hosercanadian

I managed to do quite a bit of work on Steve Rogers this weekend, but unfortunately short of finishing him. I have included a shadow picture to help show how my details blend in when colour is less of an issue. Any comments would be appreciated or details that need to be corrected...I'm so close to this I am sure there is something I am missing. Again, more pics and rambling on my blog.

Very nicely done.

With no comments, I am going to assume the eyes look fine...or it is just so terrible nobody can comment on how to salvage it. I managed to grab the tools as do the face this morning. I had to restart as my youngest snuck into the basement as I was touching up the nose and startled me. Sure the tool only moved about 2 mm...which put the nose in the eye socket. Anyhow, I tried to get the Chris Evans face...but failed miserably. I do think I got his little smirk/grimace he does when trying to look tough at least. The nose is all off I know. I made it too wide and flat. The lips will be the limit of facial sculpting (other than the chin) as I will be putting on the chinstrap for his helmet which will cover his cheeks. Any comments appreciated.

Maybe I'm as clueless as a deadite, but is that some kind of movie reference with a car going through a portal? ;-) Great idea, liking the execution.

I don't think a base would be too much of a problem: cut a hole in the base too.

I keep threatening my wife with stealig her Cricut from her for that exact thing. How deep can it cut?

Getting near the final (and critical) details now. The helmet is just starting to take shape. In the background the hands are also visible. Right, nearly ready to attach. Left, bit more work but won't get attached until painting I think. Do the eyes look right? They are a tiny bit (1/3 of a mm) too high and I am curios if it is really noticeable. The bottom edge of the front will get cleaned up after I have added on the nose and mouth.

A bit of sculpting time, and now Thor has some armour details. I added the first of the trademark discs and a fire motif on the breastplate. Comments or suggestions appreciated, I ramble on for a bit on my blog about my choices.

Looks good so far. I really like making 6mm terrain. For the foam buildings to give the textured look, have you considered plaster or modge-podge? Both will cover the small gaps and side edges and will also protect the buildings. I would recommend small bits of card or paper to add details, I found it easier than painting. Looks good.

I did up the third layer of his chest piece including his shoulder guards. I realize I cut some corners on the mid layer and it doesn't come up high enough. I will have to go back and clean up that layer and fill in the missed areas. I know the back is a bit rough, but the putty started curing before I noticed it needed some cleaning up. Next stage will be filigree and the discs (well 4 of them anyways). After seeing how the flared up shoulder guards look, I am second-guessing adding on more shoulder coverage.

Not much to show, but doing it anyways to keep myself accountable. I added the straps to his knee/shin pads and filled in some gaps on his legs. I also have his right hand at about 80%. Once the next stage is cured I will tidy it up and attach it. I have decided not to go with extra padding on his knees as I thought it would look silly after I saw what those pads look like. Likewise, I am going back and forth on spandex vs pants again.

After a brief pause to deal with Real-LifeTM, I managed to add the next layer of Thor's tunic on. Yes, I have gone my own way with armour, much like my Captain America project. Don't worry, the 6 discs that define Thor will still be there. He just will have a bit more of a fancy tunic/armour set-up. As usual, more rambling and pics on my blog.

After doing some Real-LifeTM things, I was able to sneak in a bit of time to do more work on Captain Rogers. The first set of kneepads are added now. As usual, more rambling and pics on my blog.

To add to my spam of the forum, I decided to document another one of my sculpts on here...the Mighty Thor. Also keeping with my hero project, and coincidentally bolstering the ranks of the Avengers. I have included a couple of scale shots as I notice there aren't many pics of the armatures out there. Notice how it scales with the non-heroic dolly and my usual scale model of Deano by Hasslefree Miniatures. For the first stage I am starting with the bottom of his tunic and I will build up from there to get the layers correct. He will have his hammer hanging loosely in his right hand and the left will be a clenched fist.

With the weekend I was able to find some time to not only take pictures, but also to sculpt a bit more. Although no separate pictures were taken showing it off alone, I did do the belt buckle and filled in a gouge on his chest armour. The bulk of today was the first stage of his leg armour. I will start with the shin guards, then add the knee protectors on top and finally the straps for it all. More rambling on my blog and a couple more angle shots if you are interested.

A bit today. Your post nudged me to get back at it. I haven't had much hobby time in the past little while. I will post another update by the end of the weekend I am sure. Just a buckle and back of boots blending to show right now.

Really well done. To parrot everybody else, the OSL and torches are amazing.

Insulation foam is an interesting medium. Done properly it is sturdy and reliable. It can be difficult to learn how to do detailed etching and designs and skill is a key factor in that. To properly use it for terrain boards, hills and contours requires specialized tools. Cost - 1 to 3. Insulation foam can be expensive depending on where you live. It is also colour coded for density. The blue stuff is the densest and most likely to survive rough handling. It is also $50-100/ sheet depending on size and thickness. It is also the most difficult to inscribe details in. Pink is less expensive, but depends on your location. The specialized tools are another factor. You will need (at a minimum) a large serrated knife (bread knife), a heat gun (not pricey but a specialized tool), a foam cutter (optional, I don't care for them myself, others swear my them), glue gun, fine and super fine sandpaper (2000 grit costs quite a bit) and lots of exacto blades (the foam is tough on blades and dulls them faster than you would believe). Difficulty - 1 to 7. It depends what you are trying to build. Buildings etched with details and carved to museum quality are master level skill. A crude hill plunked down less difficult. Basic principles of design, planning in stages and incorporating other materials are needed for high quality products. Painting is another factor. Aerosols dissolve foam. You are left using other options (or adding stages) to paint it. Customizability - 2. Less customizable than foamcore due to the weakness of thinner pieces. There are playing pieces you could never make out of foam because they would break whenever handled. A basic set of features like hills, cliffs, etc can be designed to be used multiple ways. Functionality - 5 to 8. The range depends on the produced terrain. A building will have out of scale thick walls to be durable. Hills will be lightweight and durable, especially with sealed with a heat gun and coated with a sealant. I have watched 8 oz pewter miniatures hit foam hills and break them in half but I have also seen well built hills have a minor dent from the same miniature and same type of drop (did I mention I have played with some very clumsy gamers over the years?). Quality - varies. Basically the good stuff requires lots of effort and skill. Adding flock, careful planning and cutting, shaping and detailing all produce great results on average initial products. But the skill and cost of those add to the other categories above.

