Old Schooler New to Lizzies

[T`hinker`er]

Hey Dan, nice of you to de-cloak Not sure what specific questions you have, but I'll try my best to answer them. As far as I know I don't sculpt using any special tricks of any kind that anyone else hasn't already used. Just lots of practice really. I use basic kneadatite (greenstuff) and occasionally mix in a harder setting putty when I need sharp edges or a more rigid end result. Most people use Aves, Milliput or Magic Sculpt as the harder putty. I've used all of these and don't find the differences all that significant. As for tools, I use a basic, really cheap wax carver that I've had for about 10 years for just about everything. Don't get me wrong, I am a tool horder, like many sculptors/hobbyists, and I have about 75 tools littering my work bench, but I always start and end with what I am most familiar with. I think a set of flexible tipped clay shapers is also invaluable, as is an x-acto blade.

Anyway, I've been doing a lot more painting than sculpting since I got back from vacation, but I have made a little time for working on those Krox models too, working on their weapons, which I hope to make interchangeable for variety. Here are the 2 weapon blanks that I've been working on:



And the other one:



I may add some more spikes to the first one and definitely plan to add rivets to the second one. I may add some feather too, but I don't want these too fancy, as they are for Krox butes after all...

The next step will be to attach armature wires for arms and connect these weapons to the hands. If folks are interested I will try to take more W.I.P. photos as I work so that you can see how this is done.

 

[FavoredoftheOldOnes]

I for one would definitely love to see some WIP shots as you go along.

 

[T`hinker`er]

O.k., I'm going to try to remember to stop and take photos as I go on the Krox and give some meaningful descriptions of what's going on. If you have any questions, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to explain what's happening.

I'm going to start with my Krox (as opposed to my son's), as I suspect that working on two at the same time AND photographing them both (while also painting and flocking on the side) is going to get overwhelming.

So here is the Krox in question, with holes drilled in the approximate locations where I suspect his shoulder bones would be, and thin wires inserted into the holes, pre-bent in the correct proportions for forearm and upper arm. I've also wrapped the wire at the end for his hands around the shaft of the weapon he will be holding:



At this point nothing is glued. I'm just going to be playing around with the pose and possibly with the proportions a bit until I get it right. A full length mirror and a baseball bat come in handy at this point (be careful not to smash the mirror!). I note the angle of my arms and hands as I swing the bat and try to imagine how this might work out if I had an alligator's head. Hey, you have your hobby...I have mine...

At this point, things start looking more or less right to me:



Here's a tip - sculpting is a 3D medium....duh! What that means is that you have to constantly be turning your work and working at it from different angles. Very often things look like they are coming along great, then I turn my work 180 degrees and realize I'm completely off and have to push things back a bit until I find the "sweet spot", or just start again But that's the biggest "trick" there is in anything having to do with art - never be happy with your own work. The minute that happens, you stop improving.

Having said that, here is another angle of the pose, and - if you look closely you will see that I drilled a second hole for the wire a bit closer to the front. This looked better considering the way the Krox would have to be twisting his body to swing that club:



As a result I had to grab my x-acto and shave a bit of mass off his back. In the end, it's really all about small adjustments like this.

Once everything looks right, I put a few dots of super glue on the wires to hold them in place until I can get some putty on things to hold everything in place and begin the "bulking up" process. And here is a photo showing that process:



As you can see in this photo, I am placing masses of putty where the major muscle groups will be - a ball for the shoulder (handy for holding that wire where I want it), an oblong mass for the bicept, another one on the other side for a triceps, and a long tapered mass for the forearm. I begin to press these together and blend them a bit, but mainly at this point I just want that wire covered so it doesn't move anymore. When this putty is hardened, I can go at the piece with a bit more pressure, adding in places, and if I mess up, subtracting with a dremel or knife...

Here I have added masses for the hands and blended some more putty in between my major muscle masses:



And one final shot, with both hands roughed in now and all the masses making up the arms connected and smoothed out:



I've been careful up to this point to make everything a little smaller than I intend for it to be in the end. This is so that I can go over everything with at least one more layer, which will be where I put in the muscle and tendon details and perhaps begin some of the scales and texture. Or maybe the scales will be a third layer. Either way, you want to keep the arms skinny at this point so you can go back and work on them again (same rule would apply to the legs or the torso).

Well, that took a bit of time to write, but hopefully you will get something out of it. If you do, let me know so I will keep going with this!

 

[dictator]

Still looking great. It is good to have different style projects going at once. It keeps you from being burned out. I like the armatures and how it is posed. The weapons look very fierce. Adding feathers and extra stuff will look good. At the moment the club looks alittle short. I like where you are going with everything. Keep it going!

 

[Arli]

Very nice work. It is nice to see this type of work in progress pictures. They really inspire ideas and keep people motivated.

 

[Lord Cedric]

This thread has really opened up my eyes to a whole new (and higher) level of this hobby. Outstanding! I am very impressed and cannot wait to see more! Kudos and keep up the good work AND progress pics.

