Saturday 24 May 2014

Silicone madness and some good BeeSPutty Plastic

Hello!

Despite being focused mostly on my scientific activities, I've managed to find some time for the hobby.
Firstly, I've done some minor work on the female character, that is, I've replaced her leg with a more slim one. Then I tried to make a mould to copy the model and it did not go well.



I failed to degas the silicone enough and I ended up with air bubbles in recesses. Here is an example:



As I really want to make a good copy, I'm going to just acknowledge my failure and try again. This time I will devote more attention to the process, making layers of silicone instead of pouring the whole mixture at once. Hopefully, the effect will be better this time.

But there are also some good news! I've finally received a longed-for silver envelope from Masq-Mini, with a new BeeSPutty Plastic (Grey Firm) inside. I was very excited, since I had a really good opinion on the normal BeesPutty (you can find the reason for it here ).

I have a limited experience with bakeable putties, so I can only compare BeeSPutty to Green Stuff or Miliput. And clearly, I cannot say that it's better or worse, as it is just a different type of thing.

The Plastic BeesPutty lacks the sweet honey smell of the regular one, but this is probably the only unambiguous drawback I can think of. Some would say that it could be more sticky etc. but then again, this may be an advantage in some contexts (for example, you can easily cut the soft putty without deforming it and so on). Needless to say, the best option is to use many kinds of putty. This is exactly what I'm doing while sculpting this little thing:





So far, it took me only two evenings. I believe that one more evening will suffice to finish this little guy. I know that the wings are kind of rough, but it's just a sort of an exercise model, so presumably I will leave it as it is.

Now, there is a question of how to attach it to the base. Mayhap I will just use a wire and hope that nobody will notice... or maybe, you have a better idea?

Thanks for reading and cheers!

Tuesday 13 May 2014

Aren't you too tall to be a Femme Militant inspired 28mm acolyte?

Hey!

As you may know, making a good female miniature (which often means 'sexy') is considered a difficult task. There is a good reason for that. When you sculpt some kind of ugly or twisted creature, you can help yourself by exaggerating some particular parts of the mini. In fact, a more caricatural features will often make the final miniature better - since our cognition is based on feature extraction, making some features more visible increase the probability that the viewer will associate the miniature with those motives that you want him to.
Now, this is something that you can't really do, if you want a nice female character, since caricatural approach would most likely end like this:



... or even worse. What you want to achieve is actually an effect of subtleness - so you can't really take a caricatural approach here.

I'm talking about this, because I need a kind of excuse, why work on my new miniature is progressing so slowly. Well, that's right - I'm trying to sculpt a female character for INQ28 from scratch. This is how the miniature looks like so far:



I have a sort of special plan for it, but this is a matter for another post.

There is one more thing. As suggested in the title, this girl is kind of big (at least if you consider her to be made in 28mm scale). Actually, she is slightly taller than the Chaos Cultist Champion from the Dark Vengeance box. As you may know, DV cultists are rather oversized when compared to most of the GW miniatures. In fact, GW is known for scale inconsistencies.
I'm going to ask you the same question that I've posted somewhere else - how do you deal with those inconsistencies?
Surely, it's natural that some people are taller, some are not etc. and the grimdark SF setting actually makes those differences in size and body proportions even more plausible (natural selection, genetic manipulation, mechanical prostheses and so on). Perhaps, it's not a problem at all?

Thanks for reading and see you on the comment list!

Tuesday 6 May 2014

Inquisitor de Lorme - finished?

Greetings!
It took me some time, but I've finally managed to put the brush away and call Mr. de Lorme 'finished'.



Well, that is not necessarily true. I already see some areas that could be improved. Moreover, I plan to put another coat of varnish on it and one can never be too confident when playing with varnishes. Since 'tis very likely that I will spend more time on this miniature in the future, if you reckon that some part should get more attention, feel free to tell me! But as for now, I think I need a break...










Sorry for the light reflections on the next picture. It seems that I've used too much varnish there. It will be corrected!





Anyway, it was not an easy miniature to paint, but I've learned very much while doing it. It is probably worth noticing that some gold details were made using a gold leaf gilding technique. Not to mention many other new techniques that I've used for the first time here.
Now, all he needs is some company. Oh, and a display wood base... Thanks for reading, cheers!