Sculpting In Exile: Treemen

[Wirelizard]

I'm away from home for at least three-four weeks on a field project, living in a hotel suite a twelve hundred kilometres away from home and civilization as I understand it. (I'm still only one province over from home, mind you. Canada is really big.) I'd go crazier than I already am if I didn't have some sort of creative outlet, and the lighting in most hotels is too shitty to paint figures in, so this time I brought greenstuff, milliput and a selection of related tools to attempt the fine art of sculpting miniatures.

One starts, as always, with a base and an armature.


I decided to start with a couple of treemen, nominally for use in the excellent game of Blood Bowl. I picked treemen for a number of reasons - first, I wasn't entirely happy with a lot of the available treemen figures for various reasons, second, I wanted a couple for various BB teams that employ them (obviously!), and third, being roughly humanoid but by no means actually human exact proportions and details mattered a lot less. A human with extra-long arms looks screwed up. A treeman with extra-long arms is just a treeman with extra-long arms.

Here's the most recent photo, from this weekend:


I've since started on the forearms of both treemen, added thin wire armatures for the hands on both, and done another set of stonework on the LED candle altar/sacrificial flame thing.

There are some more intermediate WIP photos over on my blog: http://www.warbard.ca/2014/09/22/sculpting-in-exile-progress-pics/

Suggestions, feedback or crits welcomed!

[Wirelizard]

It has hands! Well, one of them has the start of hands, and the other has the wires glued to it's wrists that will become hands soon enough.

Fiddly work with tiny bits of greenstuff, but I like the results.

I'm going back to Milliput to bulk up the arms and shoulders on both treemen, then finish the hands while waiting for inspiration to strike regarding the heads and faces. The neck stumps (so to speak) are bugging me, but I'm really not sure how I want the faces to look.

[Peithetairos]

Really nice stuff! The treeman do look very cool already. Are you sculpting the just for fun or for production?

What really intrigued me is the idea to use a LED light as an altar. Such an obvious connection to make, but so far I did not even think about it. I may copy this idea, if you don't mind, but will make sure to attribute this strike of genius to you!

[Wirelizard]

Really nice stuff! The treeman do look very cool already. Are you sculpting the just for fun or for production?

These are just for fun. There's no way the current sculpts could be cast as-is, and I don't have the space to start home casting anyway.

What really intrigued me is the idea to use a LED light as an altar. Such an obvious connection to make, but so far I did not even think about it. I may copy this idea, if you don't mind, but will make sure to attribute this strike of genius to you!

Feel free to copy the idea, as I borrowed it in turn from a local gamer who did an altar piece as a turn marker for Blood Bowl, so I'm just copying him. I threw the LED tealight in my little box of sculpting tools at the last minute as I left home and it's mostly a way to use up leftover Milliput from the treemen, but it's turning into a neat little piece in it's own right. It's had another round of stonework added since the last photo; will try to get another picture this evening.

[von Lucky]

Nice stuff.

Regarding the faces, I imagine Tiki wood art or tribal masks would have some ideas you could use.

[Wirelizard]

Nice stuff.

Regarding the faces, I imagine Tiki wood art or tribal masks would have some ideas you could use.

That, the Lord of the Rings art (and movies) and Groot from the recent Guardians of the Galaxy movies got me started on the heads and faces, at least. Still a long way to go but the basic forms are in place.

I've had time to put up another blog post with more progress photos: http://www.warbard.ca/2014/09/28/sculpting-in-exile-iii-hands-faces-skulls/

Here's the most recent pic of the two treemen and the altar. Skulls, it turns out, are fun and easy to sculpt. This might explain a lot of what GW has produced over the years, and it definitely explains the skull-filled turn the altar has taken.

The faces and heads on the treemen are coming along but still have a long way to go!

[von Lucky]

Looking good!

[Wirelizard]

Someone on another forum asked for closeups of the skulls on the altar piece. Here you go!



The two treemen I started first are nearly done, but there's fiddly greenstuff work to finish them on the hands and faces, so they'll be slow going. I've started a third treeman, mostly to mess with some slightly different anatomy than the first two had, and I've started a big demon critter that is at very early stages but looks good so far.

I may or may not start a couple of trolls, too, as I've got some fun inspiration for Bloodbowl trolls floating around in my head!

Pics of the figures soon.

[Centaur_Seducer]

Really liking the start of this

[Vermis]

Nice work.

How do you find the milliput? Terracotta, I take it? I've only ever tried one package of terracotta milliput myself, but it weirdly crumbly and flaky, compared to standard yellow-grey or the other types. What sort of price is it in Canada?

[Wirelizard]

Nice work.

How do you find the milliput? Terracotta, I take it? I've only ever tried one package of terracotta milliput myself, but it weirdly crumbly and flaky, compared to standard yellow-grey or the other types. What sort of price is it in Canada?

It is terracotta Milliput, yeah. I prefer it to greenstuff because it's more claylike compared to the stretchiness of greenstuff, but use both.

I also use terracotta because I have more of it than either regular Milliput or greenstuff, so for bulking up sculpts and larger builds it makes sense. I haven't found much difference between terracotta and the standard yellow-grey Milliput, to be honest. The yellow-grey is maybe a bit finer but terracotta works for what I need it for! Haven't had any issues with crumbly or flaky terracotta - maybe you got an old batch?

I can get terracotta, yellow-grey standard and superfine white (which I haven't tried yet) Milliput from my local hobby store, but I also ordered six boxes - three standard, three terracotta - from a UK-based retailer a couple of years ago and am still working my way through that stockpile.  Can't remember what I paid, but even with shipping it was cheaper than the local hobby store could supply it at the time. I think our local hobby store is currently selling all three varieties of Milliput for about $10 Canadian a box, which is quite a bit of a markup over some of the online retailers selling via EBay or elsewhere.