Master of Asgard said:
Not as good as your others IMO. The axe does look badass and so do the body and all his extra pieces of equipment. I'm not sure if it's finished so stuff like mould lines and the armour on the back of his leg needing filling in is not so much of an issue. Like you said it needs polishing.
I agree! I love the axehead, I love the body and I love how all the stuff on his belt has come together to make him look like he's actually carrying a battlefield loadout, but I wasn't so sure about the whole package, so I decided to stick him together and see what I thought before I went through and did all the fancy stuff- hence the unpolished-ness of the mini at this stage. (the backs of the legs were actually an oversight.. I really have NO idea how i missed that >.>)
Master of Asgard said:
The first thing that struck me about the whole axe pose is that his feet seem very close together and his legs quite straight. It just doesn't seem like a natural body position for this action. It might just be the angle of the 1st photo but I would think for a swing like that you'd need one foot in front of the other and a bit of a wider stance. It is an ambitious posture and a really cool idea, but also a shame that like you say it conceals his face.
He is not supposed to be running, he is supposed to be bringing the axe down on someone's head, and his left foot is about to step forward for that little extra oomph to make sure it cleaves those few more inches
I think that might be a little more clear with the completion of the base- I've decided to pilfer some of my brother's chaos stuff (possibly a berserker, but more likely a traitor guardsman so I don't have to truescale the marine...) and have him cowering on the ground about to get cut in half.
I do have to say that this action takes a little more of a leap, imagination-wise, than I wanted to make it, but I didn't want to risk cutting up the legs- the details on them were just too cool to waste (the wolf-head hipguards could be lost, for instance, when I would reposition his thigh)
Master of Asgard said:
As for the sun thing, I don't think it looks great but it is definitely salvageable. I think it's a good image, and you should very carefully trim and file it down, so all the edges are smooth and straight, and so that the sun and it's rays are maybe half as thick as they are now. That way the sword will stand out more and the sun itself will look more subtle, more like it's a thin layer of armour decoration.
Hmm... I'll try it, I think that might be what the problem is, I just had trouble actually sculpting anything that was that small- it would stick to ANYTHING more readily than the plastic of the shoulder pad, and it was just too damn small to actually sculpt- even with the very tip of an xacto-knife blade. I'm starting to understand why GW uses 3ups rather than just sculpting at scale.
By the way, make sure to tell me when you do post and I'll give it a look.
Arden Fell said:
SW's by their very nature are 'busy' figures with their wolf pelts, flowing locks of hair and runes. I think that you may have gone over the top alittle with the pouches, grenades, extra knives, etc. It's gonna be a hard figure to paint in that pose already without adding all that extra detail.
I wouldn't say that Space Wolves are 'busy' I'd say they are 'detailed'. Busy, to me, is more like
this (not to say anything bad about that... it's beautiful and Bennett is a cool guy) than knives, pelts, ammo-pouches, grenades and runes- those are the necessities. Most marines that you see go into battle with nothing on them, just their bolter and their armor. I always preferred making them look like they could fire more than 20 shots before going "well... out of ammo... time to use my bolter as a club!" so, for the most part, I give my marines the equipment they need. This Lord needs a pistol, three pouches of ammo, a couple of grenades, and his helmet. As for the knives... you can never have too many knives! One never knows when one might need them. Regardless, as the Lord he needs to have more detail, more runes, more wolf teeth, more pelts and more impressive gear than anyone else. Hence the runic helm, the big belt, the fancy pistol, the huge axe and the custom shoulder pads. (not to mention being a few mm taller than everyone else) So he's not really over the top... 'Over the top' would be if I started putting a second
layer of pouches over the fist, or put a pistol on his ankle, or attached something to his backpack. Filling his belt with important gear isn't so over the top.
I do agree that it might be harder to paint but that is part of the challenge. If I took off all the extra detail just to make it easier to paint, I would be cheating the mini out of some of it's potential just to make it easier on me, which isn't fair in my opinion.
Arden Fell said:
As for the pose and the axe, I see where master of Asgard is coming from with this, but with a few tweaks the closed foot position could indicate a running attack, you would just have to adjust the two pelt atils on the jumppack to indicate a forward motion (bend them back a little).
He's not
supposed to be running though, he is dealing a death-blow, stepping forward as he does it. (Imagine chopping wood... only the wood is trying to overthrow your government and slaughter your people by the billions) Again, I think this will be more clear once I get my hands on that poor guardsmen (who will probably be peeing his pants >.>)
Although... at this point... if the pose is questionable and unnatural, he looks less cool than the other wolves, the pose covers his face, etc etc... I think I might just scratch the arms and start over with something a little more workable and natural. I'll give it the week and see how I feel after vacation.
Yeah I know I said I'd be on spring break right now, but plans changed and I have to wait to leave until tomorrow... oh well... it just gives me some more time to work on my Wolves! (of course, I'm putting the lord down for now, I'm just too frustrated with him to deal with that.)
AJ
