{"id":4456,"date":"2017-03-19T18:22:58","date_gmt":"2017-03-19T22:22:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.captainspud.com\/?p=4456"},"modified":"2017-06-02T16:25:55","modified_gmt":"2017-06-02T20:25:55","slug":"slayers-of-the-pastry-drake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.captainspud.com\/?p=4456","title":{"rendered":"Slayers of the Pastry Drake"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/p>\n

Spud did a good thing, but he did it badly, so the formerly fun project was made not-fun for those involved, and then it was never really finished, and then Spud shamefully stuffed it under the rug for 18 months.<\/p>\n

But I’m going to have to haul it out and talk about it eventually, so I might as well get it over with now.<\/p>\n

Behold the potato’s tale of shamefully poor planning. ;_;<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Time Is Dumb And I Hate It<\/h2>\n

Spud knows a great painter named Yaum, who puts nice paint on things<\/a>. Yaum painted several models I had made over the years, so one year for Christmas, I offered to sculpt him any model he wanted. He chose to have himself sculpted as a chibi model, which turned out like this:<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Yaum put his usual amazing paint on the model, and entered it in the Crystal Brush at Adepticon. It didn’t win any prizes (BOOOOO! ;_; ), but it did catch the eye of someone else at the event. She asked where the model came from, and Yaum explained that I had made it.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

This person was Elizabeth Beckley, pro painter of chibi models (and also other stuff. \ud83d\ude1b )<\/em>. I hadn’t heard of her up to that point (I don’t really follow the painting world…)<\/em>, but Yaum assured me that Liz was awesome, and this assessment was confirmed very early in our first conversation.<\/p>\n

Liz explained that she was getting married in seven months, and wanted chibi models of herself and her fianc\u00e9 Jonathan to act as her wedding cake toppers.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

(He’s the one on the left.)<\/em><\/p>\n

And unlike the fairly standard cake toppers<\/a> I was working on for my sister’s wedding at the time…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…Liz had a specific piece of concept art that she wanted her figures modeled after– the wedding invitation art that she had had produced by one of her artist friends.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

And that was what she wanted me to sculpt: her fianc\u00e9 Jonathan as a cameraman barbarian, and her as a paintbrush warrior. And that was it… from the moment I saw the picture, I was on board.<\/p>\n

I wasn’t able to start working on her project right away, since I was about to start working on an Infinity league for the players at my store, and that was scheduled to occupy me for the next couple of months. However, I was confident that I would have it wrapped up in time to start working on her minis three or four months before her October date, which should have given me plenty of time to finish them and send them off to her for painting.<\/p>\n

And then comes the point in the story where Spud ruins everything. The Infinity campaign<\/a> turned out to be a much larger beast than I had imagined, and by the time I managed to get my head back above water, there were only two months left to produce and mail the models, and somehow have her find time to paint them in the chaotic weeks before her wedding.<\/p>\n

Rather than drawing out the suspense over this whole article like a crappy reality TV show, I’ll just cut to the end of this sad tale: sculpting time plus mailing time ended up putting the models into Liz’ hands just over two weeks before her date. By some miracle she got both minis mostly<\/em> painted by her wedding day, with only the base and some random areas unfinished. And I did end up seeing the models in person a few months later, and she did an INCREDIBLE job with them. But to my knowledge, she never got around to completely finishing the models, and I’ve only ever gotten cell phone pictures of their semi-finished state.<\/p>\n

Lack of photos led me to delay publishing this article for a short while, and then for a long while. And eventually, the delay crossed the event horizon to where it became weird and awkward to even bring up again. And since the entire sad situation was my own doing, I wasn’t exactly in any position to poke for updates. ~_~<\/p>\n

And that’s where we are today: Spud’s crapness made a happy project sad, and he hid his shame away for over a year to avoid talking about it.<\/p>\n

