Mushroom & Fungi Forest

[Craig J. Brain]

I've started to practice making fungi and experiment with techniques, using DAS, which I figure is cheaper than Knead It or Green Stuff.

 

Here's my first trial mushrooms:

 

 

Given the ease with which I manufactured these, I may forego the casting proocess altogether and just make about 50 of these! My plan is to have a big battle amongst the giant fungi, and I'm going to need a stack of these bad boys. I also need to do up a few pieces that resemble brain coral, as an intelligent fungi. Any suggestions for sculpting that?

 

Thanks,

 

Craig J. Brain

[Simon Vaillancourt]

Nice fungus ! I would try to get actual fungus shapes there is so much different fungus out there ;)

[Craig J. Brain]

Nice fungus ! I would try to get actual fungus shapes there is so much different fungus out there ;)

 

Simon,

 

Thanks for the suggestion and feedback :)

 

I am looking at trying to sculpt something that looks like this:

 

 

Can you suggest anything?

 

What other sorts of fungus are you talking about?

 

Craig J. Brain

WardCo.

[Craig J. Brain]

I am getting better with a bit of practice:

 

 

50 of these won't take long at all!

 

Craig J. Brain

[GreyHorde]

These are looking really good. What scale are you making them in? I mean, I realize you're working on'giant fungi', but compared to a Warlord mini, for example...?

 

For variety, I'll jump in and suggest this photo for some diverse types. That's from a Google image search for 'fungus'. A little more searching for 'mushroom' turned up this page.

 

Now, take this from a dabbling nooby sculptor, okay? Just ideas. For the brain shape, I'd say start with a solid, cured shape, then add the surface texture in its own layer so you can push it around without distorting the whole shape. For the texture, I don't have a specific tool or technique in mind. Just grab your inspiration photo and push putty around until you work it out. I find photos do help, but even better is to have a good sample in hand. Halloween is a great time to go through the candy section of the grocery store, browse the costume shop, novelty/party supply stores, etc. Kids get all the gross, scary stuff these days, so a brain shape should be easy to find. You might also find something close in actual coral, or plastic or ceramic at the pet/fish store, but don't count on it.

 

Heck, my little one brought home a pink brain-shaped eraser from school the other day. Cheap brains are really easy to find at this time of year. A candy piece, toy, eraser or whatever you can find lets you put tools on it, see how they fit, how the strokes were made, get feedback from the surface and the tools. On your own piece, muscle memory and visual cues will tell you when you're getting close to the surface texture you want.

 

I hope that helps.

[Simon Vaillancourt]

I am suggesting this ;)

http://images.google.ca/images?um=1&hl...vision&cd=1

[evhorne969]

I'd use GreyHorde's suggestion of making an understructure then sculpting the "brain" texture over the top of it. You could try adding some putty and then cutting the lines in or roll out little snakes and randomly place them on your understructure. Either way should work just fine.

 

Gene

[Craig J. Brain]

Hi!

 

Thanks for the links and the suggestions. I've got some ideas now for proceeding over the weekend :)

 

Here's an EM-4 miniature trooper and a couple of old Grenadier figures for an idea of scale:

 

 

 

 

When I get my other Reaper figures, I'll post an update with those for scale.

 

Craig J. Brain

WardCo.

[MamaGeek]

There's a really neat mushroom sculpting tutorial I saw on CMON somewhere that you might want to look for.

[Craig J. Brain]

There's a really neat mushroom sculpting tutorial I saw on CMON somewhere that you might want to look for.

 

Thanks for the tip!

 

What's CMON?

 

Craig J. Brain

[Rastl]

See, here's the problem with people posting really cool stuff like this. Now I want to make some.

 

I even have an excuse since we're playing in Forgotten Realms and my GM is far too enthralled with drow. And they have mushroom forests in the Underdark.

 

These are looking mighty sweet. They're familiar enough everyone knows what they're supposed to be but on a much larger scale (opposed to the minis). Trying to make other types of fungi might make things less familiar but that's not necessarily a bad thing. Just do a Google image search to find other types and color ideas.

 

If I make mine I'll be going with Sculpey since I have a lot of it and it's cheaper than the epoxy putties.

 

And to answer your last question. CMON is Cool Mini or Not, a site where people have the ability to rate pictures of your minis. They do have a rather nice Article section with some helpful tutorials.

[Simon Vaillancourt]

I'm sure Craig would be please to show us how he has done them !

[Craig J. Brain]

I'm sure Craig would be please to show us how he has done them !

 

Simon,

 

I'd be happy to! I'll take a few pictures on the next one I do and post it when I get back next week.

Thanks for the explanation of CMON, I'll have to check that out.

 

Craig J. Brain

[Bodhi]

Really lovely mushrooms. There are a few cracks in some places. Luckily since you're using DAS they should easily be smoothed out by some wetsanding to make a nice finish before you paint them up.

[Craig J. Brain]

Really lovely mushrooms. There are a few cracks in some places. Luckily since you're using DAS they should easily be smoothed out by some wetsanding to make a nice finish before you paint them up.

 

Wetsanding? Yep, I'll give that a go :)

 

BTW, the CMOS article on mushrooms is brilliant, and I'm going to use that technique to add mid-sized mushrooms to my collection. This should help give some depth to the forest that I plan to create :)

 

Craig J. Brain

WardCo.