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Thanks Pneumo, I've been considering buying the green stuff tube tool. The carapace plates are looking good on the worm.

Well it's certainly been a while once again...
But I've decided to start and share a few projects once again. Special thanks to Syro for checking up on me to see if I'm still kicking around.
Enjoy the pictures of all my current WIPs

First off a sculpting project I started (and almost finished) today (sculpted in Beesputty, so it needs to be baked). It'll either be a stone or an ice golem, not sure yet which one. It mainly needs finishing touches and smoothing.


And then I did a bit of painting on some Tau inspired models. The goal here is to create a small and diverse Kill Team ready to take on any task. (I have some more basic Tau laying around and a few old school Stealth suits, might convert up a crisis suit as a leader)



That's it for today, I'll keep you guys posted as soon as I get some more work done.
As always, let me know what you think

Nice! I've been looking forward to this post. It's nice to see more of the kill team, and your golem is looking very cool!

Thanks Syro
It’s good to be back too, I do still enjoy sculpting quite a bit

So whenever I finish a sculpt or project that I particularly like, I literally take it with me at all times. So when I sat down yesterday to read a bit in the sun I snapped a few pictures of my new favorite sculpt in his natural habitat.





And the proof that he’s with me at all times:



I also ordered some silicon and resin to try out my hand at casting a miniature and since I really love this guy, I gave it a shot.
In theory these supports should be enough to get resin everywhere, I think, it’s all a guessing game right now.


Turn him upside down to cast, looks like it might work...


Took too long Mixing the silicon, the last bit of it was already kind of solid. Hopefully it won’t show in the cast.


You can clearly see where the silicon was to solid to pour...


Despite initial setbacks, once cleaned up it looks kind of alright


And I managed to retrieve the model, he did receive a few cuts and bruises though


And now last but not least, a first try to cast him. I’ll take pictures as soon as he’s done and upload them





So quite a process to get all that done, I hope he turns out nice and I’ll keep you guys posted

Good to have you back, dig the golem sculpt and hoping the cast turned out!

Thanks!

I think the cast turned out quite good. It did break on all four limbs though, but nothing a bit of glue and green stuff can’t fix.
The cast had quite a few small bubbles, not sure if it’s the silicon or the resin. I’ll try a different resin later today, that one takes 24h to cure though.
All in all I really like how it turned out, I’ll paint it up as soon as I can





As always, feedback is appreciated!

I can see why you want to cast your golem, it looks like an official miniature you would buy somewhere. I'm glad the cast copy turned out well despite breaking. I don't have any experience casting in resin but I've heard if you vibrate the mold as the resin is setting up it can help get rid of the air bubbles. I don't think you want to try to get some kind of pressure vessel. Do you have any plans to sell your golem in the future?

I like how your favorite sculpts travel around with you. For me, I keep going back and just staring at mine, like "wow, did I really make that?"

For this sculpt the micro bubbles actually add more character to the golem. But I had a few issues with the mold too. I took to long to mix my silicon so I suppose that has something to do with it as well. A pressure pot is not in planning right now, I think I’d only need it if I would cast and sell the minis.
I didn’t plan to sell casts of the golem, however if someone is interested in a cast then I guess I could cast a few models. So if anyone wants a copy just send me a PM, I’m sure we’ll work something out.


The next project, besides painting the cast golem (he’s base coated as of right now), is a friend for him. I found this picture and it looked like a peaceful giant of a golem. It’s a four legged version, so different pose and slightly larger in terms of bulk. I’m terms of height it’s roughly the same.

This is how I started, can you see the similarities already?


Next step was to bulk out the model, again with beesputty. Still doesn’t look like much, does it?


And this is the current stage, once everything is blended together it actually kind of resembles a miniature at this point.



I’ll try to cast him up as well and then see what else I can add to the collection. Might do a few different elementals, although I really enjoy the rock sculpting right now.
As always, let me know what you think.

I've finished painting the cast golem, quite happy with how he turned out. I did make another cast but the mold leaked, since I forgot to add a rubber band, so the golem is missing his lower legs.

Painted golem:





I've also managed to get the rough shape of the big golem to where I'm happy with it. Now it's just a matter of smoothing out everything and defining all the shapes/ rocks that I want to have.
I am struggling to reach stomach to sculpt there, not sure how to get around that yet since I do want to sculpt him in one baking session.

Big golem:







As always, let me know what you think!

Your golems are great. Excellent work. Look forward to seeing how the new sculpt turns out

Both the cast and the big golem are looking great. As for being able to sculpt details on the stomach, that's a tough one. You may need to create some custom sculpting tools specially made with the angles you would need to make those hard to reach details?

Really nice work sculpting and casting. I enjoyed watching the process.

For the stomach, I'd go for two bakes: leave the stomach until you pop it off the cork after the first bake.

Painted lad looks grand I'm digging where the big 'un is headed, great art inspiration for it.

