Tutorial How to sculpt lizardmen: All your base...

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Well I'll be following this thread as I like your style, the Razordon is by far more fierce and savage, this trully represent the Strength 5 of the Razordon/Salamander stat.
GW models dont seem to be any kind of dangerous beast for me.

When you are done with your designs I'll suggest some ideas I have in mind. But first another question, Can you sculpt a infantry model size?

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

I can, but don't see any need to.


I'm sculpting two saurus (maximum) for my army, but both will be characters. Are you talking about designs and miniatures in general, or are you asking abut commission work?

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

I just give some ideas and if you or someone like them. Its free to use it. I wont claim any rights on an idea I couldn't turn into flesh. Also I will be pleased if someone talented is interested in making it real.

As my wishes are to complete my army with awesome miniatures and some GW Lizardmen miniatures really i dont like them. Just a matter of style.

Is hard find Lizardmen in other wargames as it is a concept less popular than orcs, demons, undead, black knights (Chaos) and so on. So the options are reduced to a few miniatures and not all of them are on WH scale.

And now I got luck to be able to talk with the creator of an outstanding work which I bought 3 same miniatures, so hey im excited about all the possibilities whatever if it is a image posted in a forum or a new miniautre waiting for being purchased, assembled, and put in a battlefield

If you want we could send private message in order to not off topic your thread.
Thank you !

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

No problem, it's all relevant.

As I said, I'm happy to listen to suggestions, but everything I sculpt in here is only going to be used in my army, none of it will be cast (I don't do any paid sculpture work for anyone, company or otherwise any more).

I won't be doing scratch builds for things I don't use either, so for example I won't be scratch building Mazdamundi, as I don't use him in any of my battles and trying to scratch build him and the Stegadon would take me far too long to do just for a tutorial.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Sorry this took so long (and isn't quite finished yet).

Didn't get as much done this weekend as I had planned, but I've included all of this below as a guide to help you that little but more, by showing you that things don't always go to plan.


My plan here was simple enough, it's an extension of what has already come before hand, so the first thing to remember more than anything else, is to everything following a pattern, no point changing the spiky quality on the tail from the head, the two parts need to look like they belong together.


The first stage is to bulk up the tail end to act as a stable base, once that's dried I can then move on to the next which is to get some of the layers down. It all goes back to what I was saying earlier, ask yourself What does a Razordon do? it shoots spikes from it's tail, these are used in the fluff to kill it's prey (giant flying bugs) and on the battle to kill the foe. The next stage then is to ask yourself What do the spikes need to be like in order to work in this way?

Put simply, big spikes will not cut it, they require more force to fling at a foe and more calories for the Razordon to be able to grow replacements as well as more time (a big spike will take longer to grow than a small one). They also need to be straight, needle like in fact, curved spikes will not be any use for throwing over distances.

So taking everything from above I thought about making sockets for larger spikes in which the smaller ones can be housed and so I make a basic layer which the larger ones can sit in.


I then add in larger spikes to act as a sort of housing unit with groves for the smaller ones to sit in and grow.



I then start to add in the smaller spikes to the holes I make (these are done using a wooden pointed tool I made), unfortunately it's not the look I've been trying to go for, the holes/grooves stick out too much for my taste, away from the main spike, ruining the look that the larger spikes are hard.


This approach did not work so it's back to the drawing board. Attempt number two was to stick with the first approach but have these grooves closer to the base of the tail, have the spikes larger, longer and much closer together. However, this didn't give me the look I was after either as the whole thing looks incredibly oversized and impractical.


Not too disheartened I go back to the drawing board once again, it seems a mix of the two might work more favourably and having looked at the results from my bastilodon tail, I go with this new approach. Scales as before, but this time with he grooves in flatter scales and away from the main spikes altogether. As you can see, it's still a huge WIP, but gives you more of an idea of the stages on this one, get the large base scale down, then push and pull it to shape before gently pushing into the putty and dragging the pointed wooden tool up and away from the base.




