My first-ever sculpt: Blood Bowl Witch Elf Sideline Reporter

[lahatiel]

This is my first-ever full sculpt and I'd like to improve, so comments & criticisms are greatly appreciated! (Votes, of course, are also always welcome: http://coolminiornot.com/243903! )

I finally made my first foray into fully sculpting my own figure: this is a Witch Elf Sideline Reporter I sculpted as the tournament giveaway figure at this year's West Coast Quake, and annual Blood Bowl tournament I run alongside one of my league mates. She's sculpted in the 28mm (to the eyes) scale; she technically comes in at about 29.5mm to the eyes (just shy of 32mm overall), but that was planned due to the size of the platform soles on her boots. Her left arm (with the microphone) is a separate piece for casting, glued on for photo purposes, and joins at the bottom of her shirt sleeve.

For those not familiar with the game, Blood Bowl is a GW game based loosely on American football (with a bit of rugby thrown in) that's set in a satirical version of the Warhammer Fantasy universe. The game can see chainsaws and steamrollers on the field, and the background fluff provides for broadcasting of games, via crystal ball, by such networks as ABC (Association of Broadcasting Conjurers) and ESPN (Extra-Sensory Perception Network) -- thus a Witch Elf holding a microphone in a fantasy setting isn't nearly as anachronistic is it might first appear! Of course, the Witch Elves and other femaies in GW's Dark Elf armies usually have a pseudo-S&M look to them, so it made sense to me to dress my sideline reporter in a similar rivet fashion to that worn by my female friends at the goth/industrial clubs in which we hang out.

If interested, I had a WIP thread for her here, although I ended up not keeping up with it nearly as well as I'd originally planned.

 

[Jericho]

Looks really good for a first full sculpt The only improvements I might suggest would be a tiny bit more forehead and high heels instead of platforms for an Elf. Some kind of spiky armor wouldn't hurt, but that would be getting pretty close to GW's IP and they might not like that! That's a very cool figure to have for a tournament swag piece

 

[ThriKeen Priest]

Drow

Better than my 1st sculpt by a long shot! Would love to see it painted.

 

[lahatiel]

Thanks for comments, and the compliment! I'll agree with you about the forehead; I think it was probably correct at one point, but I dropped the bangs too low when I added those later. I can see why you'd suggest armor, but the point of this piece is that she's a sideline persona, not a player; there's a dozen companies out there right now making "fantasy football" players and the majority of them focus on just that -- the players. Sideline pieces do exist, but they tend to be few and far between; that's why every year's West Coast Quake giveaway mini will be a sideline piece, something for the Blood Bowl collectors... and being meant for the sideline means no armor was really necessary.

Finally, as for the boots, heels and platforms are equally prevalent in the fashions of the goth/industrial club scene from which I based her outfit, with heels usually falling more on the goth side and platforms slightly more popular on the rivet/industrial side of things (note: I feel safe in stating that with at least some degree of certainty, as I'm now closing in on my 20-year anniversary of clubbing and have been to dozens of different industrial clubs over the years, not just in different cities and states but also across countries and continents :beerwave. Heels might've been better suited for a High Elf, sure, but platforms have a much more ass-kicking look about them; given that Witch Elves in Blood Bowl are a rather ass-kicking position, and generally have more of the industrial aesthetic I was aiming for rather than goth, I thought they suited her nicely... and besides, they cast easier, too!

 

[sambu]

Great work, there's so much scope for sculpting cool/funny stuff in the BB universe and this has tons of both. I'd love to see more things like this out there.

 

[ThriKeen Priest]

Great work, there's so much scope for sculpting cool/funny stuff in the BB universe and this has tons of both. I'd love to see more things like this out there.

The two'ya got me musing over the "BB universe", & I'm seeing spectators, sitting in the stands: a pot-bellied troll with a keg of beer 'tween his feet, maybe a couple gambling goblins.. Yo, Reaper Chronoscope crew! You smell me? I asked you for gnomes & you delivered. Now I want meta-PERPS! :grins:

Edit to add: Placed a formal request- http://www.reapermini.com/forum/ind...d-2/page__st__195__gopid__556690&#entry556690

 

[Chrome]

I totally love everything except the face. Sorry, but I keep thinking of the Chipmunks looking at it. Otherwise it's a completely wonderful sculpt!

