.revelenminiatures.com/2013/03/d-mage-skyrim-based-unpainted.html

Aaand I painted her up today! Small, she looks pretty good. Once you get them blown up this big, you see everything you should have done...



I've got more of her, and a bit of her WIP on my blog:
http://www.revelenminiatures.com/2013/03/mage-skyrim-based.html

Ok, so I thought it could be kinda cool to do a bit of a photo log of a model, from start to finish. I'm obviously not finished yet, but here's where I'm at so far. This one is going to be a third waywatcher, charging into battle, swinging his bow at the foe. What a blow. Fo' Sho'... Sorry...

So, here's the first stage, just the armature.


And moving on, I've put a super-thin super-lining of super sculpey and super glue over the armature. you can start to see what the model I have in mind will look like with the thicker armature.


Next, I bulked out the figure with very basic shapes, trying to get just about the right amounts of clay in each area so that once I begin sculpting, I won;t have to be smearing new clay on or slicing clay off. At least, hopefully not too much!


Finally, here is where I was an hour or so ago, more or less done sculpting the face and hood, moving on to the cloak.

That action pose on the last waywatcher is pretty cool man =)

Thanks! I think so too, but the more action-y, spread out thepose is, the harder the sculpting becomes... we'll see if I can get through without completely mucking him up...


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Latest progress on the waywatcher from this morning. Off to work now, blegh, but tonight I can hopefully smooth him out and add some little detail-y bits! (haven't ouched his right boot yet, either...

Phiu. FInally some sleep and down time. Well, actually, the down time is eating up the sleep time, but hey... Anyway, playing with GS in my down time, I finished up the waywatcher. (Finaly!) Practically fogot what the poor guy looked like.

He's going to be the unit champ, so he's got a little Spite with him. My spite has winds and is humanoid, though if you could see his back, it's long and arched like a lizard. Not really a fan of the latest lizard-gnome-gumby spites on the Elves lately...


And the front view, just 'cause...


Side view.


And the back of his cloak. I started out with GS vines, laying flat, but then I was like, "*@$^@( this 2-D ^%&$*, I'm going the wire route! So now he has flowering Wire and GS vines flapping around back there. I zoomed thorugh them fast so they're kinda messy, but hey, it's the effect we're going for, right?


Hopefully Painting him tomorrow!

Off the sculpting topic, I've got the first model painted for my old high elf army, testing out a "setting sun" colour-scheme. The actual paint job is a bit more pastel/washed out than this image, I think.


I kinda really like this idea for the shields, or at least some of them.

Finished him up this afternoon. Pretty happy with the results, in terms of planning out an army colour scheme. Banners are going to be fun!



There's more of him, and some other stuff here, too:
http://www.revelenminiatures.com/2013/03/15/lothern-sea-guard/

Looking good. I really like the dynamic pose of the waywatcher champ and his flowing cloak. Those poses are hard to create but you did this very well.

How did you create the cloak? I always struggle on free flowing cloaks like those. Did you use a basic shape to sculpt the folds onto or everything in one step. And if so how?

 btldoomhammer wrote:
How did you create the cloak? I always struggle on free flowing cloaks like those. Did you use a basic shape to sculpt the folds onto or everything in one step. And if so how?

All in one step. If you go back up the thread a ways, I've got some pictures of the process. Basically, the cloak was a wobbly, wrinkled loop of wire. I lightly superglued it, and then smooshed two thin sheets of sculpey together with the super-glued wire in the midst. From there, I could just manipulate the clay into the folds I wanted, always allowing for the armature. Do you sculpt then? I'd love to see some stuff, not enough people really try it out!

Anyway, I started painting him this evening;
I painted his cloak, the flowering vines on it, and his face. Tomorrow I shall finish!

 Revelen wrote:

All in one step. If you go back up the thread a ways, I've got some pictures of the process. Basically, the cloak was a wobbly, wrinkled loop of wire. I lightly superglued it, and then smooshed two thin sheets of sculpey together with the super-glued wire in the midst. From there, I could just manipulate the clay into the folds I wanted, always allowing for the armature. Do you sculpt then? I'd love to see some stuff, not enough people really try it out!

Thanks for the answer. What i've tried so far was using plasticard or a thicker metal foil as a base. It does work but as it isn't that bendeable it is hard to create flowing stuff with. I also tried flattening GS over vaseline and attach it after an hour or so. It does work for free flowing stuff but doesn't have nice folds. I'll try your approch and experiment with milliput/Greenstuff to see if this works form me. But i probably need another wire. The ones i own are either too hard or too flexible.
And yes i do sculpt but more to supplement my CSM army. I haven't done that many complete miniatures from scratch. And most are missing their heads and hands. You can see a lot of my stuff in the blog in my signature.

