Truescale Space Marine: First Attempt

[Conium Maculatum]

Hi All,

I have wanted to try my hand at scuplting for a while and was casing about for an easy to follow tutorial and found this

http://masteroftheforge.com/tutorial-artscale-space-marine-v2/

While this is technically converting rather than sculpting, I thought it would ease me into it, getting me used to fiddling about with green stuff before trying on a full mini.

Here are the pics so far


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What do you think so far? Personally, I'm not very happy with the feet but I found it hard to move the GS around without damaging the leg parts. I was going to wait until it cures then try to shave off the excess then and refill with liquid GS if necessary.

 

[me_in_japan]

Letting putty cure then shaving it off/filing it down is very much a valid technique. One thing to be aware of is that green stuff doesn't file or sand very well - it kinda tears if you try. You can cut it just fine, though. It might be worth experimenting with other putties. Milliput is good for sanding, and smooths out over surfaces seamlessly, but has none of green stuff's stretchy properties.

More specific to your mini, if you want to trim down the GS on his feet, you'll need to bulk it up just a tad, especially around the toes, as at the moment it undercuts, and has little convex dimples that no amount of cutting will remove (at least, not unless you start cutting into the plastic of his feet.) The back of the legs, however, seems good. Keep up the good work, and remember, if it all goes wrong, that's what nurgle is for

 

[Bloodhowl]

For the feet, thickening them with bits of sheet styrene/plasticard is MUCH easier to work and shape than GS. I know MoF uses tiny bits to set the height, but if the Marine's feet are flat on the base and you don't see the tread of the boot, I would just use the appropriate thickness of sheet styrene and sand/file to shape. Same thing when thickening the torsos (on the sides. Probably still need GS for the curved bit of the chest that goes above the belt). The best part is if you create templates, you can mass produce them in plastic and crank out many more than you could make with the GS. Save the GS for when you have no other alternative.

 

[Conium Maculatum]

Cheers peeps,

@me in japan: yep it does look slightly concave. I'll probably try and trim off the worst of any excess then leave any bits like that until the end when I try and change bases. If anything is going to break off, it's going to do it then! I will then do some remedial work.

@Bloodhowl: Yes, cutting and trimming up some plasticard would be an easier option. I might do this if I intended to do a larger unit or army as it would take a lot of work out. However, this excercise for me is about learning how to manipulate Green Stuff. So I'm going to do it the hard way!

Also, does anyone have any bright ideas about what to do with any excess GS you have left at the end of any session? Whenever I have used the stuff I always make up too much and end up throwing loads away. Given it's price this is something I want to avoid as much as possible!

Thanks

 

[Bloodhowl]

Try to have several projects going at once that require GS, Someone once wrote in a tutorial I read on learning to sculpt, use it to practice your sculpting on faces, arms, hands, feet etc... They always had little cocktail sticks with different size heads on them as they practiced different things, like hair, faces, beards. OR you could try mixing less GS :wink:

 

[QuietiManes]

Try to have several projects going at once that require GS, Someone once wrote in a tutorial I read on learning to sculpt, use it to practice your sculpting on faces, arms, hands, feet etc... They always had little cocktail sticks with different size heads on them as they practiced different things, like hair, faces, beards. OR you could try mixing less GS :wink:

Yeah. Use it do something productive. At first, use it to bulk out some armatures, once you've got a few of those, use it to do some more refined sculpting. Depending how long it has been mixed can help you decide what type of thing to work on, since it gets more firm as time goes on, that helps you do different things. Groups of thin putty strands can be pushed together to form the basis of a hand, a ball/teardrop on a stick/wire can be the basis of a head, you can just play with it by spreading it out on a flat surface (paper on the table) or a curved surface (used can or water bottle or paper around a dowel or table leg, etc), then work on textures, like snake skin or fur or nurgle rot, whatever floats your boat.

 

[Conium Maculatum]

Yes, practice would be good. Just time constraints that get in the way! Yes, making up less GS at one time is obviously the ideal situation, it's just guessing how much I will actually need at one time is the trick. And a neat trick it would be too!

Anyway, the Marine now has some thighs. If a slightly fatty and in need of a good work out pair

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Onto the belt and torso tonight!