The Sum of Its Parts...

Putty work on the shoes of our little friend has been done and the beginnings of his hands have been put in place.

Yes, my previous job was a traffic policeman...

The halberd is coming along, albeit not without quite a lot of adjustments as I grapple with the placement of things and how to secure them. I am not displeased with the progress but the process can sometimes be frustrating (as is the case with putty work).

My New Sculpting Tools and a Piece of Concept Art

So I am very conscious of the phrase "A bad workman blames his tools". However, many a time, I find that the right tools do help make the job much easier to do. From potato peelers to the right screwdriver. So it is with sculpting.

I bought these from a local craft shop and have slowly learnt to use different parts of it for different uses. The ball tip initially confused me, since I have only ever used a spade-like tip and a knife to sculpt. As I rolled it around the clay bits, I quickly realized how fantastic it was to sculpt stuff with. It's kinda hard to show how it works (except maybe through a video), but video format for now just isn't for me. I bet there are plenty of tutorials on youtube for this though.

Here are what they look like:

I like the fact that they come in so many sizes.

Also, I have taken the plunge and decided to post up a piece of concept art for my next sculpt. I drew it myself and yep, I'm no great pencil artist.

Spider-lady! She will probably be the of this particular set.

The reason why I finally decided to put up my concept art despite my reservations about my pencil skills is that I want to force myself to try and sculpt as close to the design I thought of initially. The question that comes to mind, of course, is "Is that so hard?"

Well, yes kinda. When I sculpt, I try to keep in mind that this will end up being cast. Well, whether or not it does is debatable, but I want to try and work within the correct constraints and stuff that gets cast have to be well, 'castable', at least for metal or resin. This means that I have to think about the parts on the miniature that cannot be too thin (such that it would break easily, which is bad for the hobbyist), parts that may have annoying air bubbles, undercuts that are too severe and balance that against having too many parts to assemble, which makes the miniature more fragile for gameplay, can be finicky to assemble and is a time-consuming process.

Maybe I am over-thinking it. I should just get back to sculpting.

Completion Part 1

... And done! I am really bouyed by the fact that the mini at the clay stage is done! It is now time to go over it to ensure there are no accidental blemishes and then he is ready to bake!
You might have noticed that I changed the inner chainmail skirt to cloth. The main reason for this is for painting. With chainmail AND the outer scale armor, I felt that there might be too much metallic paint on one part of the mini and I wanted to give a visual reminder of the color of the inner garment on another part of the sculpt other than the sleeves. It's probably just a personal thing.
Anyway, this stage is done and on to the baking and putty sculpting bit next!

 

 

Nearing Completion

The upper half of my first ever chibi sculpt is more or less done. I will of course have to go over the whole thing again before baking but it is there. I am currently working on the bottom half, which has the initial markings for the chainmail interior and trim for the outer scale armor partially marked out. I can see the light at the end of the tunnel!

Clay is relatively non elastic and crumbly compared to epoxy putty and I strongly suspect not very good for sculpting the hands of the thing so I will be using Procreate for that after baking. So yes, there is still a fair bit to go (hands and weapon) but still, it is reaching completion and that is at least one reason to be happy. If there are some people who like the end result, well, more to be happy about.

Progress in clay

So upon closer inspection, I realized that while the sculpt may have been of chibi scale, it wasn't the SD scale. I cut off part of the bottom of the sculpt and then filled in the armature again. It is closer to the SD scale now. Scale creep is insidious!

The nice thing about clay is that you don't have to wait for anything to cure. You can just carry on working with it from start to finish, if you have that kind of time. I don't but it does mean I don't have to wait for putty to cure now so there is no need for multiple ongoing projects.

I am currently working on the helmet of the guy. It has been quite enjoyable so far. Oh yes, I bought some new tools for clay-shaping last week and have been trying them out. They turned out to be very nice to use so I will be talking about them in the next post.

 

 

 

 

 

Clay, Chibi and Chinese Chess!

So, I have started on a new project! This project is going to be a clearly defined one, with a set number of miniatures to produce. Now, the question is of course, why did I start a new sculpt while in the middle of another? Well, a few reasons, actually.

Firstly, epoxy putty takes time to cure, so most sculptors using the material have more than one sculpt going at a time.

Secondly, I have always liked the chibi style, especially the super deformed (SD) proportions. It was just that I couldn't think of what to sculpt. Then I thought about the games I would like to play with my children and realised that Xiang Qi or chinese chess would certainly be one of them.

Finally, I have heard how polymer clay is a wonderful material to wprk with and have always wanted to try it.

So this is a prime opportunity for me to work on this project. It will consist of 8 sculpts as there are 8 different types of pieces in chinese chess. It should have enough variety to keep me interested and enough work to exercise determination to finish. The reward at the end of it should be satisfying as I will get to play Xiang Qi with my kids eventually.

First thoughts on polymer clay...
It doesn't stick to armatures!?! I had to superglue a thin layer of clay to the armature before starting work on it. But clay blends into itself well and once the initial layer of clay sticks to the armature, it has been a pleasure working with it.

It is a little different from working with epoxy putty, but the fundamentals of sculpting still apply. I find the greatest advantage clay offers is the infinite work time. Before baking, clay can be reworked and reworked. This helps when attempting to create symmetry without adding more material, which tends to happen for putty. Suffice to say, I am quitr happy playing with the new material.

So here are the humble beginnings:

More about it soon!