PULLING FACES

I have been meaning to do this for a while now, a series of posts showing how I sculpt figures. this first is to show how I shape faces and I must stress this is the way I do it, it is in no way the only method, so go and experiment.

This is a series of photos taken during a session to put a face on a model. As you can see, to begin with I had a stump that would be the neck onto which I placed an appropriately sized blob of putty. In my case I tend to prefer Pro Create for most of my modelling.




This blob is basically shaped between finger and thumb to see where the nose will be.
Next I push the putty around to create a basic nose and pus in slits where the eyes will be.

The next stage involves starting to shape the nose and smooth off the face to get the right shape. All faces are not the same so just getting the basic shape will do at this stage. It is important to keep your tools wet so they don't stick to the putty. As you can see the final shape is not important at this stage, but it is the beginning of placing everything where it should be.

Next i trim off any excess around the chin and neck area, now it is starting to take some shape.

More smoothing and shaping of the features to get them looking right and approximately the right size and shape.
Next, a modelling tool is gently pushed up from the chin towards the nose to create the lower lip and then a slit is cut above this to form the mouth.
More smoothing and then taking a scalpel I cut and push to create basic eye shapes. these will be manipulated by sculpting tools to the right shape and size, smoothing everything as I go.


Now all that remains is some final smoothing and gentle shaping, pushing in the cheeks and finalising the finished shape of the face.

I don't really like the figures blown up so much in photos, the faces are only 4mm high in reality.

New Age of Arthur and more

I have just about done a few archers for both the British and the Picts, as you can see, the figures are 28mm tall and more in proportion than my previous figures.
The four archers in a row, just gone for a bit of variety in the poses so that I can alter the masters after the first castings with cloaks, hoods or helmets. Also along with these four will be some Pict Noble warriors with spear and shield, cavalry will follow along with more command types and maybe a few characters.

Now for something completely different, a few weapons to a scale of approximately 1/60 for a new range of figures for the Vietnam War I am going to be working on. the dollies are made and measure 28mm to eye level so as t omatch up with other available ranges. The weapons are made with a mix of ProCreate and Magic Sculp, both of which I like using and have been known to mix them together to get sharper lines.More news as and when things progress.