@youwashock: Thank you very much

@Syro: Thanks! I kind of went with Vermis suggestion and popped him off the cork, but good idea with new tools.

@Vermis: I did go for one bake, but I went with your idea and popped him off the cork. Made it easier to reach everything and didn't distort to much while doing it.

@Boss Salvage: Thank you, was a lot of fun painting them too.


So now, here's everything I did since the last update:

Off the cork, stomach still a mess.


Basically everything done and smoothed out.






Relaxing hot break in the oven


And the final result for now. I have absolutely no clue where the white dots came from, they cleaned up easily with a soft toothbrush, so not really a concern either.
It did have a few minor cracks but all in all went well, nothing a bit of cleanup can't fix. I'll try to finish him up today, bake again tomorrow and then get to casting



As always, let me know what you think

Looks great. They are sort of reminding me of the Shard from VOR, only more friendly.

 youwashock wrote:
They are sort of reminding me of the Shard from VOR, only more friendly.

Whooooooa nice callback! I appreciate how much stouter these lads are, as opposed to the stringy Shard sculpts. But yea, good point. Also I liked the VOR factions way too much, for as derpy of a game as it was

The Beesputty smooths out nice. Did you just use tools for that, or some kind of thinner too?

I like it, kind of reminds me of the rock monster from Galaxy Quest.

Looks good, I'm glad you went with Vermis' suggestion, it was the better idea

@youwashock: thanks! Took a while until I found out what you were referencing, I’m afraid that was before my time I can’t really see the similarities, but I guess it’s a bit nostalgia too

@Boss Salvage: yes, I wanted to make them quite sturdy

@Vermis: I use both, tools and alcohol as a smoother. I have some pictures below. It smoothies out nicely with just tools though. And I had to look up the rock monster too, I can definitely see the similarities

@Syro: more tools is also never a bad idea




A friend stopped by yesterday and I had to do a bit more at work, so I didn’t get to bake everything yesterday. I did however finish a small elemental to go along with the big guy.
Let me know what kind of element you think it is, that way I can see if I did a good job
It’s baking now, I’ll clean it up later and then post more pictures.
Enjoy!



Tool smoothing:


Smoothed with alcohol and brush:

I'm gonna say air? Could be water but I'm gonna say the bulges up top are more cloud than surf. Also a side note, there's a real lack of air elementals on the market

I'm thinking air elemental also. Looks good.

Yes indeed, you are both correct! It’s supposed to be an air elemental and the bulges were intended to be clouds
Glad it came across that way
So here are some more pictures of the finished air elemental and big stone golem as well as an “ice” golem that I did for fun

Enjoy and as always let me know what you think!


Ice golem:




Elemental:








Stone golem:







Size:

Getting to be quite the elemental family. I really like the head for the larger golem now, and the motion on the air elemental looks great. You could totally sell these.

Yeah, the ripples on the air elemental are something else! Excellent work overall.

Just had a plough through this whole thread as I've just started sculpting and trying my hand at casting. Your sculpting work is incredible! I've clearly got a long way to go yet. Thanks for showing us all your work. It's inspiring stuff.

@youwashock: and the missing elementals are either WIP (below) or in planning I still have to do the molds, I'm not 100% sure whats the best way to cast them regarding supports etc. But afterwards, I'd be happy to cast up a few for anyone who's interested.

@Vermis: Thank you very much, I really like how the top of the elemental turned out. Not entirely sold on the hands though, any suggestions? I though about sculpting in a lightning bolt between them.

@theCrowe: Thanks for looking through all of it Glad you enjoyed it! If you have any questions, feel free to ask me.



Back to the progress pictures
I've started a new elemental, I could make you guess again but I think this one is fairly obvious I've done the first two steps on it, bulking out and initial refinement. For this one I might have to bake it twice to get the head and arms the way I want them to be, as they are quite thin. Next step for this one is smoothing everything out and finishing all details I want on it.
I'll try to mold and cast the other two candidates this weekend, but as I said above, I'm still trying to figure out the best way for it. Not entirely sure what the best position is for a one part mold.

Until then, enjoy the pictures

Step 1: Bulking out the initial shape (basic wire armature beneath the clay)






Step 2: Initial refinement, everything is roughly the way it should be size wise.

Nice. Looking forward to see the finished product.

 Pneumo wrote:
Not entirely sold on the hands though, any suggestions? I though about sculpting in a lightning bolt between them.

Like Egg Shen? (Uh, the first example that popped into my head.)



Could be difficult, especially if you try to go that fine, but it would look great.

Indeed it is fire

Yep that’s basically what I’m going for, might need to do thicker bolts though. But I won’t cast it up with the rest, I’ll sculpt it onto a cast one.

I'd be interested in a bunch of those air elementals if you end up casting more, particularly if you brewed up a second sculpt

Sounds like I need to make another air elemental
Any ideas or preferences for a second pose?