Spud feels terrible about all of this.<\/p>\n

Spud is sorry.<\/p>\n

Spud will do better next time.<\/p>\n

;_;<\/p>\n

This concludes the public shaming portion of this evening’s program.<\/h2>\n

While the context surrounding the production of the models brings great sadness to my heart, the actual models themselves are some of my favourite work. As is my way, I will now walk you through the process of their creation in agonizing detail.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The art that Liz gave me was amazing and I intended to stick to the character and concept designs depicted therein, but I needed to do my own concept to plan things like the art style I planned to use, the base layout, and the models’ poses. For the art style, I chose the only Chibi style I had worked in before– essentially just copying Super Dungeon Explore as I had for Yaum.<\/p>\n

Layout-wise, I still wanted to include the purple dragon from the art, but not in a way that drew attention away from the models. My solution to this was to frame the scene as taking place after they’ve defeated it, with only its tail curling out of a cave in the rock they’re standing on.<\/p>\n

One final decision I made was that the models should be separable from the base and from each other; given Liz’ fondness for chibis, I assumed that the two of them probably played SDE or other similar games, and that they might want to use their own effigies in game pawns. It turned out in the end that Liz doesn’t actually play the game, but I went ahead with the plan for removable pieces anyway because it was an interesting challenge and probably wouldn’t hurt the overall diorama that much. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To keep the models in proper SDE scale, I reverse-engineered a borrowed model to get a skeleton diagram with the correct body proportions.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As per my usual process, I then twisted together a skeleton armature out of 20-gauge aluminum picture wire to create the model’s head, torso, and legs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I make my models’ arms as a separate piece. The horizontal sections of wire in this photo will be the actual arms, while the downward dip that I’m squeezing together will allow me to attach the arms to the model’s spine.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the first skeleton was complete, I duplicated it for the second model. I would normally differentiate the skeletal proportions for male and female models, but given the cartoonish proportions of the SDE art style, I used the same generic skeleton for both of them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The arms were then bent into shape and cut to length.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With the generic skeletons built, I then set about posing them. The model on the right is Liz; her right leg is raised up onto the defeated dragon’s tail in a satisfied hunter’s pose. Jonathan’s barbarian will be letting out a defiant roar, so I’ve given him a wide stance that will eventually have his face raised up to the sky.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the joints in the arms were defined with an initial bend, I then set about twisting them into their final positions, matching the poses from my concept drawing. The arms don’t need to be perfect at this stage– I’ll always do some tweaking after they’re attached to the torso– but I try to get them as close as possible, as the joint between the two pieces will always remain a bit flimsy and I want to minimize how much force I’ll need to exert on it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Said flimsy joint is shown here. The downward tab on the arms is lined up with the model’s spine, and then attached with super glue. Once the glue dries, I wrap a thin sheath of Green Stuff around the whole assembly and let it set overnight.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I decided to work on Liz’ model first. I would be sculpting in Fimo, but Fimo doesn’t adhere well to anything except other Fimo, so the first step is to wrap the entire model with a thin layer of Green Stuff putty…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…and then wrap Fimo around the putty while it’s still soft. The sticky putty allows the clay to adhere to the wire armature without sliding or shearing off.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Application of the initial clay layer began at the feet and then continued up the rest of the body.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Skinny arms and legs can be built straight onto wires, but a large object like the head needs additional structure underneath to keep it solid. To provide this, I filled the wire loop with a putty disc to give me something to build on later on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Before starting on the bride’s dress, I roughed out the end of the dragon’s tail so that I could correctly drape the cloth around it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To form the first layer of the skirt, a large clay wad was placed from her hips to the ground and then smoothed into her legs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This was then expanded at the bottom into more of a bell shape<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I started laying out some rough ideas for the direction of the cloth folds; I figured that her upraised knee would be the primary tension point for most of the skirt, with the rest of the skirt creasing away from it toward the ground on the opposite side.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

