Recently, I joined (yet another
) forum; Chaos Dwarfs Online. The reason being that I wanted to finally build that Chaos Dwarf Blood Bowl team I had lying around for years, and since my little group has taken to Blood Bowl of late, it seemed as good an excuse as any... I stumbled upon CDO when surfing the interwebs for inspiration. Of course, as chance would have it, they were hosting a painting contest right at that time. It involved the 13th edition of the contest already, and the subject was a regimental musician for one of the units in a WHFB Chaos Dwarf armylist. Of course there is no recent list, so there are several Indy lists out there and also the old Ravening Hordes supplement.
I quite liked the small scale of the competition and immediately, inspiration struck. Now I just
had to participate...
So, the first thing I did (when for some reason waking up in the dead of night!) was to doodle my concept into my notebook as a starting point.
I later also scribled down the construction of the boiler, its plumbing and the whistle's lever. I also worked out the facial expression a bit better (which doesn't come across very well on the pictures, but quite matches my later drawings in real life. So my photo skills need some serious brushing up. Also because almost all of the subtle blending and shading on the mini completely failed to show up on my entry pictures. But with no time or remaining photographic skill left, I simply had to go with them).
Believe it or not by the way, but this is the very first full sculpt I have ever attempted. However; I do have my share of conversion work under my belt and have been in the hobby since the late eighties, so luckily I'm not a complete novice.
I did read up on sculpting techniques and basics though, so I started out with a wire frame, made out of paperclips:
The first part I created was the whistle/hat, which was made from a piece of 1/72 aircraft ordnance (of which I havve enough to start, and decisively conclude, a minor brush war), with the ends cut off, to leave a plain cilinder, which I capped with pieces of plasticard. I then added the cone on top with putty. I use ProCreate almost exclusively, with some Green Stuff here and there as foundation and bulk. I simply find it to be a much nicer material to work with...
I then added the basic shape in GS over the wire frame. It was then that I decided to add a bit more dynamism into the pose by making him twist to the left, which makes him visually more appealing when compared to my initial drawing.
As the globbed on GS was way too bulky, I then dry sculpted it back to the right proportions with a sharp blade.
On top of this basic shape, I then started sculpting the final shapes and the surface detail. Luckily, scale mail is very easy to do, as that was the first area I tackled. Sadly though, most of the sculpting on the back later disappeared under the zany steam contraption...
Next up was the face, which was one of the two parts I dreaded the most (the other being the left hand), but surpisingly, it went very well. I suppose studying those tutorials on the web really paid off...
Then, inevitably, came the other area I feared; the rather difficult left arm, which was complicated even more by the twist I added to his pose. This forced me to cut away the entirety of the GS foundation for the arm and work the pose back from the finger in his ear all the way down to his elbow and sleeve. I had to do this in stages. The first one I had to take off again, as it looked like Hobbo dung. The second try was much better, but really rough. So I had to go back, cut some parts back again and smoothen out the work I did in my second try. But in the end it looks pretty good, all things considered. The second stage is shown in this picture.
Then came the big moment of merging the hat and its wearer. At this stage, I also added the other parts, such as the boiler, chimney, plumbing, lever and chain. I was inspired by Astrogoth's boiler for this, so I used an old (and damaged, out of a bitz buy) Hero Quest Ork head for this, with a boiler made out of a 1/72 cluster bomb (fuse used as water tank cap). The demon's face was sculpted on with some more ProCreate. The plumbing consists of a piece of soldering wire, some round plastic sprue, plasticard/rod/pipe and a piece of a WH40K Space Marine Missile as a valve knob. The chain is from some WHFB Chaos Marauder flails and the lightning bolt end is also plasticard. Finally, some last detailing (such as the rivets all over the mini and the arrows on the whistle/hat) was done and he was ready for undercoating!
Finally, here are shots of the finished product. Sadly, due to time restraints (and being utterly in 'The Zone'), I do not have WIP pictures of the painting process...
By now though, I have cleaned up some of the painting, especially the triangles on the chimney; they're too rushed by far. I have exchanged them for red and yellow ones forming a band around the chimney's top, bordered in black. I also added blacklining to the triangles on the sleeves and cleaned up the line where the plate mail meet the fabric of his tunic, finished off with blacklining inbetween the two colours and the individual scales.
As I am a very slow painter to begin with, I am not dissatisfied with the final result, as I did the entire paintjob, including undercoating, in one day, to meet the contest deadline. Had I taken a bit more time, I am confident the end result would have been better. Which is why I was so surprised to find I had actually won first place despite some very stiff competition!
And even though I had been aiming for a top three placing (I even ceremonially slaughtered 13 kittens and 1 newt to ensure my success), I am really thrilled to have done so well
All in all, it was a great (and fun) experience and I am confident enough in my skills now, to want to sculpt more Chaos Dwarfs! I have taken up the plan to sculpt, and cast in white metal, multipart Chaos Dwarfs to create my own CD army, as Ebaying all the required models would be prohibitively expensive. Let's hope I will be able to pull off this monumental task I have set myself to...
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April 25, 2024, 08:02:35 AM
June 02, 2009, 07:54:47 PM