My First Full Sculpt-- Evil Tree Ent

[roguetrader]

hey this is my first full sculpt and i am trying an evil tree ent, all the wood under the bark to look rooton and twisted, this is my progress so far, any comments are welcome as always wombles and thanks for looking ;D

The look i want


The first leg



after cleaning up the firs leg, i have now done the second, the "pointy" bit is supposed to be bark ripped up when the leg has bent as the ent is coming to life for the first time in a while





thanks for looking

[racssirt]

That is really amazing mate! You have a talent for sculpting I see!

I can't wait to see more!

[wolffang]

Amazing work for a first sculpt mate.
Looking forward to see what it turns out like.

Cheers, Wolf Fang

[mutantpotato]

That's just awesome! A really good first try sculpt

Can't wait to see the head and the rest of the body ;D

[faust]

Nice, can't wait to see more!

[Tim C]

Fantastic so far mate

[roguetrader]

thanks guys, but mikkel mentioned there was no real knee in the first leg, too straight, so i will put one in i think. but i am having a blast, its fun this sculpting lark ;D

[roguetrader]

ok, have been pretty lazy tonight and not much done... i have put the arm wire on for ya though . one arm will have a clawed hand the other will have like a branch whip arm, thought it was different and wanted to try it, i may change it yet so i will listen to your feedback before i carry on anymore.. thanks for keeping with it

[lono]

A very good start for sure. I agree that some sort of joint in the straight leg would be cool, but nothing too over the top is necessary, just a hint I think. I like that it currently looks like it is just beginning to animate.

Looking at the comparison between the photograph and the final effect you have got, the bark on the real tree has a lot more of a rugged texture as well as the grain style effect that you have successfully replicated. You could add something quite similar to the bark fairly quickly by making a texture stamp (There is a simple how to at www.prophetminis.com/stamps.html. You'd obviously just have to alter the texture itself a bit) or even running a rough textured rock across the surface. This would make it really pitted and gnarled and add to the realism.

I'm rather late with this suggestion I guess, as quite a lot of what's been done will be set now, but it may be of use in further projects I suppose.

[mousekiller]

Wow, that is really nice. I like all the textures that you have worked in here. The only texture I can usually get are fingerprints.

As far as the arms go, my only advice would be to keep them approximately the same length.

[roguetrader]

ok, i lopped the whip arm off, it looked ok on the photo but i r l it looked odd , here is a scale pic for you

[racssirt]

Excellent, but can I just say about the size? It seem a bit small in comparison to the mini and also it seems a little thin.

[roguetrader]

well, lots of trees are thin mate, and the size was just how tall i wanted it to be mate, thanks for commenting though

[reddogfive]

I like it. maybe bend him at where a humies back would be for a more dynamic pose...

Good work on the bark!

Cheers, Reddog

[jabberwocky]

Great job on the bark--I'll be using these as reference for some trees I'll be sculpting sometime in the future. The feet look very good as well.

[roguetrader]

thanks, @jabb, to do the bark all you need do is take a sharp sculpting tool, drag it down to the base in a line but putting random waves in as you go, then when you have done them all round go back and tidy the grooves up, to make a knot just cut a line across one groove above and below and it cuts out a knot mate, if that makes any sense ;o)

[roguetrader]

got more of the main bulk or trunk done, bulked the arms out ready for sculpting, then its the dreaded head ;D ;D






feedback always welcomed, the details and extra branches will be going on after the head

[mutantpotato]

Wow. This is really going in the right diretn. For the first time, the quality of the sculpt is just awesome.

I have a question. When you are working on a large sculpt like this, do you use more blue than yellow epoxy? I have heard that using more blue than yellow will make the GS easier to work with, is this the case?

[roguetrader]

usually i do use more blue than yellow with gw green stuff, but i got this gs of ebay, if you mix it equal and leave it 20mins before working with it and make sure your tools are well ( sexual pun time ) lubricated, you will have no problem mate, practice is the best option i would say. oh and waht do you mean " for the first time the quality of the sculpt is great ". haha lol. thanks

[matty1001]

roguetrader said:

usually i do use more blue than yellow with gw green stuff, but i got this gs of ebay,

Its exactly the same stuff, but GW whack a high price on it due to the branding.

[mutantpotato]

roguetrader said:

oh and waht do you mean " for the first time the quality of the sculpt is great "

Sorry for being unable to explain myself correctly I am a norwegian you know Well what I mean is; considering the fact that this is your first try at a full sculpt, the quality of the sculpt is great. In other words, you got talent ;D

[roguetrader]

@mikkel, its ok matey i was just yankin your chain ;D lol, @matt, yeah i guessed as much, i think my gw gs was just stale, i got 12" of gs for £3.50 inc delivery off ebay, thats like nearly 3x more cash just for a gw logo on it! shocking

[mminiatures]

The ent is a good choice for a first sculpt-and since UKFB's TLA article I've seen a lot of people give them a shot as a first sculpt. It gives you a good feel for the textures you can create, the limits of basic tools, and some experience pushing the putty without having to worry about proportion and serious exactness. If you want to keep on sculpting (or is this just a one shot to get a cheap treeman?) you might want to try some more simple experimentation with textures and techniques before sinking your teeth into a human-sized sculpt. Try chainmail, fur, feathers, bark, cloth, you'll find that with some patience you can make the putty do just about anything. Its not as disagreeable a medium as it first seems.

About your sculpt-at this early stage you are just experimenting, much like the first time you painted a figure. As such please don't take me as over critical, my own first attempt was pretty bad too.
First off-I get the impression that you put either way too much or not nearly enough water on your tools. Use water, not spit. You want to dip a tool in a cup of water so a drop of water is suspended on the tip. Then dab the tool against some cloth so the drop is absorbed leaving only a sheen of lubrication on the tool. This way you can see what you're doing without a bead of water in the way and the tool won't stick.

You chose to work in large bulks of putty as your first go, which is in some ways a good choice and in others more difficult. You don't really have to worry about detail but it looks like you pressed the tool in too hard resulting in the inconsistent thickness of the legs. I would go for a smaller figure once you have a feel for the putty as its in many ways better practice. Instead of drawing those big, wavy lines, you can concentrate on getting forms to be more exact.

Theres not so much critique I can offer but to say keep going, try a few new techniques, give a shot to sculpting a figure from scratch, no matter how bad it might turn out (mine certainly did). Sculpt and sculpt and sculpt until you can't look at any more green and then sculpt a bit more. Its mostly practice, not talent which helps you improve. In my limited experience the only talent you need is being talented at not giving up. The rest you will learn with time and effort. Get started right by studying proportion and the sculpts of sculptors you admire. Try to emulate their effects and after 50 tries you'll certainly see that you're getting somewhere. It takes a lot of work but to me its time well spent.

Hope thats of some help.

[matty1001]

Good tips for everyone there, cheers mm.

[roguetrader]

@mminiatures, thanks for the advice i appreciate it, i was thinking about maybe trying an ogre or something for my next go or maybe even something human sized....i have ordered lots of gs mate ;D also can you recomend any good online sculpting tutorials that cover normal sized people, ones with pictures ;D thanks