Newbie advice

[Maron]

Hi everyone,

I have only just come across this site and I can\'t believe I haven\'t found it before. There is such a wealth of info here and some truly awe-inspiring painting.

After browsing for a few days I decided to give sculpting a go and ordered some green stuff and some sculpting tools. I live in Japan so they take a while to get here but I found some fimo in a stationary store and being impatient tried to sculpt a model today using that and a tooth pick.

I was actually pretty pleased with the result although when you compare it to 99% of the stuff on here it is just embarrassing but I will put some pics here anyway in the hope people can help me out a bit.

Any advice at all would be a great help. I am hoping that using green stuff is easier than fimo. I found the most difficult things the hands and face. When people sculpt hands do they do it as part of the main model or on a detached arm or as a separate entity itself (same for heads)?

Anyway...here they are...

PS. Is this the right forum for this or should it be in the painting and conversion one?

 

[rocketandroll]

That\'s a really nice first attempt.... don\'t be put off by comparing what you are doing with the best work on here, remember the stuff on CMON is from the very best mini artists in the entire world... this forum is a brilliant way to get advice and improve your skills.... treat it as that and you\'ll go a long way.

I\'m a useless (and pretty inexperienced) sculptor, but looking at it, the only thing I can think of in terms of advice (and I can\'t tell if this is relevant or whether you already did this) is to sculpt it in layers...

ie: start by sculpting the body, naked if necessary, to get the overall proportions right. Then, once that\'s set, sculpt on the clothing, perhaps add the face. Finally, once that\'s set, add in details such as straps and pockets, and then the cape as a final layer. That way you can correct mistakes and improve the mini as you go along.... also, don\'t be afraid to include components which aren\'t scratch sculpted, eg the staff there, could be made from thin brass or styrene rod, if it wants to look rougher or like gnarled wood, use a rigid rod as a core and then add GS or similar material over the top to build it up.

And...

Welcome to CMON!


Ben

 

[Recoil889]

looks good, id suggest you pick up a nice anatomy for artists book. A nice one should run you about 50$ usd, i have no idea what that converts to. Also, are you sculpting from an armature? id suggest making one from some sort of wire.
a few basic tips. A full grown male should be about 61/2-7 \"heads\" tall. the hand should fall somewhere between the hip and the knee.. good luck

 

[mud duck]

To me, from the pictures the size of everything below the waist looks to be a little smaller that the upper body of the model.
The one thing that I have learned in the short (and painful) time that I have been using green stuff, is this, keep the tools wet, work in layers, if it doesn\'t work the first time, try try again, practice make perfect, thumb prints will show up, even if you have video evidence that your fingers never came close to the fig, and practice make perfect. So keep it up!

 

[DaN]

Pretty nice
Did you use an armature to sculpt over?

 

[Ghaffasa]

Always nice to see new people around here. Welcome!

I think that looks awesome. I could never sculpt anything that good, in fact i can\'t sculpt anything at all.

P.S. Watch out for creatures bearing the title of \"super freak\".. Those who come too close seldom live to tell about it.. D.S.

 

[Maron]

Thanks for the replies everyone.

I used a wire frame for the body and legs and then drilled a hold and added some wire when I put on his arms.

I agree about the legs being too short in comparison to the rest of the model...the head was way to big too hence the hood .

I had fun making it though and will be giving it a go with some green stuff when it arrives.

I will also go down the bookstore and look for an anatomy book as I am just using photos at the moment to try to get body shape and proportions.

Thanks once again.

 

[Maron]

Attempt 2

My green stuff arrived yesterday so I thought I would have another go at sculpting.

The concept for this model was a nurgle sorceror to add to my current chaos army. I decided that a lot of the other races have female wizards and I have never seen a chaos one so am attempting to create one.

So far I have sculpted a naked woman. i wanted to create a bloated feeling to the model.

Anyway here is what I have achieved so far today:

I need to decide how to clothe her and work on the head still.

I also found out my home made curing oven was a bit too hot and the green stuff has bubbled in places...but it turns out it will look ok on a nurgle miniature .

For me it is a marked improvement on my fimo attempt.

Does anyone have any advice or suggestions as to where to go from here? Especially regarding the clothing. I was thinking of leaving the belly exposed so I could add some pustules and scabs. Also when I do the arms should I do them separately and then attach them or try to do them on the model?

 

[airhead]

Welcome to the forums. My sculpting-foo is weak. I can fill a seam, but that is about it.

Listen to those here that have strong sculpting-foo and learn. Thicken your skin for they will tell you true.

Originally posted by Ghaffasa
P.S. Watch out for creatures bearing the title of \"super freak\".. Those who come too close seldom live to tell about it.. D.S.

Hey, I\'m starting to resemble that remark