My ADD then told me to stop working on the skirt and instead give her a face, so I applied a thin layer of new putty over the solidified “head disc”, then applied clay over top of it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More clay was added on all sides to make a vaguely balloon-shaped head. A normal human head would normally need to be constructed from the skull outward by adding muscle and fat strips (to ensure correct proportions and an eventual realistic head), but chibi heads are far quicker and more forgiving– you basically just make a round blob and then etch shallow details into it.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I next started adding some basic landmarks to the head, pressing in slightly on the eye sockets and pulling out the nose\/mouth area.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I placed an initial mouth line as an additional landmark to help place the cheeks, the nose, and the bottom of the eyes.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The eye sockets were currently quite recessed, so I added some clay back in to form the concave shape of her eyeballs. SDE Chibi eyes aren’t actually spheres (and in fact, two spheres of the necessary size wouldn’t even fit inside the model’s head)<\/em>, but they should still be given the illusion of an outward bulge.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These were smoothed into the surrounding eye sockets.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then used the edge of a metal hoe tool to press the shape of her eyes into these newly-formed masses.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point I examined the face I was building out and found two problems– the mouth was too low, and there wasn’t enough clay around the whole nose\/mouth\/chin areas. Fortunately, both problems shared a common solution: add more mass to the area and then re-do the mouth.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The new mouth was placed slightly higher; once again, it started with just a simplistic mouth line terminating in cheek lines (also known as a smiley face).<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I created a gap between the upper and lower lips to show her teeth a bit.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And then while smoothing the model out, I added even more teeth, giving her a really weird broad grin; this will end up getting repaired a bit later on.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, with the head roughed out, I went back to working on the dress, here creating a line to separate the bodice from the skirt.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This continued around to the back.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point I went back and checked against an SDE model for scale. I was pretty happy with the body and limb proportions, but it definitely made me notice how evil I’d made her face look. I… probably needed to fix that at some point. @_@<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First, though, I wanted to build the props that Liz would be holding– a giant paintbrush. In the past, I’ve traditionally sculpted weapons flat against a piece of metal– sculpt one side, cook it, flip it over, sculpt the other side. This project was the first time that I decided to try a different technique, wherein you sculpt everything around a piece of wire held inside a handle. This technique would make finer details more difficult to render, but should be faster overall and not subject to the obvious seams and thickness issues of the two-side technique.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As always, the first step was to wrap the bare wire with Green Stuff to form an adhesive layer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next, clay was wrapped around the putty.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To avoid uneven distribution of clay, I used a sheet of plastic to smooth everything out. Basically, I wrapped the plastic around the brush handle, then squeezed it slightly with my fingers while dragging upward. This process was repeated over and over, each time pulling extra masses of clay up toward the end where I could remove them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

After a few dozen passes, it looked like this– not perfect, but good enough. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once this was done, I used metal and clay tools to create the brush’s details– the metal collar, and then the actual brush area.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then baked the brush, forgetting that putty tends to expand when cooked unless you give it 8-10 hours to cure. This invariably leads to cracking of the clay layer like you can see here, which in turn requires filling and smoothing work.<\/p>\n

I end up cracking my work quite often, actually– I KNOW that you need to wait, but I frequently manage to talk myself into cooking early anyway out of simple impatience (“It’ll probably be fine this time!”), so quite a few of my clay sculptures involve a completely avoidable repair stage.<\/p>\n

Sigh. ~_~<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Aaaand back to the head!<\/p>\n

I added a small curl of clay on each side of the head to form the ear lobe. This was then smoothed into the head in the center, and… that’s pretty much it.<\/p>\n

Cartoon people are much easier to sculpt than real people. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I next moved onto the hair, starting here by laying a clay snake out to define the outline of her bangs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More clay was added in scraps on the top and back, then blended together to form a continuous mass.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point the evil facial expression was starting to get to me, so I paused the work on her hair to try to figure out what was causing that impression. Present Day Spud knows that it’s a combination of the eyebrow angle and the really broad mouth, but 2015 Spud thought that the lack of glasses was throwing things off.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, sure. Let’s toss some rough glasses on to see if that fixes it.<\/p>\n