Will post more pics when I'm further on, but hopefully for the moment this gives you something new and interesting to look at and some ideas.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

The tail work is pretty awesome, so amazed by the little GS needles!
I love the fact that also if it's a fantasy creature you put logic and coherence , i really like this kind of approach as it gives models live and plausibility

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

I think it helps me a lot more, being rational (or at least trying to be rational) by thinking of how something could/should work. My sister has a huge amount of experience with dinosaur anatomy and when she saw the current GW steg she was less than impressed (and forwarded it to a friend in her department who also studies dinosaur anatomy, he wasn't particularly impressed either).


But I think more importantly it helps you come up with ideas you probably would not have thought of otherwise.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Sorry about the quietness, trying to priporitise a few things in life at the moment and so sculpting has slowed right down, with any luck should have more stuff done soon.

If it helps I've re-written Nakai's fluff (yes, doing yet ANOTHER Nakai sculpt, using this artwork as a colour scheme for the finished article). So I thought I could upload it which should help give you a basic structure/idea of my thought process when I do come on to making him.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Looking forward to see it!
Love how creepy that dino is, with the white on his head, almost like skull painture

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Dinosaur Revolution/Dinotasia is a such a good source for markings and color schemes for the big guys (and both versions of the film/series are available on Netflix for those who haven't watched them.) All the T-Rexes and the Allosaurus with the broken jaw could make pretty good paint schemes for our dinos.

I'm really looking forward to seeing your Dread Saurian. I'm hoping to eventually run two carnosaurs, so I've been on the prowl for ideas to differentiate the two other than just using one new and one old model. Anything else you can reveal about your plans for him?

(New Lizardmen player here, by the way, just getting started -- your bad ass work here inspired me to register so I could comment!)

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

That looks awsome! I think a oldblood/scar vet ninja would look cool.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

I'm uming and ahing over doing a dread saurian, just because I have so much to do and not nearly enough time to do it all in. I will be adding in some more stuff soon, just been really busy over the last few weeks.

@Connosaurus

No idea where a saurus ninja is coming from, but not really something I'm planning on doing, just the two hero level choices.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

bummer, o well i'll just ho on enjoying youir other stuff but i might have a few more ideas soon

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

In the beginning you said you wanted to make a better ripperdactyl, i think it just needs to look more frenzied.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

You have to bear in mind I'm a very fluff driven person, if there's no hint of it in the background history or info, then chances are I won't sculpt it, because it doesn't make sense or doesn't fit (no ninja saurus anywhere in the fluff and given that a ninja is based on poison tactics, rapid strikes, stealth, etc, it doesn't fit what a saurus does or is designed to do, in the same way you wouldn't have a Rhino doing calligraphy).

I'll be converting my Rippers later on, still have a lot of things in this list to do/finish first.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Saurus characters with great weapons are awesome (and popular).. But there are no model for it!

Some huge aztec inspired ceremonial blade would be awesome, and perhaps an aztec mask to pose as crown of command?

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

How have I missed so many posts on this awesome thread?! Very cool sculpts, and I love your step-by-step guides! The tutorial to "de-darkelfify" the DE Cold Ones is very useful, as I'm currently trying to get my hands on one from eBay to have a steed better suited for my Cowboy. Literally, as it is a Reaper model and doesn't fit the Lizardmen CO...

Ondjage: Do you mean something like this?



But I do like the idea of an Oldblood having some kind of headpiece. Perhaps something like this? (just a quick google search...)



Anyway, I'm eagerly waiting for any new advances you make and post! I hope you can keep it up! Good luck!

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

You have a good point no ninja saraus.

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Chakax could use a beefer more dangeruos model scince he pulped a deamon prince

 

Re: You advise me and I'll sculpt it

Well I've almost finished my cold ones, I'm trying not to split my focus from too many different projects as it quickly becomes very confusing, works much better when you finish one, then move on to the next.

As for the head dress, I had something in mind for Nakai, but he's far off, still got the razordon to do, then the salamander, then the two saurus heroes.


@Connosaurus,
I'd disagree on that, the model accurately reflects the artwork given and more importantly, look at the size of the model on the base he comes with, any bigger, or if you tried to make him more dynamic and he won't rank up and you'd have difficulty using him in a game (I will be covering dynamic poses at a later date).