My first full human(oid) figure

[Mad Jack 48965]

 I started sculpting rocks and things for my bases about eight years ago, but didn't have any real tools or magnification at the time. So for quite awhile my stuff was pretty limited as to what I could do.

Eventually, I picked up some real tools and started doing a lot more with my scenery and making a few small animals - some of you might have seen pictures of the bits I've been tossing in the Box o' Goodwill - as well as doing some fairly massive sculpting conversions, even to the point where the original mini was basically just a sculpting dolly that I'd almost completely covered over or converted. I've even gotten so far as to have several (nearly) half-completed figures sitting in purgatory on my table.

 

However, this is the first humanoid figure I've brought from bare armature all the way to paint.

 

This miniature is based on a forum joke that occurred in the Randomness thread. Just before Christmas, someone playfully referred to forum member Guindyloo as "Little Guindyloo Who" (ref. The Grinch Who Stole Christmas)... 

 

Guindyloo uses a xenomorph from the Aliens series as an avatar. This gave me the idea to do a little xenomorph child dressed as Little Cindy Lou Who and clutching a stuffed facehugger.   (There are reasons they call me Mad, lol)

 

So I used  this reference picture... And I bent some wire into sort of a smooshed question mark shape and started sculpting. The final figure ended up being 15mm tall.

 

 Twice during this project I had to stop sculpting and pause to make myself new sculpting tools because the ones I had were too big. I started out with the standard set of tools, and then ground out smaller versions of a couple of them from paper clips and another even smaller set from the tiny pins I use for pinning small things like hands onto arms, using my Dremel underneath my magnifier.

It was then that I realized I needed more magnification, so after puttering around a bit and not coming up with any better solutions I ended up just laying another magnifying glass directly on top of the one I was using, lol.

I then ground out another tool with an even smaller tip on it for the really fine detail work on it.

The dorsal plates on the tail were done by adding a solid ridge of putty along the entire tail and then using the snapped-off end of a jeweler's saw blade with about seven teeth on it to file notches in it by hand. If you look closely at the individual parts on each side and compare them, you can really see where in the process I finally figured out how to do what I was trying to do and where I began using each smaller set of tools and better magnification. THis whole thing was one long learning curve from start to finish.

I'm not entirely happy with my blending and especially with the way the teeth turned out (I really should have put them inside the head instead of on the front), but I'm reluctantly forced to concede that I've reached the physical limits of my current tools and magnification... And possibly my own dexterity as well.

 

In any event...

 

 Without further ado, may I present to you

 Little Guidyloo Who, who was no more than two...

 

...centimeters tall, that is.

 

 

 

 

 

 Here's the link to the Show Off thread...

 

Little Guindyloo Who

 

 

Criticisms welcome.

Edited February 16, 2016 by Mad Jack

[tiniest rhombus 17670]

Dude! That's awesome!

[Jasonator 29612]

Congrats Jack;

I didn't know that you knew my last boss !

[Erifnogard 58596]

Amazing job Jack! Turned out even better than I expected!

[ub3r_n3rd 152256]

Very cool!!!

[Pingo 109315]

Wow!

[Froggy the Great 62058]

/man-squee

[Morihalda 34917]

Wow!!! This is awesome, she is going to be over the moon when she gets this!!!

[BLZeebub 2535]

That is an excellent piece there!  Creepy cute would be the trope I think.  What clay are you using?  I've never seen that color.

[Mad Jack 48965]

 That's brownstuff... Two-part epoxy in brown and aluminum color. It's my preferred material, since it's not as elastic as greenstuff and not as messy as Milliput.

 

 

(On a side note, I do usually use a curing oven to speed up the process, so the piece ends up being cooked multiple times which occasionally changes the color just barely noticeably sometimes if I leave it in there for quite a while...)

Edited February 16, 2016 by Mad Jack

[Kheprera 36863]

That's awesome.

[Guindyloo 47479]

And in case it is not evident, it is tiny and amazing and so absolutely perfect, as is Jack. I love it SO much!               

[Mad Jack 48965]

 it is tiny and amazing and so absolutely perfect, as is Jack.

 

 Lol - Jack is decidedly neither tiny nor perfect, but amazing I'll take, hehehe...

 

 You're welcome (again.)

[Guindyloo 47479]

 

 it is tiny and amazing and so absolutely perfect, as is Jack.

 

 Lol - Jack is decidedly neither tiny nor perfect, but amazing I'll take, hehehe...

 

 You're welcome (again.)

 

lol ok I don't grammar good, but I insist that you accept both amazing and perfect!

[Pytt 256]

So cute!!