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Hi,
Ok for my girls b-day coming up she wanted a model to look female ish in 40k for this army. IT IS ROUGH just to warn you and will take weeks if not months to finish but it is a 30mm scale model. and just messing around with some ideas right now. End result will take time like I mentioned but need some help on perportions and such. Since everyone sees things different would love as much comments as I can get.

General idea"
A female model showing her belly "gf's idea not mine" with a skull on the front of a large lizard with horns going up the shoulders with baggy pants with optional armour"on legs" On the back she wants it with a rose tattoo type design on the armour so it needs to be smooth until design is added. And with tau like feet "ie 2 front hoof toes and a back bracer toe".

So I am using hard polymer clay which I will then mold and make out of wax or another material to get finer detail. The slight bumps will be sand papered off once it is cooked and hardened.






The arms/legs where left like that to help pose once more was done. General idea hand pointing and in the other hand holding a gun. Just starting to work on the skull on the chest which will hang down a bit more so that the teeth will cover the groin area and slightly cover the stomach.

Belt/armour will be grinded down a bit since I think it looks a little to bulky.

Comments on general concept/concerns would be loved thanks guys


Automatically Appended Next Post:
First update, never had much time in the last little while to sculpt. Today was the first day thank god. Here is a update pic mostly just the leg was worked on. Still need work on foot and such.

As someone who's tried (and failed) at sculpting minis from scratch, it looks like you're on the right track, being the one that I didn't take.

I have never worked with clay and i don't know how much experience you have with it. But maybe i can give you a few points to look at. But don't get me wrong. This is a good start but there are a some points that can be improved.

At first i'd highly suggest using an armature of some sort. Some sturdy wire will not only give you a nice solid base to sculpt on but also forces you to give more attention to pose and propotions before you even begin sculpting. And use a reference as it will help you in planing out what you want to do.
Maybe you can use http://www.posemaniacs.com/ as a reference - not only for poses but also propotions.

Also the descripton of a belly free female model normally suggests a sexy model. For that your model is to thickly armored and as a result looks too bulky. Also the massive belt looks weird as the waist is so thin compared to both the belt and the torso armor frameing it.
What i'd try is to do is draw more attention to the belly in makeing her armor more form fitting. Also if you want her to be sexy you can shape her armor in more female propotions. Let if curve like the human body and maybe even add a few details on it that are muscle-shaped. Either with additional plates of armor or just shape the basic plate like that.

But if you want the model to be bulky and strong looking I'd also bulk out her waist some more.

The surfaces of your model are looking kinda rough and not smooth. Yes you could sand them smooth once hardened but why not smooth them directly. Just try useing a wet finger and smooth it with that. And there are some spots and areas that will be hard to sand like between armor plates and the like.

You said it yourself but the feets will need some serious work. And it will be really hard sculpting them hanging in free air. So if you didn't do this already sculpt your feet against the ground. This way you can make sure tha both feet are correctly aligned and the model stands upright. And the biggest win is that you can press against the ground and won't have problems with the feet bending while applying pressure or removing material.

It looks as your legs aren't the same length. One is lightly bent but even with the bend it seems to go further down. It could also be due to camera perspective but better save than sorry. So you should look into that. Either lengthen one leg or twist her hip if there actually is a problem.

And personally i'd tone down the width of the lizard skull. And you might want to consider rounding the eye holes some more as actual skulls normaly have round eye sockets. The more slit like approach creates a more evil and demonic appearance. (But that might even be what you are aiming for?)


Also as the scale for 28/30mm models is really small i'd suggest not useing clay for all of the details. (Or at least not add them all in one step) Personally i'd just build the basic body and maybe the armor depending on the shape of it and then let if cure. The rest of the details i'd add after that. Some clays can take multiple baking steps but maybe it is enough to only bake the body slightly so that is is hard enough to not get warped once you add the finer details. Alternatively you could add the details useing two part epoxy putties like greenstuff as they don't need baking to cure.

Hey so here is the update of today. Things I got done/ need to do dropped by about 6. Only 9000 more to go lol. As always cc would be loved 0

Oh btw concept changed. my girl is telling me she wants it sexier.... so the pants are dropped. and so is a lot of the armour. Which complicates things... try explaining why you need to stair at a girls butt/thigh for a hour with out sounding pervish.













I did use a armature just a homemade one so I forgot to add metal wire for the feet..... a few choice words I can't say and need to slowly build it up with out to much pressure... lol

Also the model can move up and down on the nail. It is held by 2 lugnuts which can be moved to make the model closer or farther from the board.

Think I need to thin the armour a bit more, what do you guys think?

Okay, i don't want to make the work you did already look bad but it might be an option to start anew. Sexy comes not only from the propotions and clothing but also from the pose. A good pose requires good propotions so you might want to start with developing a good pose. I've already posted the posemaniacs link that has a lot of reference poses. The cool thing is that those poses are 3d models and you can rotate them in browser. As a result you can get a better understanding of it from all angles.

Also if you want something sexy with tau feet maybe look at this: http://keluuu.deviantart.com/art/Shadowsun-108514136 Maybe use this as a reference or search through deviantart yourself for a good female armor that looks sexy. And trust me, there are a lot of pictures on that side, the trick is just finding the right one.
Also you could look at this:http://genocell.deviantart.com/art/Adelle-Char-Orthos-Ideal-Female-Proportions-WIP-322867383 which gives you a good orientation how the different body parts are propotioned in comparison to each other.

Also the female body is cuved and i don't just mean the obvious female cuves like hips, legs and breasts. The spine follows a curve too. Also the alignment of hip and shoulders is an important part of creating good poses.

If you look at this picture you'll notice what i mean. (Source is http://www.draw23.com/female-proportions-drawing i just painted in the lines over the pose) The pose looks sexy i'd say, the spine is curved and alignment of hip and shoulders aren't parallel as a result.

The thing is I still need her to look like she is ready to fight not pick up a client lol.

Well i did not say to use this pose but the same principles apply to most poses. So for example if you want her to rise a weapon up in one arm. For that she needs to shift one shoulder what as a result bends the spine and that changes the hip alignment to counteract the bent.

I just want to say that you might consider reworking her pose in a more dynamic one.

sorry to interrupt this magistral sculpting explanation with my fool ideas but, if it´s for a b-day, if i were you i wold start taking notes on actual minis, i mean, if you have, for example, a callidius assassin mini near you´ll be able to compare it with your own mini and correct the fails very quickly, it´s allways good to have some "model" when you´re starting (and if your project goes wrongly you can allways make a good conversion on the model as a plan B, if the conversion is good enought i think i shall work) well, at least be thankfull you just have to stare at a sexy-girl ass, cuz when you build demons staring at they´r bottoms to make sure they´re correct is very horrible, specially with nurgle daemons... yeah, i´ll allways remember that nurgle daemon-prince attempt i made, it all ended wrong buaaaaaaa....