Bailey03's WIP

[Bailey03]

Thanks, guys! Krule, unfortunately I'm not going to be at the next Adepticon, so clearly can't do any workshops. I'll hopefully be at the following years show, but with the new baby it's harder to get away to shows. Looks like a lot of fantastic seminars though, so I'm really sad to be missing them!

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone in the US and, for everyone else, happy Thursday in November.

A little more work on the Celt. I'm still on the skin, gradually expanding outward. I've taken care of the neck and front of his torso.
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From this side view you can see the back is just partially done. Not exactly ideal to break it up this way, but trying to paint and take care of a baby means you've got to pick you battles. Easier to paint in small sections and deal with correcting the overlaps. Plus the sculpt on his back is a bit plain. I might consult an anatomy book and see about adding some minor muscle features though the shading.
View attachment 53698

You might have noticed I've been adding some reflections on him. I did a few on his face, but the ones on his body (shoulders for example) may be easier to see. This was something I'd started doing on Redghar (the orc pirate) so I've taken what I've learned there and applied it to this piece. Not exactly NMM, but perhaps NSS (non-satin satins)?

 

[pariahrob]

I've been checking it your whites, thanks to krulebear, and v impressed plus so useful.
Then this skin! Looks ace and the satinness (that's a word right?) is ace.

 

[KruleBear]

Thanks, guys! Krule, unfortunately I'm not going to be at the next Adepticon, so clearly can't do any workshops. I'll hopefully be at the following years show, but with the new baby it's harder to get away to shows. Looks like a lot of fantastic seminars though, so I'm really sad to be missing them!

LOL. I know the feeling.

I like this skin recipe...although I may be biased as it looks like my pallid skin.

Happy Thanksgiving!

 

[Meph]

Ah well, babies grow up, and pallid skin can be shaded using solar power. Snow's even a good reflector!

 

[AndyG]

great idea with the reflections highly effective. I took your advice and did the same on the toad.

You've reached that time with the baby were it doesn't sleep as much and every waking minute is full on! Don't worry it will calm down in three years

 

[Zab]

great idea with the reflections highly effective. I took your advice and did the same on the toad.

You've reached that time with the baby were it doesn't sleep as much and every waking minute is full on! Don't worry it will calm down in three years

You are a parent now. Sleep is for the weak. Back to it sir!

 

[SaintToad]

Extremely stylish effect on the skin. Really shows those volumes clearly!
You're able to summon very different painter's effects (I'm actually thinking of two-dimensional effects) on your models, which is both amazing to look at and a testament to your incredible abilities with a brush.

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks, everyone! Yeah, fatherhood is a lot of fun, but it does cut down on the painting time. Hopefully I can make that up once she's old enough so I can teach her to paint and get her to do all my prep work. =P

On a different topic, this indiegogo campaign just popped up and I wanted to share with you all. Miniature Mentor (the group that used to put out all those nice tutorial videos) is releasing a create your own figure project. They've got a set of 5 different anatomical sculpts in neutral poses that you can sculpt on top of and then paint. They've also got the tutorial videos to show you how. The project is themed on superheroes, but I don't see any reason these couldn't be used for fantasy, sci-fi or historical figures. You can read all about it here:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/herosculpt-painting-superheroes#/

The sizes are around 75mm scale (with variation between sculpts) so ideal for display figures
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And here's an example of how you could sculpt over the top to create a unique character
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I think it's a really cool project. I'd like to make more of my own figures, but find sculpting very intimidating. Using these as a base, well, it's still intimidating... but I feel like I'd got a better chance of sculpting half decent equipment (belts, armor, etc) than I do with faces and anatomy. The set of 5 figures is $35 (+shipping) which I think is a steal for figures this size. I'm not sure I'll use them for superheroes, but could definitely turn them into fantasy figures or whatever else I might come up with. I hadn't seen much about this project before it launched, so I wanted to bring it to everyone's attention. I think there might be a few of you who might be interested in this too.

 

[SaintToad]

Great idea, I hope you give sculpting a shot with these guys. You could create figures purpose built to show off some of the techniques you've been developing recently (contour highlights, 'NSS' skintones, etc.)...

 

[bgcdazzler]

Oh, would love to see a Bailey sculpt. I can picture it crammed with oodles of teeny tiny details.

I I feel your pain with fitting hobby time around kids - luckily my three are getting older and more self-sufficient these days (as long as the biscuit tin is not on too high a shelf), so I can promise you it does at least get easier. Eventually.

 

[SaintToad]

Oh, would love to see a Bailey sculpt. I can picture it crammed with oodles of teeny tiny details.

Totally agree. Don't forget to leave some nice open spaces for your amazing skintones, leathers, and textiles*, though!





*still waiting (patiently) on the final version of your dwarf pirate...

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks!

SaintToad, me too... though it may be a little while. I'm debating if I want to pair him in a scene with my orc pirate (also still a work in progress). If so, I might end up repainting parts to the dwarf so he'll fit better with the orc.

