Sculpting a Hydra

In the way that I have way more hobby time than i have hobby funds, I've decided to sculpt a Hydra.

I'm not a fan of either the old metal Dark Elf Hydra or the new plastic kit. I wanted something that looked a little more like a multi headed serpent.

I started off with a wire armature 

Then added a layer of greenstuff to cover the armature and build into a tail.

Heres a couple of shots with 1999 Dark elf corsairs from the bits box for scale.

Since then I've been adding  scales in grey stuff. I found a great tutorial over at steamforged.com. for sculpting scales. they have loads of other good tutorials in their painting and modeling section. 

I've just got to do scales on the belly and necks then sculpt the heads now.

Dice bag of unsettling

Life has been rather chaotic so I've not had any spare time for my hobby. I may have a new dark elf army in the pipeline but it's just a few bits of lead in need of stripping at the moment.

Anyway, today's post is a Dice Bag I made for my friend Matt, I was looking for an idea of something to make for him for Christmas. I sculpted a squig for him for his birthday and I wanted to make him something else fun.

The basic pattern is very simple, It is made from a circle of leather with eyelets around the edge and a draw string threaded through them. You need an even number of eyelets to make the ends tie up nicely.

very rough bag plan

I'm not going to share how i put the eye on in this post because I forgot to take pictures, and besides the enchantments took a long time to study and I need to rest to restore my mana.

Cave squig original and my sculpt 

 

Casting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

The First Cast from my new Chaotic Evil Warrior mould.

I am really pleased with how this has come out. 

The Grey stuff master

Mould layout prior to silicone

That waiting game while the silicone cures.

First cast straight out of the Mould. There are still some issues I need to sort out in the mould like the back of his head and the gut plate.

Coming soon: Painting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

Sculpting a Chaotic Evil Warrior

With the release of the new WoC book and miniatures I decided to dust off my WoC army and add to it but I fancied a more old school look to my figures. I can't afford classic 3rd Edition lead and don't enjoy the hassle of eBay; So I thought I would sculpt and cast my own.

The sculpting process.

I started with an armature made from plastic coated copper wire that I found next to the phone junction box. It was offcuts from phone connection repairs. It is very bendy and wraps easily meaning I have to use less putty and the putty has a good surface to adhere to.

Basic covering of the armature using Gale force 9 Grey stuff. A two part epoxy putty like green stuff but a lot less sticky and much easier to work with. here is the armature stood next to one of my GW chaos warriors for size comparison

Starting to add the details, here the figure has its boots on. I'm learning to mix grey stuff in smaller quantities and let bits cure before doing the next stage. It leads to fewer fingerprints in the finished surfaces 

Up to its waist with Armour plates on the thighs and a Chain mail loin cloth. also shown are a gut plate and a skull because I had some grey stuff left.

Nearly finished, I've just got to sculpt his halberd and put his head on

One chaos warrior helmet ready for ridiculously oversized horns. I've used old dressmaking pins as a starting point for the heads. the un helmeted head will have a beard and some eyes when I next have the grey stuff out.  I might sculpt some more heads after I have cast this so I can have some more variety

A shield with rivets and a skull, I will probably add a wood grain to the back of the shield as it will be visible when assembled

Finished K'daai Fireborn with big hats

I've finally got this unit finished. They've been lurking in the queue for far too long but I've not been doing a lot of painting or sculpting recently.

I may add more to the unit once I've tried them out on the field of battle, they are labour intensive to make.

I need to get a game using my chaos dwarves, they are as yet untested even though I've been working on them since January.

A gift for Blue in VT

In my post A gift from Bolg I mentioned that I was taking part in a miniature exchange on Chaos Dwarfs Online and here is the miniature I sculpted and painted for Blue in VT. Check out his work here Blue's Marauding Miniatures. He collects the old MM90's chaos dwarfs so I tried to sculpt something that would fit in with his collection. I started with a Battle for skull pass dwarf as a base then hacked off the arms, shield and head. My initial plan was to arm him with a great weapon but I changed my mind while sculpting to do a banner bearer as it would give me a greater chance for painting. The banner is Blue's Avatar on CDO. I've been waiting ages to show this miniature off but I didn't want to spoil the surprise.  

K'daai Fireborn with big hats

While Warhammer Forge make great K'daai Fireborn, I don't have £36.00 for 3 models. I do however have lots of hobby time to fill, grey stuff and troll molds which look like this when mixed together.

 Once I'd got the face so I was happy with it, I decided to save some effort with a spot of Instant Mold I've not tryed Instant Mold with Grey stuff which is why I've used Green stuff. I've not quite finished the one on the left, I'd left the grey stuff a little too long to get the flames to work last night so I stripped it off to try again later. 

2100 page views and 40k base greens

I was just about to post photos of the 40k bases I was working on a couple of nights ago when I noticed this blog had received 2100 views. I never thought there would be so much interest in my work when I started writing this in may 2011. I'm quite pleased with this. Anyway, on to more interesting things.

With the release of the new Warhammer 40,000 box set I have been inspired to dig out an old project that had ground to a halt. A chaos cultist guard army. As the army is quite varied in style, I wanted to tie them together with matched bases. I made these as a muddy deployment field with tire and tank tracks everywhere. I've just finished making a mold for them and I'll get the first casts later today.

Adventures in grey stuff.

When I ran out of green stuff last time I picked up some of the Gale force 9 grey stuff as I had heard good things about it. These are some photos of Geoffrey the Orang-utan. He may become a DJ or a Butler  

And a 28mm Victorian Doctor making a house call. He is based on a ebob miniatures puppet because I've still not quite got the hang of making an armature of my own yet. I've just had an idea that I'm going to try out for it, If successful I'll post more here. 

Square resin bases

As I've started casting my own figures I need something for them to stand on.

I sculpted a cobblestone pattern on to 20mm bases and took a mold from them. 

Here they are cast and painted.

20mm paving stone bases

I sculpted these two last night and I'm going to sculpt another 2, when I've got more green stuff

40mm paving stone bases 

Drider Sculpts

I was reading the graphic novel The legend of Drizzt book 1- Homeland when Inspiration struck to make Driders. I looked round on line and through my 4th edition Monster Manual to work out what they should look like. 

I'm still pretty new to sculpting and these are very heavy conversions as I didn't sculpt the spider bodies and used my bits box for weapons.

I used ebob miniatures armatures for the male drider and the head of the female drider. the male right arm and female torso came from GW's plastic wood elf box. I rather stupidly forgot to take Greens photos but here are some with a zenithal undercoat. I plan to sculpt some for casting but I need to work out how to separate the torso from the spider.