Half-Assed Philanthropy

datetime November 5, 2014 10:33 PM

I’ve decided to do three nice things that require almost no work on my part, because that pretty well sums up the kind of guy I am.

1. Anyone wanna sculpt at Templecon?

This year will be my fifth Templecon, and the first where I’m not planning to play much Warmachine. I’ll be playing in whatever Infinity events they have and probably getting in a few games of Grind and Thunderdome, but otherwise I’m mostly just planning to hang out and do whatever. During this period of whatever-doing, I was thinking that it might be fun to sit in a hotel room for like twelve hours straight and sculpt an army man. I mean, I’m paying enough for the bloody room, I might as well get some use out of the damned thing. 😛

Would anyone be interested in such an activity? Twelve hours is enough time to get a dude from wire to partly dressed; I’d be covering things like armature-rigging, fimo mechanics, useful tools, basic anatomy, faces, and clothing, with lots of random pointers in between about general technique and good habits.

People would be welcome to work along with me, or just to hang around and burn away productive con time. I’m thinking that either Thursday or Sunday would be best, as they see the least real gaming activity.

Let me know in comments if this sounds like something you’d be down for.

2. Fabulous Prizes

Speaking of Templecon, I’ll be donating a pair of models to Gday’s raffle thing. These fellas have been sitting in a display case collecting dust since I finished them years ago, so I figured I might as well offer them to someone who might get some actual use out of them.

If you want a crack at them, you’ll need to pretend you’re a good person and buy some tickets to support whatever we’re supporting. (I think we’re taking a position on brain disease, though I didn’t catch which direction we’re leaning on the issue.)

3. Free Sculpted Models

I was cleaning off one of my desks recently and found a pair of models that I converted and sculpted (respectively) one and four years ago (respectively) and never got around to painting. Looking at them now, I don’t see myself ever working up the careitude to change that, so I’m looking to give them away for free to anyone who’s a pretty good painter and would be willing to send me back some decent pictures of them when they’re done.

The Sharktopus was a silly model I made ages ago as a bizarre Warpwolf proxy for an underwater Circle Orboros army I never ended up assembling. Now it’s a paperweight that makes my tiny desk shelf fall over.

Fiona the Black was a warcaster I intended to lead a Merc army I bought. However, I picked up the models about six months before I had my gaming crisis and decided I was bored with Warmachine, and at this point I don’t think I’ll ever be bothered to paint any of the other models in the army, let alone finishing all the dozens and dozens of conversions I was planning on. So, whatever. If anybody wants a snazzy custom Fiona with a custom spear, coat, and spell effect, she’s yours.

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(I never posted the Fiona project because I was waiting to paint her. So whoever volunteers to pretty her up will get the dubious honour of being featured in a post on a blog that averages twelve daily hits.)

As mentioned, both of these have an eligibility requirement– I’ve sent a fair number of my models off to be butchered two-layer painters over the years, and I don’t think I can take that heartbreak anymore. If you and I aren’t acquainted, shoot me an e-mail with some samples of your work so that I know what kind of home I’m sending my babies to.

Actually, “Not wanting to paint stuff” has started to be more and more of a roadblock for me lately– I’ve killed several potential projects that I was excited to sculpt because I knew I wouldn’t want to paint them at the end. I’ve managed to pass one such project off on a truly wonderful human being, but I don’t think I can keep leaning on other people to finish my projects like that. Going forward, either I’m going to need to figure out how to make myself like painting again (hopefully my upcoming painting class with Meg Maples will rekindle a bit of that drive…), or I need to make my peace with posting unpainted sculpts.

Sigh.

Knowing that your angst is caused by first world problems doesn’t make it any easier to bear. 🙁

-Spud

8 thoughts on “Half-Assed Philanthropy

  • Plarzoid

    Love the shark. Too bad it’s for stupid hippy druids and not awesome blighted landsharks. He could be a decent Proteus stand-in.

    Also, I’ll paint any of your stuff for you. Three layers is better than two, right? That counts?

    Seriously though; I, too, have projects I want to do but fear starting knowing I can’t pull off the conversion / sculpting work required.

    By our powers combined?

  • yaumlamachine

    Well. The more I learn about what will happen at TC2015 the more I feel dumb for missing it… I would have been totally up for this! Good idea Spud… you have your moments 😛

  • Jordan Peacock

    Splendid modification on that Fiona! (I am working on kitbashing some pirates for an Iron Kingdoms RPG campaign, and your work game up in a Google image search.) Is that some sort of “orange-stuff” sculpting material, or was that just the result of an early stage in painting the model? Whatever it is, that’s some pretty slick spell-effects work! 🙂 I hope you don’t mind if I draw some inspiration from your work on my own attempts at making spellcaster effects. (It’s certainly better than my attempts at cutting circles out of clear plastic and then trying to hand-paint “runes” on them. 😀 )

  • Captain Spud [Post author]

    The orange parts of Fiona are sculpted from Fimo over wire armatures. Fimo is an oven-baked clay with a nearly-unlimited working time, which I prefer over Green Stuff when making large, detailed, standalone objects. It doesn’t stick well to metal, however, so I generally still use Green Stuff for modifications that are layered on top of an existing model.

    Looking back at this model now, I think I might actually try to paint it sometime soon. I’ve always liked the conversion I did, and I do need a blog post for this month… hmmm…

  • Jordan Peacock

    Excellent! I got distracted by the Boba Fett pictures before coming back and seeing your reply here — and now I’m even more resolved that I’ve got to give Fimo a try. I’ve worked with different types of Sculpey, and just assumed that Fimo was more of the same (only in fancy colors).

    I see that there’s “Fimo Soft” and “Fimo Professional Soft.” Is there any particular type of Fimo that you recommend? I’m not quite sure what attribute makes the “Professional” variety distinct from the merely “Soft.” (My friendly local craft store only has the regular “Soft” variety — not the “Professional Soft” — so if there’s no particular difference, I think I’ll just go with what’s in stock for the quick impulse buy to start experimenting. 🙂 )

  • Captain Spud [Post author]

    Sculpey and Fimo are very similar products– both polymer clays that you bake to harden.

    I’ve never used Professional Soft, so I don’t know what the difference would be. You’ll find that Fimo Soft is quite a bit harder than Sculpey, because it’s intended to be blended with a second product called Fimo Mix Quick. The more Mix Quick you add, the softer the Fimo becomes. This is intended to let you mix different consistencies for different jobs, but personally I always mix them about 50/50. 70% Mix Quick will give you about the same hardness as Sculpey.

    If you’re already using Sculpey and you’re happy with its consistency, there’s no real reason to switch. I personally just find it to be a bit soft for my tastes, so I don’t use it much outside of basing (where I don’t care as much about the quality of the finish).

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