I've been taking another look at the Count Melenth bust. I'd really like to wrap this one up. The trouble I'm having is how to do the OSL on his clothing and hair. The light sections of the face got pretty light, so I'm having a hard time figuring out where to go with the OSL on the coat. How bright should it be? How extensive should it be? Got to balance the intensity of the face with what should be an increasing intensity closer to the source. I've also got to figure out how the material (black coat vs the near white color of the face) would affect all of that. I started some sketching on the coat, but clearly it's not enough.
View attachment 53990
There's another option which is to actually add in the light source. Not an LED, but the effective light source. Say the glow is coming from an orb, maybe on the end of a staff. I could actually add that in (mount it on the base). This would allow me to place the light source closer to the face (explaining the high intensity there) and then have the intensity fall off as I move down and away from the light source. Unless I can figure out some other way to make the OSL on the coat work, I think this is my best option.

On a side note, I thought I'd share a cropped by otherwise raw photo of the count. It's big (sorry), but that way you get a very detailed look at the piece.
View attachment 53991

 

[Meph]

I'm no OSL expert so all I can say on screen this looks like an illustration, not a 3D bust. The lighting as-is (also and especially the blue on his cheek) feels completely natural against the photograph background.

 

[bgcdazzler]

Never thought I'd be able to help you out Bailey, but...

OSL posed the same issues in photography. You've gone past the point of worrying about the lighting - the face shows you have a mastery of presenting shaped objects to light - and your first OSL piece with the hobbit spider shows your knowledge of how colour is affected by it. Now you grappling with the texture, and how that affects light reflection/absorption. The strength of the OSL on the cloth depends ultimately on how shiny it is.

Main the below photo you can see the light is very subtle on the dress, because it's satin. It doesn't reflect much light at all (in fact the harshness of the light, shown by how 'blown' and pale her face is), shows how much light you need for the tiniest of refraction. Whereas her ribbon parts are much shinier, so give the light back more powerfully. Basic rule of thumb is that rougher cloth gives back far less light, and is much duller in tone. A super shiny fabric gives back more - and takes on more of the tone of the original light too, like oil on water.

so for your vampire, it would be:

black evening jacket: dull blue tone, not very strong - unless it has shiny lapels like a proper dinner jacket, which would catch more OSL
black hair: oily, pricks of pure OSL (depending on how shiny it is)
white shirt: muted, pale OSL with not much colour
cravat: I'm picturing a wine red silk affair - similar in colour to your dwarf pirate's cloak - with pure OSL on the bits that catch the light.

Hope that helps!

 

[BloodASmedium]

IDE thought about the Osl ,does this sound right, the more non reflective the surface the lighter the osl impact.

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks for the feedback and info, guys. Bgcdazzler, yeah, I tried to vary the OSL a bit for material on the hobbit. I tried to have one level of reflection on the cloth, more reflection on the leather (satin components), and even more reflection on the metallic parts. And, of course, all of that is also based on the distance from the light source. But, your info takes this to a much more detailed level. I hadn't thought about varying it based on cloth material/finish. I'll have to experiment with some reference sources. I've got some black crushed velvet cloth around here somewhere (use it as a base for my displays at shows). For this piece, the light source will be very close to the fabric, so I want to check out not just the amount of light reflected, but also the fall off.

I'm also taking a first stab at sculpting a hand for the figure. Started off with a wire armature. Waiting for some glue to dry and then I'll see about position the wires for the fingers. This is the easy part, next comes the actual sculpting. We'll see how it goes. There's a very good sculptor in our local model group, so I could hire him to sculpt the hand for me. That's just going to cost a bit more than I'd like to spend on this piece. So hopefully my attempts at sculpting won't be a complete disaster.

 

[Kretcher]

Looking forward for your result and insights into sculpting that you hopefully will share with us

/K

 

[Bailey03]

Here's my second attempt at sculpting a hand for the bust. The first try was okay, but I tried to do too much at one time. So as I tried to fix one area, I'd end up screwing up a different part. So I abandoned it halfway through. This time I'm going more slowly. I plan on finish, though I probably won't use it. This is all a learning experience and I'm hoping if I do a third one it will be even better than this attempt.

The basic approach is create an armature from wire. There's a trapezoid for the palm and then bent wires glue on for the fingers. After that I put a thin layer down to fill in the palm. Once that is dry, I started to add more of the details and shapes. Thanks to the thin layer I put on previously, as I push and work on the putty on the inside of the hand, it doesn't push through and mess up the back of the hand. Made that mistake on the first go around.
View attachment 54036

I've been wanting to do some sculpting for a while now. I doubt I'll be making my own figures from scratch anytime soon, but having the ability to convert or add to an existing kit would be really nice. I've got a long way to go, but at least I've taken the first step and am actually trying to make something!

 

[Zab]

great start and a very natural pose. I don't think you need to be too accurate in proportions with this one due to the nature of the bust so keep at it cause right now it looks perfectly in line with the look

 

[Bailey03]

Thanks! Yes, the style of the bust gives me some flexibility in terms of realism. The general look and pose are what I wanted, but the details I've done so far are a bit rougher than I'd like. Luckily they're also going to be the least visible when it's put next to the bust. I plan on seeing this hand sculpt through to completion. But I may want to try another one or two (or more) times before I settle on which I'll actually use. There was a big improvement from version 1 to version 2, I'm hoping if I do a version 3 and perhaps 4 they will be even better.