(Spoiler: It won’t.)<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I generally sculpt glasses a bit down the model’s nose with the eyes poking out on top, as I find that models look a bit weird at the painted stage with their eyes painted directly on top of the lenses. Only partially obscuring the actual eye sockets reassures the viewer that yes, there are, in fact, actual eyes behind the glasses somewhere.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then added the legs of the glasses between the frames and Liz’ ears.<\/p>\n

At this point I noticed that fixing the wrong detail didn’t resolve the problem, but didn’t yet see what the actual trouble was, so I went back to the hair for a while.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I turned the model around and started planning out how I wanted the hair to flow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Liz has wavy hair, so I decided to model it in a few large chunks that wobble slightly on the way down and then curl up at the bottom. Here I’ve roughed out the major shapes with a metal hoe tool.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next, I went in with a clayshaper and smoothed it all out. If I had been making a realistic model I would then start etching individual hairs into the larger chunks, but SDE’s cartoon style stops at smooth chunks, so I didn’t have to do all of that tedious work.<\/p>\n

Yay again for cartoons! \ud83d\ude00<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The original concept art from Liz’ wedding invitations had her wearing a crown of roses around her veil; I added each of these as a small blob of clay.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Roses are easier to render than you might think. You start with a ball, smooth it into a cylinder with one flat face, then etch a spiral into that face. Chop up the single continuous spiral into a few separate petals, do a bit of clean-up, and ta-da… roses. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

(Random teaser: if you like sculpted roses, you’ll really like a project I’m hoping to finish and publish sometime this summer, which has over 150 tiny roses spread all over it. I am… kind of tired of sculpting roses. \ud83d\ude1b )<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Still not having solved the Puzzle of the Disturbing Demon Face, I moved down the model to work on some of the costume detailing. Here I’ve started working on her sash by wrapping a thin putty snake around her waist and then squishing it flat.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The cloth folds in the sash were then applied, using the attachment point at her right hip (underneath another rose) as the only tension point.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point, I had at least rough detail down for most areas except her arms, so it was time to attach her accessories.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The brush was wired into the cork base, and then glued to Liz’ hand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the glue dried, clay was built up in the standard fashion– a thin layer of putty with a clay blob placed on top of it. This blob was then smoothed out, and fingers cut into it with a knife. Finally, a clayshaper was used to round and pose the various fingers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

While I had already added the flower crown, I hadn’t yet added the veil that they would ultimately be attached to.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To create this, I laid on multiple thin slabs of clay…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

..then pressed them together with metal tools, and smoothed the resulting surface with clayshapers. Metal tools were then used to define the outer edges.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And that, barring cleanup, was a mostly-complete Mini Liz Beckley. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

I was still trying to figure out the problem with her facial expression, and things like her glasses and hair still needed a fair bit of smoothing, but it was good enough to stand as a pose reference when moving onto the second model.<\/p>\n

Next: The Other One<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Dude<\/h2>\n

<\/p>\n

As laid out in my sketch, the two models would be sculpted to hold hands; however, the cork bases they were standing on didn’t currently permit them to be placed close enough to each other for a live mockup, so I shaved down one side of each cork to let them scooch closer.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Like so!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The first stages for sculpting Jonathan were pretty much identical to what I’ve already covered, so let’s burn through this stuff quickly.<\/p>\n

Putty around wires!<\/p>\n

Clay around putty!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More clay!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Manly Paunch\u2122!<\/p>\n

Face putty!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Face clay!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Smooth face clay!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…aaaand back to real commentary.<\/p>\n

Jonathan’s mini was being posed with its face raised up to yell at the sky, so I flattened out a facial plane on about a 30 degree angle, building up clay at the bottom to define a chin.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The angle was good, but made him look too skinny, so I added some extra material to round out his jaw and neck.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Using a metal hoe tool, I pressed in the rough shape of Jonathan’s mouth. Combined with his wide eyes and V-shaped eyebrows, he’s starting to look right, but there’s still something missing.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

