Sculpting practice

Being bored I got started on one of my goals for 2015 by starting to practice sculpting. I had originally planned to go the traditional way with green stuff and other sculpting putties, but then decided that digital sculpting is probably more for me. 3D printing masters for casting seems to be on the rise with for example Infinity models being designed on a computer. I have access to 3D printing and I've done 3D design as a living in the past before progressing to hating excel and writing e-mails, so I figured learning a new 3D tool shouldn't be too hard and could somehow be seen as improving myself professionally :)

So I went ahead and fired up ZBrush after looking up some tutorials on youtube and started experimenting. After the first hassle of getting used to a new program I started toying with it. My first effort could not stand the light of day, but now my next try at least ended up looking like something. Sculpting a human seemed a bit daunting so I just started doing a bust of some creature from my imagination and seeing where it goes. Ended up with something relatively humanoid with quite a bit borrowed from the aesthetics of Warhammer Bloodletters. After a couple of hours I now have the basic shape finished and waiting for details like wrinkles, scars etc. which will probably end up taking many times longer than everything until this point.

 

All in all I was actually quite surprised how easily it came about considering that I haven't done any organic modelling in my life and it's been about a year and a half since I last did any product development related work anyways. After this I'll see how a whole body will turn out and maybe try to do something a bit more realistic. I had a grand plan of sculpting some Napoleonic Swedish/Finnish troops and getting them printed and maybe some masters cast for my own use so I can play the Finnish War of 1808. It's still quite far away, but if the learning progresses as fast I might actually succeed in doing it this year :)

Painting Challenge entry 12: Ensign Kennedy

For the casualty themed fortnight challenge I converted and painted Ensign Kennedy of the 1st Royal Scots from Waterloo. Other entries and the voting is up at Curt's blog so go there to see what everyone has come up with for this theme!

After being mortally wounded at Waterloo carrying the King's Colours in front of his Regiment a Sergeant attempted to take the flag from his hands. Refusing to let go off it the sergeant picked him up to carry him back. Impressed by the deed the French stopped firing until the two got safely back to the British lines.

As I already told earlier this was the first bigger conversion that I attempted. The previous ones had only included some filling of gaps after changing arm positions etc. For this one I needed to change the pose of the ensign heavily by mostly redoing the legs and the torso. I also redid the hair to show it hanging down.

Parts are sourced from Victrix British Line infantry box, their artillery box and the Perry British Infantry box. The top part of the flag staff is from Warlord games.The whole setup is mounted on a Warbases casualty base to allow tracking casualties.

Challenge progress

A quick update on all things hobby like. I finished up my Poilu a couple of days ago and should have it up here when the Challenge entries go up on Curt's blog. Otherwise I haven't been very active with painting the last couple of days. Even though I didn't feel like painting yesterday due to recovering from Friday I did manage to get some sculpting and converting work done to get ready for the next few Fortnight Challenges.

For the casualty entry I'm continuing my Ensign Kennedy project that was forgotten in my bitz box last spring. Last time he only really had the basic shape fleshed out so now I continued by finishing the jacket and his legs. I also added an arm for him and hands for the Sergeant. I still need to sand down some details and sculpt the young Ensigns sash and modify some bare head to look like his hair is dangling down.

For my "favorite character" I'm gonna go with a Nurgle Daemon Prince. He is converted from bitz off the Plague Drones and Daemon Prince kits. I'm still trying to figure out if I should use the fly head from a spawn box or one of the Daemon Prince heads with this guy. Using the fly head would be easier as I don't really need to sculpt a neck for him, but we'll see how I feel when I'm finishing him up :)

I also fixed a couple of NCO's arms for the Winter War project. Their arms come separate and really need some filling to get them looking natural. And on the background you can see the Turks going along. Blockpainted the basic uniform colors and all the metal parts. Next up painting all details.