New idea, I thought about showing every step "live", and by that I mean weekly updates, showing whole process in one post, and after I'm done I'll show final photos also here. This way you can see every step in process of sculpting miniature, and ask a questions or give any other feedback either here or on our facebook page:
fb.com/BoBMiniatures Who knows, maybe I can even use one of your idea :p This mini is for a private collector, and this is what he wished:
Chapter Symbol: Sun
Secondary symbol: Flames
Size: Little bit bigger than Horus.
Pose: Starts to run into the battle.
Base: Big gargoyle underneath the character, surrounded by ruins.
Armor: A royal, detailed with many sun symbols terminator armor, in a WFB dwarfs' style. Sharp shoulderpads, on the backpack 6 torches, 3 on each side and a sun over the head
3 Heads: one bald, one bald with simple beard and one bald with big, dwarven beard
Other equipment: a hammer, a big shield with details like chapter symbol, an aquila and runes around, in a hand with shield: Narthecium and a big royal cloak, with fur at the top
Miniature as a multikit prepared for casting
Step 1:
"Wire-skeletons"
In this step I create wire structure that will in next steps hold my putty in place without bending and deforming. For a base I had to make slim version of gargoyle, on which I will attach more putty later on. For this purpose I used a 1:1 mix of Milliput and Green Stuff, without any wire inside so I could modify it's shape with a knife without a fear of encountering immovable wire at some point. Also I made basic skeleton from wire for shoulders, front legs and wings. As for the character itself i made measurments of terminator model, multiplied eeach of them by about 1,4 and that gave me all dimension I needed to make a skeleton. Arms were made out of seperate wire piece as well as middle part suporting front of the armor. So 4 pieces of wire for base and 3 for Primarch. Here's the photos:
Step 2:
"Base Mesh"
In this step I put a thin layer of Green Stuff on every little piece of wire, as thin as possible and as fast as possible. And when you're done with it, while GS is still sticky, about 15-30 minutes form the mixing you have to start putting Super Sculpey on. This is the most eficient way to keep your Sculpey on the wire-skeleton. Without this step it woud keep falling off in worst possible places and in worst possible moments :) You have not much more than hour to do this with every mini, 45 min - 1 hour is best. After this time GS is not that sticky any more. So be quick!
Step 3:
General shapes and first details
On one side of gargoyle and on the primarch himself I made just a sketch, basic blocks, showing you first step of acctual sculpting. Gargoyle:
And Sciborius:
And I have also done first details on one side of gargoyle. Of course still a lot of work to be done with it, this is just a beginning.
Step 4:
Gargoyle progress
Just adding further details and smoothing things out. The hardest thing in this process is to maintain a symetry. That's where 3D modeling I used to in last few weeks is much much easier :p Anyway, I usedt these photos as reference:
In red I marked some texture details for my client, I belive next step will be final smoothing and that texturing, and after that I will proceed to Sciborius himself. In the meantime, enjoy photos:
Step 5:
Blocking out general shapes of primarch
Not much to be said about this stage, just constant working on shapes, comparing with with concepts and fixing mistakes I see as I sculpt. In this stage main objective is not to fall into detailing and rather focus on achieving nice surfaces, on which after smoothing you can add details.
Step 6:
Step 7:
Step 8:
He's done, there's 12 more steps, I'll add them here after editing in some time :)