I only use foil or anything bulky if I'm trying to take up space for a giant or something. It's more to keep it light, and to save $ on clay than anything else. i find that Garden wire works well for limbs, torsos, capes, etc. Thin jewelry wire is good for anything smaller than an arm. For big stuff that needs some strength, i'll go with a 16 gauge wire or so. Also, I am NOT a fan of green stuff for the main sculpt. It's just too elastic. (ABC bubblegum, anyone?) You push a bit on one side, and the other side warps. Gah! If you work in layers, then you limit yourself to your starting frame; nothing is re-workable. Super Sculpey is beautiful. I only use GS to add very 3-D dimensions AFTER the sculpey has been baked. That's just me though, I'm wierd.

Visited your blog, too. Very cool. Very bizarre. Bit disturbing, but VERY well done! I love all the little mechanized faces and such. You've been at this a while, I can tell!

I didn't mean the typical metal foil but stronger stuff(thickness of 0,15 mm).

And like you i only use the thin foil for larger pieces(walker tank, demon princess and my chaos spawns).

I often use milliput as a base. It is rather cheap and can be cut down if there is to much stuff on some areas.

But i made some experimenting with fimo putty as an oven backing clay. The results where promising for the main body of my figures but i had a hard time on arms, legs and heads as the stuff didn't stick to the wire and always rotated around it as i sculpted.
How good clings super sculpey to wires? Maybe i should give it a try. Or could it be that the wires i used were to smooth?

That's some amazing work. How does super sculpey compare to premo sculpey or sculpey III? I've generally preferred the latter, but there seems to be a massive degree of variation between different colors (with both premo and III), for some reason.


My go-to for free-flowing cloth or flat but curving surfaces (like wings) has been aluminum mesh: it's workable enough to shape it how you will, but rigid enough to remain in position when clay is added to it. It's also extremely cheap.

Sir Pseudonymous wrote:...How does super sculpey compare to premo sculpey or sculpey III? I've generally preferred the latter, but there seems to be a massive degree of variation between different colors (with both premo and III), for some reason.

Sculpey is pretty much sculpey, really. Super Sculpey is a little bit smoother than a lot of colours in the other lines, and Super Sculpey Firm holds details a bit better. Some colours are really prone to cracking and such. The problem of different consistencies with different colours is a common polymer thing. FIMO is especially bad that way. But yeah, I'd say super sculpey firm is the way to go.

btldoomhammer wrote:
...How good clings super sculpey to wires? Maybe i should give it a try. Or could it be that the wires i used were to smooth?

NOT AT ALL. Sculpey will spin, twirl, and rip on the wires, just as you mentioned. There are two easy fixes. One is to coat the armature with a very thin layer of Green Stuff, and then cover the green stuff with sculpey before it sets.

What I like to do is to actually lightly superglue thin sheets of unbaked sculpey around the armature. The superglue binds the innermost sculpey to the wire, and you are then free to add and remove sculpey as you see fit, whereas the green stuff limits the depth to which you can sculpt. Just go easy on the superglue! I think there's actually a bit of a documentation of me doing this farther up the thread, let me check!



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Yeah, about two thirds of the way into the thread, you can see the various stages where I was building up this latest model, armature, superglue/sculpey, more sculpey.

Ah sorry. I must have missed the step where you mention the sugerglued sculpey. Thanks for pointing it out.
I'll try the same with the fimo i have.

 btldoomhammer wrote:
I'll try the same with the fimo i have.

I have to admit, the only real upside that I'v noticed to FIMO is that it seems to vulcanize to a bit more durable final product. But not much. As far as my own sculpting preferences have informed me, I'd have to recomend spending the $15 on a block of Super-Sculpey Firm. FIMO is just always so crumbly and dense, it seems...

Well i have a block of fimo soft. It starts very crumbly but after short kneading it turns soft. But as i don't own sculpey i can't compare. I thought about getting some but i probably should start painting again before creating new models for my "need-painting" box. It is really full now ...

And thanks for all the advise.

Yeah, good point. There's always more to paint than there should be, isn't there... The thing about FIMO, is it's crumbly, but soft once kneaded. However, I often let a model sit overnight, and then you g back to mush it around a bit, and the torso starts cracking off or some-such. Obviously, some people like it though. To be honest, it became my enemy when I was about 13, and I haven't re-explored it since. Perhaps it's time, if your projects go well!

Yay! Finally sat down and finished this guy up. I like him!
Shadow Sentinel


With his full basing...


And the Spite on his leg. Just 'cause it's cute...



More shots of him finished up here, if anyone's interested.

Another waywatcher I'm working on.

Armature...


Here's the sculpt before it's painted.


And with a first base-coat/underpainting on it.


So, honestly speaking, does it look like she's leaping off the stump, or does it look like she's growing out of it like a fungus?


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Finished up her paint job and based her. One more waywatcher, and I can can build a fun movement tray, and I'll be two units into my army!!!





More of her here...