First epoxy sculpt: Avatar of the Serpent God for Serpent's Skull

[Matrix Dragon 64]

Warning, contains spoilers for the Pathfinder Adventure Path "Serpent's Skull".

 

The Serpent's Skull campaign that I'm GMing is almost finished, and I wanted to put together something special for the final boss. I haven't been able to find any minis that came even close to representing this thing, so I decided to try to create my own 'mini' for the final boss out of green stuff. A lot of green stuff.

 

I have made modifications to small miniatures with green stuff before, but I have never tried to sculpt something on my own before I made this thing. I expected it to come out horribly. I did make several mistakes : it is a bit too large, I should have done the pose differently, and the surface isn't very even. However, I'm actually rather pleased with the results. For reference, here is a picture of what the Avatar is supposed to look like. Yea, I didn't even try to do the scales detail aside from the belly scales.

 

 

I created it by first making a wire armature and putting some ProCreate putty around it to form the basic shape. From there, I put green stuff on top of the ProCreate to get the details. The colors of the green stuff are a bit mismatched because I use some Citidel green stuff and some Reaper green stuff mixed with milliput. I think I will be using mostly the latter combination for future sculpts. Finally, I put a layer of CA glue on the surface of the thing to smooth it out a bit and help hold it together. I would show you guys pictures of the earlier stages, but I took those pictures with a cell phone camera and they look really blurry...

 

The base I'm using is a 60mm round 'Desecrated Lands Set Two' base from dragonforge designs. It is sized for Huge creatures.

 

I'm currently priming the 'miniature', and hopefully I'll have the whole thing done in one or two weeks.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Matrix Dragon

[Spinward Bound 138]

Love the big guy, and can't wait to see him painted up.

[NightyKnight 595]

Looks cool to me. I realy like how big he is.

[Matrix Dragon 64]

Thanks! I'm not sure how great he will look when painted since his paint scheme is (theoretically) pretty simple, but I'll see how it comes out. I guess the key will be making the glowing eyes and regeneration effect look flashy enough. I'm planning on using something that I got recently called 'dayglow' paints for those areas.

 

i'm thinking of doing a last minute modification and adding large claws onto the hands and feet. I was afraid of putting them on before because I was afraid of messing up, but I think it will go a long way towards making the thing look more menacing. Luckily, I don't think those areas have been hit with primer yet.

 

Hmm, maybe I should have posted this in the sculpting section even if this is a WIP? Hah.

[zoroaster100 4786]

He looks scary and awesome. Very snakey/reptilian and exudes power and majesty in a scary sort of way. I like his pose, too...very dynamic. The only parts of the sculpt that I think didn't turn out perfectly are parts of the tail which maybe turned out thicker than they should be at that point of the tail, but the length of the tail makes that not very noticeable, and the body and head turned out looking absolutely great.

[Maglok 5743]

Very cool indeed. I am also running Serpent's Skull, City of Seven Spears atm. Very interesting to see this finished. :)

[Matrix Dragon 64]

Thanks!

 

The only parts of the sculpt that I think didn't turn out perfectly are parts of the tail which maybe turned out thicker than they should be at that point of the tail

 

Yea, it was surprisingly difficult to keep the surface as uniform as I would have liked. This is actually the thing that bothers me the most about the sculpt in general. I think part of the problem was that I assumed it didn't matter whether or not the first layer of putty I put on was completely smooth. I'll have to be more careful with that part in the future.

[Slendertroll 7554]

Wow, this is fantastic! About the skin irregularities: depending on how big the irregularities are (if you have tiny imperfections/roughness, rather than large lumps), you might want to buy some liquid greenstuff and just paint a layer of that over the portions that are supposed to be smooth. Theoretically, it should fill in all the cracks and gaps, and leave the surface nice and flat.

 

Regardless, he looks really cool. I especially like his jaws; they look like they could snap some poor adventurer in half!

[Matrix Dragon 64]

Hmmm, Liquid green stuff... I may have to try that in the future. This time around I tried fixing it by putting glue over the problem areas, but because of the way glue shrinks down and spreads over the surface I would have had to put layers and layers to actually smooth everything out.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Matrix Dragon

[Matrix Dragon 64]

A quick update. I've finished priming the 'mini' and I've applied the first base coats. Pure white on the skull and regenerating area, and deep red on the rest. Unfortunately, I don't seem to have the ideal colors for the light and dark red shades for this thing... I should have checked for that much earlier. Going to see if I can find anything interesting at my local game shop. Or maybe I'm just being too picky.

 

I have to warn you: while I'm an alright painter, I haven't painted anything even remotely similar to this before. I'm used to small details, not large areas with only a few colors. I'm going to have to do some fancy shading to get this thing to look interesting!

 

 

Oh, if you're wondering about those really really bright paints in the picture... those are the dayglow colors I mentioned. I'm hoping that these things will look good for the eyes and regeneration effects.

[SamuraiJack 22116]

Gray primer will help alleviate extra pinkness in the basecoat

[Matrix Dragon 64]

Gray primer will help alleviate extra pinkness in the basecoat

Yea, I probably should have used grey now that I think about it. I think I was more worried about the 'light' areas than the dark areas at the time.

 

Another update pic. What are your opinions of the 'glows' that I added in? (keeping in mind that I'm still making adjustments of course, haha) I haven't completely decided on if the dayglow colors add to the mini or if they look tacky.

 

 

I'm still working on the regenerating section, but haven't decided on whether I'm going to try and break the scales into smaller sections or if I'm going to just make the existing scales larger so the the 'cracks' showing the regeneration are smaller.

Edited March 4, 2013 by Matrix Dragon

[Slendertroll 7554]

I think it looks great! I'm a sucker for that sort of effect though.

[vulture 3875]

definitely like the dayglow paints. ill have to look in to getting some for similar applications. looking very cool so far.

 

stippling to shade and hilight might help spice up the shading on that big ol' red body and help with the illusion of scales.

Edited March 5, 2013 by vulture

[Sanael 14923]

The dayglo effect on those scales is awesome. I have a lava base coming...before 2014? I guess...anyway, somewhere in my queue, there's a mini on a lava base that could use a similar effect. Very cool.