15mm Sci Fi project: Eden- new painted figures 11/11

[zrunelord]

Because we think they're wearing costumes?
One of the best stories I read was the best allies we found were insectoid ... if i remember correctly mantis like and the biggest phobia we had was to accept them .

Gzg has some great insectoid must get some.Khurasan has some also..got those lovely beelike minis.

Z

[War Monkey]

Because we think they're wearing costumes?
One of the best stories I read was the best allies we found were insectoid ... if i remember correctly mantis like and the biggest phobia we had was to accept them .

Gzg has some great insectoid must get some.Khurasan has some also..got those lovely beelike minis.

Z

RAFM has some as well and Rebel Minis too.

[CookAndrewB]

Ok, so I sculpted my "not Vogon" mark I. This is the master sculpt.


The rotund nature made for some challenges when casting. Ideally he would have been a bit wider at the base, but I like the semi "tweedle-dum" look to them. I decided that in order to make life easier I wouldn't sculpt any small details up towards the head, to they got the wide visor and I have some room to sculpt around it if I want to add something after casting.


Also, I cast without the arms or weapons, so the next step will be to create a look that I can replicate. I built the shoulders in so I could at least see where the arms would attach.

And here are the first two out of the mold:



Ignore the forward lean on the first. It still has pegs under the base for mounting it when I did the blue stuff mold. If you look, these bodies came out of two different molds, and appear slightly different even though I used the same master for both.

 
So, I believe that the figure in the middle got elongated as I first attempted to pull the master from the mold and realized A) no way I'm getting that watermelon through a cheerio sized hole, and B) the mold itself hadn't fully cooled yet and so pulling stretched the mold. Thus, two different body types from one master were created. Happy little accident. On the back of the master you can see the eventual answer to my conundrum, which was to simply slice the mold all the way up the back side to make a slit to pull the replicas out. Even with a full length slit in the mold, they are still a tight fit. Chunky buggers. 


So far the clean up has been pretty easy. Scrape a couple bits here and there, and the slit in the mold makes a bit of a flash line on the backs which trims off nicely. I've cast four up so far, and the next two will go in the mold tonight! I think I'm planning on casting 12-14 of them. That would be 8 basic grunts, one leader, two guards with some sort of pole weapon (guard gates, prisoners, etc), and then one heavy weapon trooper.

The front harness is mostly designed with the idea that a boxy weapon would be glued right there, like a more evil version of the accordion. 

[CookAndrewB]

Here is the new version of Bubba the space goat with paint.


I need to add some brighter highlights on the rifle, but I think he is pretty close to being done.

[Cacique Caribe]

Cook

From the armature stage to the completion of the green, how many sessions did it take to make that goatman?

Dan

[Ockman]

That is one cool goat!

[CookAndrewB]

Thanks Ock!

Dan, I think most of my figures follow this basic formula:
Session one - wire dolly and general posing. I usually do 2-3 dollies at a sitting.
Session two - fill out the rough shape and give the wire enough stiffness and bulk that it won't bend when I'm trying to sculpt on it.
Session three - add first round of details and try and get as far as I can. It seems that there are always some areas that I can't work on without ruining soft epoxy in the area so this could end up being as little as sculpting boots to as much as everything but a head.
Session four - wrap up the overall sculpt. By this point I typically have all the body done and maybe I just need to sort out weapons or perhaps some pouches/backpack type items.
Session five - take care of all the little leftover details.
Session six - prime
Session seven - block paint and maybe do some dry brushing.
Sessions Eight and Nine are usually detail painting.

I did Happy Crow in a couple sessions because he was mostly a ball and didn't require a lot of fussing. The not-vogons took a session to make the wire frame and add the basic bulk to the wire, then a second session to add whatever detail is there. Pretty sure Bubba the space goat took me 20-30 minutes per session over the span of maybe two weeks when I felt some inspiration and could fit him in? I also juggled back and forth with Bubba 2.0 and Super Salad 2.0.

And on that note... Super 2.0! Golden Gun edition 








I think I'll have one more paint session with both of these sculpts and then seal them up and be ready to toss them on the table.

[Cacique Caribe]

Excellent breakdown!

I also usually take up to 5 sessions to complete a green.  Sometimes longer.  The hardest thing for me to learn years ago was that less (material) is more.  Take your time, build up slowly.

Dan

[CookAndrewB]

Here are my next two WIP sculpts. I'm not 100% sure where they will fall in terms of factions. Right now I'm just trying to finish them and get paint on them before I make decisions. These aren't meant to be a copy of another figure, so they could fall anywhere.

This figure is a weird cyborg/weapon servitor heavy. Just a cobbled together mass of bits.






This is just another "let's see what happens" type of sculpt. Originally he was intended to have a quadrupedal look, but then it turned into this "every limb is a foot of sorts" type of creation. He does look appropriately alien at least!






Hopefully I'll finish sculpting these two, and start working on the not-vogon legion. I have figures 9-10 ready to pull out of the mold now, so a little clean up and I'll probably start working on weapons and sculpting arms next. If I could have the lot primed by the weekend, I'd feel pretty good about that.

[Cacique Caribe]

Id love to see more non-humanoids (not upright, two legs, two arms formula).  Keep them coming.

Practice can only be a good thing.

Dan

[War Monkey]

Wow! Your work is turning out great! I can't wait to see the background story you have for them.

I try to do little sections every chance I get. I fine that I don't accidently screw something up,
(1) I work on the legs and footwear and the details for those.
(2) Then I work on the belt items and the upper torsos the base work.
(3) Jackets or shirts both front and back and buckles and pockets as needed.
(4) The head which I do in two sections the head it self then the hair the next time.
(5) Then the sleeves of the jacket, shirts or arms and the shoulder pads or any extras.
(6) Then the last step the hands and weapons or hand held items
(7) Add anything else I feel that may have ben left out.

Basing and painting is it's own process.

[CookAndrewB]

I will have more oddball aliens to show soon. Painting is getting very close. In the meantime, the first five troopers have their weapons (and arms).


I'm actually pretty happy that there is a little variety in the shape and height of these figures. Again, just a happy little accident.


Arms are just a pretty basic mitten shape. Nothing fancy. All part of the environmental suits.


I'm planning to sit and do some work on a couple pole-arm weapons for the palace guard figures, and if that goes pretty smoothly I'll work on a couple heavy weapons as well. I'm thinking something like a sniper variant and a mortar/grenade launcher type weapon? That will just leave the leader sculpt to fuss with. I'm thinking the leader will have a weapon similar to the basic trooper, but maybe with a single gun barrel and a scanner screen on the other side? He may also need some kind of group comms gear to coordinate actions.

[War Monkey]

Nice work! What did you make the figures of resin?

[CookAndrewB]

Nice work! What did you make the figures of resin?

No. Nothing that fancy. These are just 2-part. The grey is some pro-create that I bought but don't like working with, so it is ideal for push molds. mix it, cram it, let it set. I prefer Apoxie because it sets harder, but for these smaller pieces it worked fine.

[CookAndrewB]

First five guards are tabletop ready at this point.


They were always meant to be bigguns, so everything pretty much worked out as planned. Now I'll be working on the next five to convert them into their particular functions:
Two melee
Two heavy
One command/emissary for the Empire.