So, a quick face-drawing lesson: the difference between a surprised face and an angry face is a lot of lines pointing toward the bridge of the nose. When people get mad, all of the soft tissues in their face contract, becoming smaller and tighter. However, the bridge of the nose is semi-hard tissue, so when all of those other squishy tissues bunch up, the nose stays exactly where it is, and everything else basically just draws in toward it.<\/p>\n

It’s quite similar to planning out cloth drape, actually– just as cloth bunches up with its folds pointing toward points of attachment (e.g., a cape attached to Superman’s shoulders will droop with folds that point toward one shoulder or the other<\/a>)<\/em>, “face drape” will bunch and fold its tissues toward points of bone and cartilege.<\/p>\n

It’s helpful to know all of that when sculpting a model to have an actual facial expression instead of the completely neutral face that most model bear. Knowing where the skin, fat, and muscle will bunch up, and why, makes it easier to figure out where extra clay masses need to be placed.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, what was missing from Jonathan’s face? Lower eyelids. The eyelids themselves have fairly small muscles, but they’re immediately adjacent to much larger slabs of cheek and eyebrow muscle that drag them around when the face moves. Upper eyelids get yanked up into the brow, exposing a lot of the upper eyeball; but on the bottom, the cheeks are lifted upward and inward, shoving the lower eyelids over the eyes.<\/p>\n

Don’t say I never taught you anything!<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

SDE models don’t technically <\/em>have noses, but they do have a slightly raised bump where the nose would normally go.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Whoa. Too much nose, way too much jowl.<\/p>\n

And I honestly don’t remember if I noticed in time to go back and clean it up.<\/p>\n

I really hope so. ;_;<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The clients had requested that I sculpt Jonathan to his natural proportions, so I filled out the torso area with Ob\u00e9lix Anatomy<\/a>; this didn’t need much detail, as long as the masses were placed in approximately the correct spot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A belt was added by flattening a thin putty snake around his waist.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then added material between the thighs to create what would eventually be his strappy leather skirt.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The individual straps were created by flattening short putty snakes against the flat skirt; the straps near the legs were angled away to show them swaying away from the upraised thigh.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Rinse, repeat. We’ll come back and add detail to these in a moment, but for now, let’s build more accessories.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The paintbrush had been built around a straight wire, but Jonathan’s hammer needed a more complex shape for its armature in order to support the hanging parts of the head.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

As before, the wire was dropped into a pin vice to create a secure handle.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Putty went over the wire…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…then clay went over the putty.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

A few hours of cleanup with clayshapers later, I had the final CamHammer. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The cropping of the wedding invitation art made it hard to tell if he was wearing a sporan (aka Classy Scottish Fanny Pack)<\/em>, but I like sculpting pouches, so I added one.<\/p>\n

*shrug*<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The flap and seams were detailed in with clayshapers. I also added a belt buckle.<\/p>\n

I really, really hope I came back later and cleaned this up, because HOLY CRAP is that messy. @_e<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The art also called for Jonathan to wear a Captain America shield. To build it, I pressed a small clay blob onto a quarter, smoothed it into a low mound, and then carefully etched rings into it with the edge of a metal hoe tool.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

There’s probably a joke to be made here about Captain America’s shield having the Queen’s face on the back, but I’ll leave it to you to mine that vein of pure comedy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alright, apparently I did eventually figure out how weird the jowly lines on Jonathan’s face looked, because it looks like I eventually went back and fixed them.<\/p>\n