Foam core is an excellent medium with practice. There are key techniques you need to learn. First is precision cuts/measurements. The cleaner the cut (and sharper the blade) the better the edges will be. Second is cladding techniques. These range from adding paper or card to mask joins to using plaster to cover the outside and give a concrete style finish. Finally it is attention to detail. Broad flat surfaces are boring and don't exist. Adding in minor details from bits, broken machinery, posters, plants, damage, architectural flourishes all add both interest and realism to the end result. Fortunately not all of these techniques are difficult to learn or acquire a reasonable level of competency. Cost - 10. There are cheaper options but unless you are scratching in the dirt with sticks and rocks to play your games, there aren't many that are as durable. See my comment above about durable meaning cheap. Difficulty - 5. It requires a good attention to detail including measurements and smooth cutting. All learnable skills, but there is that learning curve. The really good looking stuff takes a lot of effort. Take a look at my urban terrain for an example of how to combine techniques to achieve a table-top level result with minimal effort. Customizability - 3. Each piece will need to be rigid and single function to be durable. However, you can make each piece unique to have a variety of pieces available. I have seen stackable/modular buildings done but they didn't look very good. Functionality - 8. A well built piece will withstand the rigors of gaming and model weight. A poorly built piece will crumble or break. A poorly designed piece will catapult models through the air. Yes, I have seen this done. Foam core castle walls with an overly large parapet and one heavy model sent a row of models a few inches away. Quality - varies. Poorly built stuff is easy, but looks like poorly built stuff. Using the key skills I mentioned above really amazing stuff is possible, or even the table top standard I do with minimal effort.

I have worked with a variety of mediums so I will chime in on a few options. Hirst Arts is expensive up front, but only relatively. The molds were my biggest lay-out, but what I selected gave me a wide variety for the genre. So I bought one set. Plaster is dirt cheap, but brittle. High grade dental plaster is strong but expensive. Mixing your own "dental plaster" with plaster and cement is strong and dirt cheap. Once you get the hang of building, multiple options are easy. I built a modular dungeon to cover 4'x6' with a total cost of about $250 (including buying insulation foam for base). Total weight for that is maybe 20lbs. Cost - 8. Sounds weird, but cheap, weak stuff is not good when you end up having to replace it numerous times. Difficulty - 7. There are a lot of tutorials on the site and they walk you through it all. I find a bit of planning up front makes it easy. I still make the odd mistake when I forget to test fit pieces for size. Customizability - 10. What I built is like lego. Check out my blog and you will see how I built semi-standard points to join and otherwise went wild. Functionality - 6. To make good looking pieces often means sacrificing access (standard for all options). To keep it from being fragile, this means less removable pieces in each area. Although very sturdy, corners are prone to rubbing off of paint or the occasional chip. No major impact on appearance or function but a minor annoyance. Quality - varies. I have seen some absolute amazing stuff. I have seen some downright terrible stuff. Mine I put in the middle some where.

This weekend I quickly threw some paint onto Blood Widow and finished the painting tonite. Not a great paint job, in fact I touched up mistakes my pictures showed me. But, I find it captures the comic character nicely. I have to say she stands out as most of my painting is very muted and gritty so the bright red spandex jumps out. More pictures and of course rambling on my blog. Comments appreciated.

I found a bit of time to do some sculpting and managed to get the laces for the boots done. More blending for the rest of the boots, but progress is being made. I stopped the laces where I did because I will be putting shin guards across the front of his leg so the laces will be covered up. Again more pics on my blog.

Nice idea. I might pick up another one for that or see if I can get a similar guy.

Here is one of my latest super hero figures, a speed paint of the Silver Samurai. I saw a few details were soft on the Bones version, but I was very impressed with this fig. Yes, I see I missed a few mold lines, I didn't see most of them until I started painting and only cleaned up the most obvious ones at that point. The Bones sword being anchored at two points made it practically impossible to straighten. I will likely pick one up in metal down the road to paint as a traditional samurai. Comments appreciated, a very quick speed paint, I elected to go for vibrant stylized equipment instead of realism as I was already trying to elicit the stylized silver used in comics already. More pics and ramblings on my blog.

Thought I would show one of the Hassle Free minis I am using as the non-super hero type in my ongoing superhero project. I am very happy with how he turned out. As with my latest binge I am not using metallic paint, and the colour matching for the bullets was a bit difficult. I was impressed with my shadows too as I had to hold him in direct sunlight to confirm what was brushed on shadow and what was natural shadow. Comments and criticisms appreciated. More pics on my blog.