Matt's WIP's

[mattofmirkwood]

Here is what I'm working on at the moment:



Another Dwarf






28mm warrior (sorry about the blurry pics. The folds in the cloth don't show up very well).

[roguetrader]

cool start, your last dwarf turned out nice so ill watch this one as it goes, maybe i can learn a thing or two ;D

[Tim C]

Yep promising start, I can see the folds but I think they could do with being a little sharper if you know what I mean.

[mattofmirkwood]

Thanks for the comments. Maybe the folds should be sharper but i'll try and get a better pic so you can see them better.

[mminiatures]

mattofmirkwood said:

Thanks for the comments. Maybe the folds should be sharper but i'll try and get a better pic so you can see them better.

sharpening your sculpting can be a real turning point in the quality of your figures, it was for me. I kept being told to 'go over' the putty several more times. This really just means that you have to keep working the area of cloth or whatever it is until you're absolutely satisfied. It should take at least half an hour to do an area of any size. I used to do them quickly, but they look much better if you make each fold crisp. Where the hem of the cloth is, make sure you have a nice 90 degree angle to the underside of the garment. Make sure each fold is realistically placed and correct in accordance with the flow of the garment. Keeping this stuff in mind makes the putty work look more finished and crisp, you can spot the difference immediately.

By the way have you ever done a normally proportioned human? It might be a better way to get the basics before moving on to unusual anatomy.

[mattofmirkwood]

Can you please point out which ones I have done wrong so I can improve next time.

I have pointed out the neck, waist and knee heights on the mini here in case they are not clear:

[mminiatures]

-According to your diagram, the knees are approximately in the right place. But you sculpted the cloth hanging from the knees as though the knees were below the hem of the tunic. It looks like they are way too low.

-where would you place the pelvis on the figure? Are the legs and pelvis and spine fully articulated in your armature?

-the shoulders are not broad enough. They should be slightly larger than the width of the pelvis before cloth layers are added.

-there appears to be no clear hem to the pants.

-the arms are way too thick. If you really want to use such thick wire theres no need to bulk them out with putty.

This is harsh criticism for someone who's been sculpting about a year(?) but the more you realize there is to consider in your sculpts and the more you work, the more you can improve. I've been sculpting three years and I still struggle with armature proportions. Keep concentrating on controlling the putty and getting clean, accurate surfaces. For one thing I see that the cloth on the back of the legs is very strange looking, and there are too many folds in the tunic. A common mistake (or so I'm told) for beginners is to make too many folds to compensate for lack of knowledge of where they should really be. I did this a lot until I started to observe more closely cloth really falls. For example if you're wearing a pear of baggy jeans, there are not really that many folds as you might think. Try it out and see what areas you can improve on. Try to put in an hour a night or more if you can find time to work on your sculpting and you will keep improving.

[mattofmirkwood]

Thanks for that. I'll try and keep it all in mind.

[mutantpotato]

Great work so far. I can't really give any advice as my sculpting skills are not very good Looking forward to see them finished

[mousekiller]

Great work. No critiques from me, as I am also not much of a sculptor, but it looks pretty good from this perspective.

[mattofmirkwood]

More Dwarf updates are coming tomorrow.

[mattofmirkwood]

Well, heres the latest update, I haven't got very far as i've mainly been practising sculpting cloth, but i've bulked out most of the main body:



I'm very pleased with the arm muscule so far.

[roguetrader]

looking good, the musculature ( spelling my god spelling ) is very good, shaping up to be a hard little fella

[menace]

Arms look mighty to me, great work

[jabberwocky]

Excellent work on the arms!

[mattofmirkwood]

Heres a bad update pic:



Only the hands, beard and hair to finish.

[mattofmirkwood]

Just the beard and hands to do now:

[menace]

Matt, how'd you fancy sculpting a womble with a brush for casting, it's an old idea but it would be cool for the wom hall of fame winners etc???

[mattofmirkwood]

Maybe after I've finished the dwarf, a womble might be quite fun to try.

[greenstuffguy]

May I make a womble too? What do they look like?

GSG

[mattofmirkwood]

We can all sculpt wombles. I'm not sure what they look like either, I'm about to have a quick search on the web for pics.

Try this: www.wombles.easyweb-solutions.co.uk/

[mattofmirkwood]

Heres the finished Dwarf, i'm not too happy with the hands, maybe I should have given the gloves fingers:





And heres my next project, hopefully an atomically correct sculpt of me:

[woodspeed]

looks realy cool and a womble looks like www.bbc.co.uk/totp2/features/wallpaper/images/800/the_wombles.jpg

[razhburz]

Great looking dwarf mate

the hand do look a bit odd, though, but the rest is ace, especially the head

[mattofmirkwood]

Yes you can, but I'm not doing mine quite yet, until i've finished the MoM sculpt and deamonic teddy bear.

Update for MoM:



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