Homemade Minis Case

Well, I never painted these dear minis, but I DID finally get a proper case for them.  With some left over foam from a computer parts shipment, a Sucrets container from last cough-drop season, and some clean knifework (and not-so-clean markerwork), and little Nassa and normal-dwarf-sized Loren have a safe home.

Sleep tight.

Nassa the Gnome - Final

I just finished my Nassa the Gnome mini!  Unfortunately, our DM couldn't play this week, so I got to work on this instead.  I added the clothes in on Wednesday, and I went over to Sean's today (Thursday) to finish up.

I got some Super Sculpey Firm, to see what it was like, and it ended up making the head a lot easier.  It still wasn't perfect, especially because I barely left any armature up there, but I was able to hack it together long enough to bake it.  The Firm Sculpey did really help keep enough details in there for baking (as opposed to the regular Sculpey.)  From there, I did a bunch of Xacto-carving to refine the details.  And in the last step, I added the ears, hands, and daggers.

In the end, I'm quite happy with it, largely because it is so ridiculously small, but mostly because the pose is so twisty and dynamic.  The clothes really accent the turn, and the arms have a real attitude to them.  I'm having so much fun with this; I think my next one will be around 3" using Sculpey firm, and I'm getting excited to try ProCreate in the near future.

My next step is to paint this handsome gentleman and fine lady, and then give them fancy bases.  That macro lens really makes them look gritty, but it will all be cleaned up in the next versions.

Nassa the Gnome - WIP

I must say, she was quite fun to play last week.  She's a Gnome, who wears elven clothes, and appears to be some sort of rogue - appears to be.   I'm really looking forward to the next Dungeons and Dragons session.

But since I wasn't running the dwarf, I had to sculpt a new character.  I started this little piece today at Sean's place.  I was actually able to get some good progress shots on this one.  She's quite difficult to work on because she's even smaller than the dwarf, currently at about 20mm.

It also doesn't help that I'm using regular Super Sculpey modeling clay.  Sean mentioned Sculpey Firm might be a little easier for me to work with.  Nonetheless, using my multiple-bake layer method seems to work alright.  I just have to do a bit of Xacto work in there as well.  I don't work fast enough for the 2 hour window using ProCreate or Green Stuff... yet.

 Armature ready after two tries.

In-progress shots.  The clothing layer will be the next session.

 The sketches I was working off of for the character's designs.

Loren the Dwarf - Sculpt Complete

He's sculpted, baked, and ready for painting.

I used a method of baking and working in layers.  I made the base body, oven baked it for a short time, and used an Xacto knife to shape him a bit better.  Then I did the armor and cape, and baked it so it wouldn't fold.  The final step was the head, hands, feet, and bow.  I accidentally broke the a piece of the cape at this point, but it was fixable by cutting off a little more.  I had no clue how I was going to manage the head while working on it, but it ended up coming together well.

The funny thing is that I ended up rolling a different character to fit into the group better.  On the downside, I don't get to use this handsome piece, or the cool Scottish accent I've been working on.  But on the other side, I get an excuse to make another one!

Loren the Dwarf

This little fella is going to become Loren the Dwarf, my character for an upcoming D&D campaign.

I'm excited to get back into physical sculpture.  I really enjoyed working on the Flower Story maquettes last year, and it has been just as fun this time around.  I headed over to my friend Sean's place today, and got quite a lot of progress on this little guy (though I didn't take any more pictures).  Right now, he stands 23mm high, and it will probably be closer to 28mm by the end.  I don't know how I'm going to get any detail on something this tiny, but we'll see how it comes out.