 

[strewart]

Very cool looking sculpt, nice work! He looks a bit like he is playing baseball. The arms definitely look like they need more bulk, but you say they are WiP still so no worries there.

 

[Lord Tsunami]

that is really cool. great to see you are back to work (unlike me, who is just doing Mordheim atm... damn storm of magic...)

I really like the axe you made. the club is cool too, but the axe is even better

 

[T`hinker`er]

Hey, thanks guys! Your comments definitely keep me motivated, and you know what else keeps me motivated? KILLING DWARFS! LOL! My monthly campaign battle was yesterday, and a Dwarf army attacked me in the ruined Ziggarart temple that my Scar-Vet led army (my General's name is "Bossk" BTW) had just entered. Silly Dwarfs! What were they thinking? I managed to draw a massive unit of Ironbreakers between a Skrox unit and a unit of Saurus, sacrificing a unit of 10 non-skirmishing skinks (at 50 points, what a deal!) in the process. I charged his front and rear, although his Thane whipped out an Oath Stone, so no +2 bonus...2 rounds of combat later, things looked like this:



Where are the Ironbreakers in this photo you ask? Well, having burned a bunch of them with Sallies before the charge, and thanks to an Iceshard Blizzard, they were DELICIOUS with crackers and katsup! Both the General and the Dwarf BSB remain, each with a wound. Sadly, having failed to kill the BSB, the stunties saved their beards, re-rolling the break test to get a "4" - grrrr! Still a victory, but not a massacre.

Meanwhile, thanks to "a charge he never saw coming" (thank you Huanchi, for the lovely banner!) my CoC were holding up and trying to break what was left of his Warriors after another Sallie pre-heated them for me:



The CoC didn't succeed in breaking this unit, probably because I lost a few guys on the way in (damn Organ Gun, grumble grumble...)

If you look closely you can see that my CoC have quite a bit of "greenstuff" on them. Hope to finish these guys up and even paint them by next month's game (against the High Elves who have foolishly occupied another one of the Ziggararts on the map).

Getting back to sculpting, if you look at the first picture you can see both of the W.I.P. Kroxi-guys swinging away in the 2nd rank ("batter's up!") Yes, one of them definitely looks like he's playing for the Yankees, which was intentional. I will stop short of sculpting a little hat on him...you can do that on your's after I make a mold and start casting hordes of these guys

Anyway, you can see the additional detail work I did on the axe that the other Krox is now wielding, and the the work on his arms (he still needs hands - I failed to mix up enough putty to do the hands - aaarrgh! Amateur mistake!) You can also see that I am VERY remiss in painting the Skinks in my cohort units, and this is because I haven't had the time to glue arms on all of them yet. This will be top priority before next month's game, as the "white resin look" is really starting to bug me now. Need to take some better photos of that Saurus unit too...

That's all for this update, keep those cards and letters (and plaques) coming!

 

[dictator]

Just awesome. Great work against those stunties. I am looking forward to those being painted too. I am sure spraying them won't take too much time. I'll be patient and wait for a description of those wonderful krox. BTW, how is your son doing on working with GS?

 

[T`hinker`er]

Look for an update after the weekend...work has been bananas this week and my hobby time has been limited

My son is doing great for an 11 year old, I think. I am taking a bigger role at this point with some of the finer anatomy and I did make the weapons for both Krox simply because he wasn't around enough for me to teach him that stuff and I didn't want to confuse him (organic shapes vs. mechanical edges - two very different skill sets). I will definitely find some projects for him to work on that are appropriate to his level so he can feel like he put his "stamp" on "his" Krox. Probably when the time comes for putting scales on - this will be a perfect job for him I think. Thanks for asking

 

[FavoredoftheOldOnes]

Those Kroxigor scultps are looking really good. Keep it up!

 

[T`hinker`er]

Thanks, Oh Favored One!

Well, good news/bad news...I didn't get a lot done on the Krox this past weekend, but one of the reasons is that I started work on a Horned One for when I am finally able to field an Oldblood (photos of that project will have to wait a while however, as it's not really anything worth looking at yet...) I also managed to do a little painting and conversion work on a Salamander, and play a 3000 point battle! So all in all not a bad weekend, the hurricane notwithstanding!

As for the Krox (trying to keep this thread focused on just one project for a little while) I began the process of laying putty over the basic musculature that you may recall was on the arms, covering the wire armature. The arms in the first layer were deliberately left a little "weedy" so I would have room to beef things up - which is quite necessary considering the proportions of those Krox weapons!

Here are photos of the "finished" (nothing is ever really "finished") muscles on the one arm I worked on:







Given that he is about to swing and no doubt gripping the weapon with a lot of verve, I could probably add a bit more visible muscle/tendon stress on that forearm...and I likely will.

The plan is for the arms to have wrist bands and bands around the biceps to hide the joins - in other words, I am quite sure their arms are going to have to be removed for casting.

Thoughts?

 

[strewart]

Wow thats some really nice muscle tone! You have some very good sculpting skills. Its coming along very nicely!

And for the record.. I'd be keen to see your conversion work on a Horned One.

