Tuesday 20 September 2011

Bob Version 2.0

So that last armature I made was a little... let's say "sketchy"... but for all it's flaws, it was a good starting point.

After getting my dimensions a bit more down to earth (trust me, you never appreciate how small 28mm really is until you take a ruler to a mini), I set about clipping some more wire and digging out the soldering iron to make myself a "proper" armature.

My soldering iron was missing the end and after a long look I made my own... It did not work...


Given what I had at my disposal it was ok, but the heat didn't make it to the end, which was pretty useless. So I bit the bullet and waited A WHOLE DAY to go to the shop and buy a new one.(soldering iron that is, why not eh?).

I also picked up a couple of crocodile clips with which to make this...





Soooooo,,,,,

Clip, Cut, Solder Solder...





but alas... Bob 2.0 turned out a little on the tall side, but after some measuring it seemed he was only long in the leg, so with a bit of clever wire bending...





and BINGO was his name-OH!

nrxt comes polymer clay muscular layer and rough shaping... ooooooh yeeeeah!

Stay Tuned :)

Friday 16 September 2011

A Matter of Great Ambition...

So I've been thinking of trying my hand at a little sculpting, so a quick trip to the shops and...


I also grabbed myself some heavy duty wire cutters as the wire I'll be using for my armatures is fairly strong (didn't want it snapping every time I bent it into place), but still thin and bendy enough to be usable.

After a LOT of Googling for info on sculpting from scratch, I decided to go for a polymer clay instead of an epoxy (greenstuff, milliput etc.). I'm not unfamiliar with using GS, but I wanted something that would give me a bit more working time (and also be non-toxic so I can sculpt whilst the kids are awake... which is always).

My clay of choice was, after a bit more Googling, was Sculptey. It's a bit more malleable than Fimo (so I'm lead to believe), and my choice of Sculptey III and Sculptey Premium was decided for me by what my local toy shop had in stock.


A bit of bending, twisting, clipping and gluing later...


This is Bob, my first attempt at making an armature.

Admittedly he's not the best in the world, but the dimensions are pretty much how I want them, I think it may turn out to be 30mm "heroic scale", once built up, rather than the standard 28mm, and I have no doubt that there will probably be Bob's MKII's, MKIII's and so on until I get it right.

Bare in mind this is my first attempt at sculpting a figure, and I am under no illusions, it's gonna get ugly. Whilst I may have Michaelangelo's David in my mind, I know I'm probably going to be looking at something a bit more like Nick Park's Morph.




... and you know what? That's fine by me. The purpose of this is to hone my skills, learn new techniques and slowly and surly develop my talents as an artist, rather than to rush in expecting perfection and give up after my first failed attempt.

With that said... wish me luck, and next time we'll see Bob with a bit more flesh on him once I've finalised my plans as regards to what it is exactly that I'm going to sculpt. (I'm thinking Pirate, but I'm not 100% sold on it yet).

- Dave :)



Friday 9 September 2011

And the Winner is?....

So what have I been up to lately?

The answer, I'm sad to say... not a lot (modelling wise anyway).

My Rumble and Stumble entry was (as I expected) beaten by the Big Mek, and rightly so... but I can rest assured that if I were one of those people to vote for themselves (and not for the mek as I did), then I would have been the victor, so I'm happy with that.


the winning mek

As for recent endeavours... I'm hoping to get some paint to plastic soon, I've got my eye on some Mantic Games minis (lovely looking undead hordes to be exact).

Can't say much more than that for now, but I just wanted to let those of you that may be interested, know how I faired in my first ever painting comp

Take it easy, and hopefully a new pic heavy blog will be heading your way soon enough :)