It is a weirdly harrowing experience to go back and caption such old photos. Current Spud can never be totally sure whether Old Spud was smart enough to catch things like this.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Said fixing happened when I added his mustache; while working on this, I also smoothed out some of the surrounding lines on the cheeks and eyelids.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The original art called for Jonathan to have a fairly short spiky beard, but in my own modified sketch, I expanded this into a full braided beard for some extra Barbarian Chic. I sculpted this on my trusty Canadian quarter, but this time did not bake it before placing it on the model.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Instead, I carefully lifted the beard off the quarter with a knife and carried it over to the model’s chin, where I squished it into place.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The individual braids were then smoothed into his face with clayshapers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The pair were starting to look pretty good at this point. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Next random item: shield strap! Like all other belts and straps, this was a thin putty snake, flattened out with metal tools and cleaned up with clayshapers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It was continued up over his shoulder and terminated on the back.<\/p>\n

The actual shield will be attached toward the end.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Here’s a trick I figured out quite a while ago. Sculpting rivets onto models is fairly annoying and tedious, but in some cases you can get away with the shortcut of simply pressing a circle into the flat surface. However, clean circles tend to be pretty difficult to make as well. My trick for this is to buy some very thin styrene rod (Woodland Scenics makes these in many different widths)<\/em> and drill a shallow pocket straight into the end.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This lets you create small rings simply by pressing that end into the surface. Perfect for studded leather. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Jonathan’s mohawk hairdo needed to be sculpted around a wire, but I had a bit of a problem on that point, as I didn’t currently have a protruding wire lodged in the top of his head. I could have added this just before baking and then done the hairdo in a second pass once the wire was encased in hardened clay, and to be honest, that was probably the smart way to go about it. However, in the increasing rush that I was feeling to finish the project, I decided that the hair needed to be attached NOW… despite the fact that it wasn’t actually any faster overall to do it now or later.<\/p>\n

I… don’t really make great decisions when I’m in a hurry. :\/<\/p>\n

So, yeah– here I’ve lodged a short length of wire into the side of a cork, and sculpted the spiky hairdo around that support.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then lifted this off the cork with a knife…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…and transplanted it onto the model. Unfortunately, pulling the model off the wire collapsed the taller part of the hair toward the front, so I had to stretch this back out after it was attached.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

It looked okay in the end, but I still think I should have done this after baking.<\/p>\n

BAD PAST SPUD!<\/p>\n

BAD!<\/p>\n

*swats*<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point I did a general clean-up and nitpicking pass, and took photos to send to the clients for general spot checks. Jonathan’s model was nearing completion, with only the hands needing to be added.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I was pretty happy with how he was turning out. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Liz was looking good overall, but the face was still bugging me.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I did some extra detailing during the clean-up pass, finalizing the flaps and folds of the veil, and cleaning up uneven bits in her hair.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The intensive clean-up pass FINALLY led me to notice the problems with Liz’ facial expression; I realized that the eyebrows were a bit too drawn down, and the mouth was just a bit too wide, expecially around the bottom corners.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I filled her current dimples in with clay, and then resculpted the mouth area to be slightly smaller, and less pulled-down at the bottom.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Much better. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I had originally been planning to add the remaining hands after baking the rest of the model, but realized that it actually wouldn’t hurt anything to do it now, so I went ahead and sculpted Liz’ hand.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That only left Jonathan’s hands. I wanted to start with the upraised hammer hand, so I set about mounting the hammer to the end of the arm.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I don’t remember where I picked this technique up from, but it is a HUGE help for sculpting handheld objects. I used to struggle to get my weapons attached to the ends of my models’ arms with wire or glue, but the tiny attachment surface always made these joints extremely flimsy and prone to breaking.<\/p>\n

With this new method, weapons are sculpted with a long wire coming out the bottom, which is then looped around and embedded into the base. This makes the weapon almost completely free-standing, eliminating the need to hide structural supports inside the model’s hand. So the model ends up more solid AND better-looking.<\/p>\n

Great technique. Strongly recommended. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