 

[SeBM]

That is one sick looking sculpt you have going there. I wish I was able to do 1/10th of what you son did .

 

[Sikeron]

the kroxigor is getting better and better... you should cast it for us... I'd buy one... And I want to see the Horned One as well..

 

[T`hinker`er]

Thanks guys. With any luck, the mold making process on these Krox-i-guys will be a success and I will be able to make a few dozen castings. I fully intend to try out an army with two 6x3 units of Krox and two 24 skink/3 Krox Cohorts AND NO SAURUS, just as soon as I can. I think such an army, perhaps with a Steg thrown in and loads of skirmishers, will be pretty damn hard and quite unexpected...bwa-ha-ha-hah! (taking voice lessons from Dr. Horrible...)

Anyway, I'm happy to sell some copies of these, as no GW "IP" is being used other than being influenced by historical Aztec/Inca weaponry. Lizard-men, or "Crocodile-Ogres" as the case may be, are pretty generic, standard fare in fantasy. O.k., enough legal mumbo-jumbo for now. Just be prepared to fill in the occasional bubble in the resin (much like Citadel "Finecast", actually

I did the other arm on this guy last night, so I will post those pictures tomorrow, hopefully with shots of the other Krox as well. I will try and stop for some "in progress" shots along the way. Hard to do, as I like to work large areas all at once and this can only be done when the putty is still very soft. Doing each arm with the correct musculature in "finished" form takes me about 45 minutes to an hour. I am working more slowly than usual on these as their ginormous weapons keep getting in the way. Normally I would not have attached the weapons at this early stage, but I was forced to do so because I am playing with these models in my campaign at the same time that I am sculpting them. I could remove the weapons I suppose and reattach them later, but I am a glutton for punishment

No, actually, the real reason is that I plan to remove the hands at the wrists for casting, and I don't want an additional weak point/repair at the hilt of each weapon.

As for the Horned One, I think I will hold off posting photos for two reasons - mainly because keeping this thread focused on just one project until it's done allows me to take the time to describe the steps and hopefully teach.

The other reason is that having all these photos stored up of other projects has been motivating me to get the current project finished. At this stage the Horned One isn't much to look at - I've only put two hours into it at this point. But when I do get to posting about it you will see it go from concept to finished model in a very straightforward way. Same goes for "Salamander Version 2.0", which I started about a month ago and is very nearly done and being painted right now. Knowing I have these juicy photos on deck is good motivation for me

Speaking of other projects, I am casting up resin arms for my resin skinks right now (a continuation of this project: http://www.lustria-online.com/threads/old-schooler-new-to-lizzies.5025/) and gluing them on, with about 15 more to go before both Cohort units are ready to be primed and painted. Also, I have to convert 2 more spear Saurus for my second Saurus unit (photos of that still to come as well). On the painting table, after the Sallie is done, I need to paint my CoC. Oh, and I just started putting together my old metal Stegadon that I got in 1999 in a "going out of business" sale...I think I paid $15 for it! In today's dollars that would buy you one blister pack

Much to do, but having a grand old time with all this!

 

[T`hinker`er]

Just a little update here. I have one set of arms done and am working on the other guy now. I had to scour through several anatomy books to get an idea of what the arm muscles should really be doing here. A photo of a shirtless Todd McGuire would have really helped a lot, but I admit I'm not a big baseball fan. Anyway, let me know what you think. I'll get some better shots up of both Krox, with finished arms, most likely tomorrow, as I plan to sculpt tonight after work and mainly want to work on these two miniatures:







Say what you will, you can't call his arm "weedy" any more

P.S., in other news, that Horned One is really VEXING me...I have modified his head shape 3 times now and still not happy with it. Going to try again later if I have time left over after the Krox, and if I can't get "un-stuck" I'll be posting WIP photos and asking you all for some advice...

 

[redeyefrog]

I love your attention to detail those look great cant wait till there finished
Stu

 

[T`hinker`er]

Hey Redeye, thanks for the kind words. Progress continues apace, but I had to take some time (quote a lot of it, actually!) to finish casting weapons for my skinks, glue them on and get some paint on them finally, as I am determined not to show up for another battle with a mixture of white resin and grey plastic skinks!



Suffice to say that I didn't get a lot of sleep last week, as I had 42 of these to assemble (not counting the command figures). I found myself up till 1, 2 and even 3AM a lot last week... Anyway, I stopped to take a photo of the last batch of cohort skinks, just before their arms and shields were glued on:



Thankfully the weather cooperated this weekend and I was able to get outside to prime them all on Saturday:





Did the metal Krox too, although I haven't settled on a color scheme for them:



This all took about a half a can of grey spray primer! Sunday was a day for airbrushing the base coat on:



This took about an hour and a half. Almost feels like cheating, but then I realize that I did my skirmishers this way too (all 30 of them!), and between the drybrushing, washes, detail work and basing, I still have about 40 hours to go before I consider these guys DONE. And that's not to mention the Kroxigors.

Another important campaign game coming up on Sunday, so I will be working on my army a lot in the next 5-6 days...most painting and sculpting progress pictures later on this week for sure!