TrystanGST's WIP thread

[TrystanGST]

So it's not enough that I am getting back into this hobby after a 12 year hiatus by painting an entire Space Marine army from scratch (as Iron Lords), or that I can't stop buying minis from this site to paint that have nothing to do with my army. I've decided to get into the green stuff too!

It's not much, but I've never done this before.

The left armature will be a space marine, in my estimation of truescale. The armatures on the right will become unarmored eldar females. They will be part of a diorama I have in mind.

I'd put up pics of the 4 Iron Lords I've done so far, but I don't have a suitable photo setup, so that'll have to wait.
(P.S. Those who look closely can probably spot some of the Iron Lords lol)

[Wicksy]

Cool! Good to see some of those old school marines getting some love. Look forward to seeing how your sculpting goes

[TrystanGST]

Since almost all of my mini purchases were before 2000, the vast majority of what I have is old school!
There's so much to learn since I stopped painting in 1999 - wet palettes, blending, nmm, tmm, sculpting, freehand, osl, and the list goes on.
I've actually given all my old minis a nice pine-sol bath, so there is no evidence of my humble past. Luckily I have an excellent mentor, known around here as Elly3438, to help me get up to speed. I am on my own with the sculpting, though.

[Elly3438]

Good to see you started a WIP thread! You'll get some quality feedback about your sculpting and painting adventures.

Now let's build some terrain out of those old styrofoam GW boxes LOL

[moonmin82]

It may be early days but I'm intruiged by your armatures. Looking forward to seeing what you come up with :-)

[TrystanGST]

Thanks moonmin. I've been watching your sculpting threads with interest, that's for sure. Not many people seem to document their sculpts. Or maybe not that many people sculpt. Haha.

Anyways, quick update:

[freakinacage]

out of curiosity, what is this going to be? looks pretty mad with the cone head/neck going on!

[TrystanGST]

Yeah, that's going to have to be shortened/fixed. It will be an eldar female.

[Elly3438]

Yeah, that's going to have to be shortened/fixed. It will be an eldar female.

break out the hobby knife! Or it can be some twisted thing from the warp

[TrystanGST]

Another quick update tonight. I actually like the green stuff better than the milliput.

[moonmin82]

Cheers - that's a big compliment :-) Green stuff is indeed rather nice to work with. I much prefer it to Milliput. The proportions are looking good so far. If this is you 'getting into green stuff' then you're off to a great start!

[TrystanGST]

Another update - fixed the conehead, but most of my time was spent on Mr. 8-feet-tall.

[JesterzUSMC]

Aww, I thought for sure that the "Cone head" was going to be an eldar chick chained to a wall....dirty minded me, missed again...LOL.

[TrystanGST]

Don't get too depressed....this eldar chica will definitely be restrained.

[JesterzUSMC]

Don't get too depressed....this eldar chica will definitely be restrained.

oooh, kinky.

[freakinacage]

i think it's a good idea to get your proportions marked out on the armature. as he is, mr 8 feet will have short legs and a long chest. also i see you prefer the gs, why not mix the milli and gs together?. i find you get MUCH better results that way (although i use magic sculp as it's nicer to work with, and cheaper). just a bit of mp with the gs (i don;t measure but about 5: gs:mp) for biological stuff and the other way around for hard edged stuff. experiment, it makes a massive difference as it blends and smooths better than gs, sticks better than milliput and can be sanded/filed/cut nicely when cured too.

talc is a great lubricant too. it may sound weird but if you use it as you would flour when baking, it can produce some lovely smooth results. if you then need to stick that bit to something else, just brush the talc off with some water

another thing to bear in mind is curing. the properties of putties change as they cure. normally very soft when fresh and slowly get harder as time goes by. when doing detail work, it can be much easier to rough out the shape and then sharpen after it has been left for half an hour. i find this difficult to do as i don't get much time to sculpt so i snatch little moments here and there

hope this helps

[moonmin82]

I find that you cant beat brown kneadatite (and to an extent Procreate) for armour and other sharp details. That's expensive though.

[freakinacage]

have you tried the gs/mp mix? it's similar. although better (imo) when mixed with more mp

[moonmin82]

briefly tried milliput fine and gs mix but tend to find milliput quite messy to work with. think i need to up the proportion of gs in the mix!

[TrystanGST]

i think it's a good idea to get your proportions marked out on the armature. as he is, mr 8 feet will have short legs and a long chest. also i see you prefer the gs, why not mix the milli and gs together?. i find you get MUCH better results that way (although i use magic sculp as it's nicer to work with, and cheaper). just a bit of mp with the gs (i don;t measure but about 5: gs:mp) for biological stuff and the other way around for hard edged stuff. experiment, it makes a massive difference as it blends and smooths better than gs, sticks better than milliput and can be sanded/filed/cut nicely when cured too.

talc is a great lubricant too. it may sound weird but if you use it as you would flour when baking, it can produce some lovely smooth results. if you then need to stick that bit to something else, just brush the talc off with some water

another thing to bear in mind is curing. the properties of putties change as they cure. normally very soft when fresh and slowly get harder as time goes by. when doing detail work, it can be much easier to rough out the shape and then sharpen after it has been left for half an hour. i find this difficult to do as i don't get much time to sculpt so i snatch little moments here and there

hope this helps

It helps a lot. I have heard about mixing, I just haven't tried it yet. As for proportions, you're certainly right. I know I'll end up with too much armature up top again. I will certainly have to look into marking out proportions ahead of time. Hadn't thought to use talc. Water seems OK with GS, but water turns milliput into slurry.