At this point I noticed that I hadn’t yet given Jonathan his foot wrappings. Oops.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These were really fast to build– I added a bit more clay to bulk them out, then pressed spiraling lines around them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To help reinforce the barbarian look, I had his toes hang out the end. As a concession to the chibi art style, I didn’t add toenails.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alright, back to the hand. With the hammer’s wire holding it up, I added putty to secure it onto the end of the wire, then used clay to sculpt a hand around it. I didn’t get a good shot of the hand here, but you can see it a few pictures down.<\/p>\n

And with that, I thought the models were ready for their first big trip into the oven, so I took some nice pictures of them. (There was actually still a bit more to be done, but I didn’t get a second set of nice photos after the last-minute add-ons, so screw it– let’s pause and ogle for a sec. \ud83d\ude1b )<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

So, yeah– shooting and editing those pictures made me aware of a few more things I could do before baking.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

First up: attaching the shield. I drilled a few shallow holes into Her Majesty’s face to provide gripping points…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…then added a small clay wad on the model’s back…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…then squished the shield onto the wad. The clay pushed into the gripping holes, which would keep them firmly engaged after they were baked.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Finally, I decided that there really wasn’t any reason I couldn’t do Jonathan’s open hand right now. First the fingers…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…then adding the thumb…<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

…then detailing and smoothing everything.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the end it isn’t the smoothest joint in the world, but I don’t think anyone’s really going to care. It’s good enough to create the illusion I wanted. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

And then I finally baked them. Super serious this time. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

Next: The scenic base<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Solid Foundations<\/h2>\n

I baked the models on September 6th, which you may recognize as “way the hell too close to October to still not be finished”. And at this point I still hadn’t started the scenic base that they would be mounted on, so I began a mad scramble to assemble the entire thing in a single weekend so that they could be shipped the following Monday morning.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Each of the two models was to receive its own small stone base, with the two shaped to interlock with each other. These small bases, in turn, would then slot into the top of a larger base.<\/p>\n

I needed the small bases to guide the larger one, so those had to be built first. The first step was to create a spacer out of some spare cork, which I used to lift the two models up, providing space to sculpt the bases underneath.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The spacer was lined up with the bottom of Liz’ dress, which was all on a single ground plane. Jonathan’s two feet were at different heights, so I lined the spacer up with his back foot, intending to sculpt a larger rock under the front foot.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I use Fimo to sculpt my actual miniatures, but I also own a fair amount of other brands of clay, mostly left over from various experiments. The base ended up being sculpted out of Sculpy, which is similar to Fimo, except that it comes pre-mixed with softener, and is naturally a bit softer and waxier than Fimo. I’m not a big fan of Sculpy’s consitency for working on models, but it does the job pretty well for basing, so I decided to use up all the Sculpy I had left on this project.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

These rock bases were quite easy to build– I jammed wads of Sculpy beneath their feet, squished the wads flat, then carves them into separate rocks with a metal hoe tool. The edges were then cleaned up with clayshapers, as usual.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I made sure that the contours of the bases interlocked nicely together; I would later build similar interlocks with the stones on the larger platform around them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Random clean-up: I noticed here that Jonathan’s wrist had cracked when I baked it. And the crack had actually pushed the hand outward slightly, lengthening the arm. This means the putty was definitely still soft when I baked it, which means this was my fault again.<\/p>\n

Sigh. ~_~<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Repairing it wasn’t just a matter of filling with putty, as the arm was actually now slightly too long– I had to pull the hand off, scrape out some of the expanded putty, and then drop the hand down into its original position.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alrighty, back to the bases. I baked the two models side-by-side so that any warping in the clay would at least match on both sides; when they were hardened, I cut them apart with a knife and popped them off the corks that they had stood on for all of their short lives.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The bottoms of the bases looked pretty rough from sitting on bumpy cork, and needed to be filled in.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Slightly better. Still ugly, but at least they stand flat now. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

With the models’ bases in place, I could now start the larger scenic base. This would be built on top of a much larger cork (a big ol’ jug stopper); to let me work without risking the models, I just stood them on top of it and traced out the shape and position of their bases with a pen.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This helped me figure out where I needed to leave the base flat, and where I could cut chunks of the cork away.<\/p>\n

