Sculpting - Not Easy Being Green

This week, in my post Gen-Con/pre-Gathering haze, I took it upon myself to try a little bit of sculpting with Green Stuff. Mostly as a result of watching the excellent Jason Wiebe in action at the Reaper stand and thinking to myself "I can do that" despite knowing full well that sculpture has never been my strong point.

So rather than ease myself in with a bit of gentle painting on familiar terms, I got distracted first by these guys

They're from Reaper Miniatures Warlord range and the level of detail on them is silly, given how much smaller they are than Marines or Terminators. I was drawn to these guys because they reminded me of the Solonvai heroes from Mage Knight Pyramids.

Pretty sure that is a Wizkids stock photo of Seeker Mock, so all credit to them for this. Anyhoo the facemasks and weapons of the Warlord miniatures reminded me of the Solonavi and I've gone with the whole purple/black/darkmetal colour scheme. How I'm going to achieve a crystaline effect on the weapons I do not know, especially as I can't get the purple on their clothes right yet. They are gorgeous minis though, especially the assassin with her very dynamic pose.

The relevance of this to green stuff is that I did sculpt the bases with green stuff to create a fairly basis stone floor pattern. Which came out okay and inspired me to do something similar with the Black Reach Terminator Assault Squad I won on ebay.

The results are better than I'd hoped. Well at least the skull looks like a skull, but I understand skulls very well so that was perhaps an easier sculpt. The right hand one was supposed to be a sword, but it came out as more of a cross. Learning how to effectively work green stuff is going to take some time but I'll plug away with and hopefully improve. Vaseline as a lubricant to make the stuff easier to work was an important step, as I'd just been using water previously and that didn't turn out so good.

For example this guy, one of my many Deathwing w.i.p and companion piece to the Angelus Mortis, has had a fair bit of green stuff work done on him. The right arm is reposed and the inside shoulder joint reworked with green stuff. The bottom right leg is from a different set of legs altogether and I rebuilt the knee joint with green stuff. Not perfectly, but well enough. For giving your miniatures more dynamic poses and a more personal touch, green stuff is hard to beat.

Constructing a "to do" list before I leave for America + shopping list

Off to Gen Con Indy tomorrow for a week of fun, sun and buying things. Probably lots and lots of tiny mens, depending on what I find in the trade hall.

Having finished Project Dreadnought yesterday, I'm already constructing a "to do" list of things to paint on my return. Having looked at Ron's Librarian update this morning I've decided that I must do some more work on my own Deathwing Librarian upon my return.

I don't need to do much to him, but from looking at Ron's finished piece I've realised that the base is sorely in need of some love. I also want to add a bit of freehand to his tabbard, which I'll keep simple as the figure is busy enough already.

Should be a simple enough task to perform and a good way to get back into modelling after my holiday.

Also, more as a quick mental note to myself, here is a little shopping list of things I want to buy at the con.

1 - More reaper brushes - these seriously blow GW brushes out of the water, especially for detail work.
2 - More reaper master series paints - any that I'm short of (bone triad) and a few colours I like that I don'thave.
3 - More resin bases - from whatever vendors have that take my fancy
4 - Any cheap GW figures - because paying less for more is always good.
5 - Another other model kits that take my fancy.
6 - LRP/Steampunk costume - because I have two events coming up at the end of August and September and want to look my best.

Cya all in a week.