 

[cheelfy]

Really good sculpt. If the first islike this I can't wait to see the next ones.

 

[Phaty]

Really nice to see that one finished - and as I already posted in your WIP before about a face - try to place eyes more to middle line of face next time - as that is some kind of standart for "humanoid" anatomy. Anyway - nice job mate :good:.

 

[sambu]

yeah, she does like kinda like one of those things from Dark Crystal

rather than a proper witch elf. Or a bit too rodent-like anyway. But what the hey, it's a fantastic model.

 

[lahatiel]

@Sambu: Thanks! So many great companies make such awesome fantasy football players nowadays (Impact!, RollJordan, Hasslefree, Heresy, etc.) that I certainly wouldn't want to try to compete with them, so my intention is to concentrate on figures like this to help fill out the more niche areas. As for Gelfling pic, that's funny because one of my female friends, who is an acquaintance from the industrial clubs, actually used the female Gelfling as her Facebook profile during the recent "celebrity doppelganger" week. :laugh:

@Chrome: No apology necessary! Her face is a little off in these pics; I don't think it's as bad in real life but when people here and on other boards have commented on this picture -- I've heard chipmunk, feline, rodent -- I can't really argue. First-ever sculpt and I'll admit the face was hard, but I need to hear the criticisms so that I know it's area on which to work harder next time! I think one of the biggest problems is that in keeping the nose small, I kept it too short -- there's too large a gap between bottom of the nose and the top of the mouth. I haven't actually yet made the molds for casting her yet, so I just might try to add a little bit of extra length to the nose before I do, to close that gap a bit.

@Phaty: I think I know what happened with eyes, too. They're actually not far off center but the open mouth does lengthen the face a bit on the lower half. The problem was that I then exacerbated the effect by dropping the bottom of the bangs too low on the forehead, as mentioned in my reply above. I think I might actually try re-doing those and raising them a touch before making the molds, too.

@ThriKeen Priest: I'm a huge Reaper fan and had meant to post this over there, too, but hadn't yet done so -- thanks for reminding me. It would be great to see of a few figures of that type in the Chronoscope line but as long as we're running our tournaments out here, we'll be making similar-style figures for them, too. I think some sort of fan is under consideration for our next one.

@Cheelfy, and everyone: thanks for the compliments and encouragement! And the criticisms, too -- that's the only way I'll know where I have to improve!

 

[NAVARRO]

Very nice work for first attempt at sculpting, keep it going and gain more and more experience as you go... Its a fun process.

 

[mickc22]

I like it, pretty good for a first, just keep practicing

 

[devoncodain]

I would pay for that actually if you get it cast. I like it alot already have color schemes thought out.

 

[lahatiel]

Thanks guys!

@Devon - As it was our tournament giveaway, we are going to be doing a limited casting of 100 figures; about 30 are already spoken for among our tournament participants but the remainder will be available for sale to help fund other giveaways for our future tournaments. I should have more details on that within the next week, so if you really are interested, I'll post back in this thread with those details in the next few days.

 

[lahatiel]

Well, a lot has happened since late February, but I thought I'd update this again as I finally got here cast! Getting good pics of bare metal is tough and I didn't have a lot of time to play around with it, but here she is, finally. As you can see, I made some further alterations to her face and I shortened the microphone stick before casting; I think she looks even better now:

 

[Dragonsreach]

Well, a lot has happened since late February, but I thought I'd update this again as I finally got here cast! Getting good pics of bare metal is tough and I didn't have a lot of time to play around with it, but here she is, finally. As you can see, I made some further alterations to her face and I shortened the microphone stick before casting; I think she looks even better now:

OK tell me why I saw this and immediatley thought of "Abby" from NCIS?

 

[lahatiel]

OK tell me why I saw this and immediatley thought of "Abby" from NCIS?

I'm afraid I wouldn't actually know, as I can honestly seen I've never once seen the show... hopefully, though, that (the resemblance) is a good thing?

 

[Roger Bunting]

It is a good thing and it's because of the boots and hair.

That's pretty good for your first outing into sculpting. Well done.

 

[supervike]

Hey! That's freakin cool! Congrats on getting a mini cast, that seems like a fantastic bench mark.

Plus, it's good to see you on the site, you aren't around as much as you once were.