ArchArad's Corner (WIPs and Painting Goodness!)

Maenas

New member
Happy happy birthday Shelagh! ;)
Hoping you and your husband will have a nice day and by extension weekend if you celebrate your birthday then.
 

ArchArad

New member
Thank you all for your birthday wishes! My hatchday was officially on the 13th Jan (for your diaries :p). I'm a whole 35 now. :)

@BAM - Thank you so much for your kind words. They mean a lot and I'll definitely be taking you up on the dinner offer and a tour of local hobby goodness. :)

@Maenas - We're not married yet. But we're working on it. :)

So for my birthday and to belatedly celebrate passing my first year back at university I decided to spoil myself a bit. Some new W&N Series 7 miniature brushes should be arriving next week. :) I really like my Raphaels but I prefer shorter bristles for my highlighting, shading and detail work. Stay tuned - there will no doubt be a post of happiness when they arrive.

My man and I got back from visiting his family on Monday and I haven't had a chance to paint since getting back - running around registering for this semester and getting organised have kept me busy. But I haven't been completely idle....

I lay the blame for this squarely at the feet of bgcdazzler, SaintToad, Digga and WGS. I had an idea and so went out and got myself some Fimo to play with. Here follow the results so far....


Started with an armature. A fancy term for tinfoil and bent paperclips. Made last night. Took a bit of experimenting to get it to the shape and size I wanted.


Then tonight I added some polymer clay over the armature to get the basic shape.


And finally where I got to tonight. The legs have wire embedded in them. I haven't baked anything yet because I want to work on the head a bit more and get the proportions closer to the final size.

Let me know what you think. :)
 

wargamesculptor

New member
Feel honoured to have been part of your inspiration to start sculpting.
Like the start of this, if you have problems smoothing you can smooth when cooked with sand paper. You can also carve into it with a scalpel when cooked to add additional detail
 

ArchArad

New member
Feel honoured to have been part of your inspiration to start sculpting.
Like the start of this, if you have problems smoothing you can smooth when cooked with sand paper. You can also carve into it with a scalpel when cooked to add additional detail

A dubious honour at best I'm sure. :)

Thanks for the tips. I'm warning you in advance that you may get the occasional PM asking for advice or tips. Google-fu will be applied first, but I consider it only fair to warn you.
 

bgcdazzler

New member
Yay! Welcome to the dark side, Arch!

Another thing I've found useful is to bake a basic shape first and then add on to it. So if you find by adding the head you keep mucking up the legs etc, you can always perfect the body, bake and then add the head after. It helps because then you can hold the cooked part while you add the fresh.

Oh, and kebab skewers. Can't have too many kebab skewers. :)
 

ArchArad

New member
Thanks bgcdazzler - I might actually do that. Every time I fiddle with the head area I have to go back and make adjustments to the body.

Do you find baking it easy enough? I'm currently planning on following the instructions and continuing from there.
 

bgcdazzler

New member
Then 30 mins at 110 will work. You can't over bake it (you can leave it in for hours at that temperature) so it's good for doing multiple bakes. Oh, and it hardens once it has cooled, so if it still feels a bit rubbery when you take it out don't worry.
 

Digganob

New member
Oh wow, It seems my future self went back in time and already wished you a happy b day so, I shall say welcome to sculpting muhahahaha. Ask any questions you want, were way better than google :p. I think your off to a great start. Also my Fido instructions were in German or some other foreign language so I did what I do best, made up my own rules. I set oven to bake at 230degrees through an Ork head in the oven and waited for 20 minutes. Came out rockin.
 

ArchArad

New member
So sculpting is turning out to be a lot of fun and not nearly as easy as others make it look! *glares at bgcdazzler, SaintToad, Digga and WGS*

The wire supporting the legs of my little project were not attached to the armature as the paperclips proved quite stubborn to bend in a small delicate scale. As a result, every time I adjusted something one of the legs would end up at an unnatural angle. This frustrated me no end. So I decided to get myself some nice bendable wire and start again. I hadn't baked anything yet so that was easy enough to do without any waste.

Here is armature v2.0:


This worked better, but I still needed to use too much clay to cover the exposed wire frame evenly. And by the time I had the size of the body and head were way too large and the proportions were badly off. More Google-fu was called for.

And so here is armature v3.0:


I then built a basic form/skeleton onto this and baked it (thanks to clay chefs bgcdazzler and Digga for their advice). It's given me a base to work from.


That's what I've been up to. Apologies for the long post - I'll shorten future ones if you guys think it's a case of TMI.

Now my little cat needs a name. So I'm calling on you all for assistance. He is a housecat who has caught some *very* ambitious prey (I have plans for more than just the cat...) and has proudly dragged it home to show his humans. I was thinking Archibald. But please feel encouraged to supply any and all suggestions.
 

YetiSA

Member
Looking good. I'm looking forward to painting locally made minis. :)
I approve of Archibald as a name... but then I would.
 

ArchArad

New member
Yes Bevan, yes you would. :)

I'm intending on painting up this little vignette when I'm done. I may consider casting future efforts. This one will not be great - a labour of fun and learning rather than skill.
 
Back To Top
Top