It’s useful at this point to recall the layout of the base from my concept sketch:<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The tip of the tail under Liz’ foot will lead to the rest of the tail wrapping around the stone they’re standing on, eventually disappearing into a small cave just in front of them.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The dark section on the front here is where the cave will be placed; I cut out as much cork as I could in front of Jonathan’s base, while leaving some in front of Elizabeth’s base to support the cave.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Laying clay over cork requires the same adhesive layer as when you’re building on top of wires, though given the much larger area, it isn’t strictly necessary for the putty to cover the entire surface. I generally just apply putty snakes all around the base to ensure that there’s at least SOME putty holding the other layers together in every region.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Sculpy then goes on top in huge slabs.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The slabs were then smoothed together. This gave me an adequate base to build around, but I didn’t like the cylindrical shape– the base definitely needed to be widened.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

More slabs, more smoothing, yadda yadda yadda. You guys know the process by now. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once the basic masses were in place, I started carving them into individual stones to match the models’ bases.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I’m glad that this was all being done in a cartoony style, as sculpting realistic stone over this much surface area would take a LOT of work. >_<<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To make the dragon’s tail fluidly drape around the pedestal and disappear under the rocks, I needed to create a spiraling ramp for it to sit on.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This required me to add a LOT of additional Sculpy. It’s a good thing I was trying to use it all up, because I’m pretty sure I succeeded. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

To make the dragon’s tail, I simply made a huge wad of clay and rolled it into a cone.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then draped it around the ramp I’d built, from the back of Liz’ base to the cave in the front. This immediately revealed that the ramp wasn’t quite smooth enough, and needed a small patch on the left side.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I corrected this by expanding one of the larger stones to support the tail.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then added additional stones piled up around the mouth of the cave.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I made sure to keep all of the stones spiralling in the same direction to create a consistent visual flow.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

This finally seemed to be all of the stones I needed, so I set about cleaning them all up with my biggest clayshaper. From the timestamps on these photos, it looks like it took about eight hours.<\/p>\n

SO MANY STONES. @_@<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the end, though, it looked pretty badass. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Alrighty, almost done! I had a few hours left before I had to go to bed and call the project finished, so I spent them detailing the dragon’s tail. First up, I etched a shallow line into the entire length of the tail, to represent the division between its belly and back.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then pressed this line in slightly and rounded the seam.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then created further divisions all along the belly to help communicate that it was, in fact, a dragon’s tail, and not a big ol’ hentai tentacle. \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The corners of these belly sections were then rounded to complete the “cartoon dragon” look.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The last thing I wanted to add to the tail was a row of spikes. I started by cutting off different-sized chunks of Fimo (I had successfully used up all the Sculpy \ud83d\ude1b ) and rolling them into rough cones with my fingers.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I then dropped these onto the back of the tail and smoothed them into place.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

They started as a full double-row, eventually petering out into a staggered single row. No particular reason– I just liked the way it looked. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

I called it complete at 1am and popped it into the oven.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Once it was hardened, I cut it off the tin lid it had been build on with a knife– quite challenging, actually, as the sticky Sculpy had formed a really tight bond with the slightly rough metal and really didn’t want to let go. @_@<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

And that, ladies and gentlemen, was it. \ud83d\ude42<\/p>\n

It took way longer than I intended, which significantly inconvenienced the client (not that she ever complained, mind you)<\/em>, and I will never stop feeling terrible about that.<\/p>\n

However, taking the work on its own, outside the context of its delivery schedule, it’s one of the nicer pieces I’ve ever made, and certainly one of the most elaborate.<\/p>\n

So I really love the final product, but looking at it makes me sad.<\/p>\n

Emotions are complicated, you guys. ;_;<\/p>\n

Next: Lots of pictures<\/em><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The Happy Couple<\/h2>\n