Search the Community

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/crosslances/the-scenic-library-3d-printable "Crosslances is an artistic reality consolidated for many years, we have dedicated ourselves very often to model making and playing miniatures in 28/32mm scale. This time, however, we want to launch a completely different project, an absolute novelty, our original idea. In fact, we want to make available to you these fantastic sculptures of ours, which can be printed directly at home, painted and placed inside your bookshelves to obtain stunning effects!"

A client of mine has commissioned me to produce a new line of oriental-themed turtle people, based on box-turtles. I'm pretty excited about this project as I love the subject as well as the challenges that it will present me. We are going to take a modular approach to this, with me creating a fully sculpted shell with arm and leg armatures. This I can then cast in bronze and use to make many different minis. I am also planning on making several heads and casting them to be added to each sculpt. A turtle head is pretty generic with little possible expression, so I should be able to make a few variations and reuse them. I will also be sculpting and casting various oriental weapons, hats, and other accouterments to be added to the sculpts. After all that, I will be making three sculpts to begin with, and we'll see where we take it from there. If it all turns out, you'll likely be seeing all of this on the KS page at some point. Here is the basic concept (this is very rough and I am not very good at drawing; the 3D sculpts will be a lot better): Here is a close up of the basic armature concept: Last night, I began the project by making the armature and underpinning the shell Here is the top view: And the side view: I will be basing the turtle parts on the Eastern Box-turtle: And finally, as I was typing this, the bronze came: Now, I am going to have to figure out how to cut that up into chunks that can fit my crucible. More to come soon. Andy

Why not? I've never sculpted before, but I enjoy painting minis. I've done a few very minor mods before. I wanted more. So I decided to try making my own custom mini. I read the article in Kinetic7 vol 1, swung by a suprising number of craft/ art stores, decided on a build, and went to it with as little foreplanning as possible (before I lost my nerve). I decided to try to make a female Hobgoblin hero archer. Why? Well, our Fighter cleric just picked up a hobgoblin cohort in our DragonLance game and there don't appear to be any female hobgobling archer minis already lying about on the interwebs. Also, hobgoblins are kind of ugly, so there is room for lots of error. They are more heavy set, so I can get away with less fine detail if I want. And finally, it's not someone's main PC, so I feel way less pressure. To make things easier on myself I decided to base my creation off a mini I already have lying around: 03166: Alistrilee, Elf Archer by Bobby Jackson Spent more hours than I should have last night getting the basic shape down and making her face. Results below. First thoughts? Fun! Also, Sculpey Firm is still really soft and I didn't even use clay softener. I kept having to put it in the freezer for a couple minutes to firm it up. Next time I may just go with the harder greenstuff-like-stuff for everything and not just the underbase (but I am also not sure I can work that fast).