First Sculpt Ever!

So I've finally taken the plunge and started sculpting my own Troll for use in Bloodbowl. I have to say, its rather exhilarating, and not quite as difficult as I imagined. Granted, I have spent a lot of time swearing under my breath while trying to manipulate the knead-a-tite, but once you get the hang of it, it really isn't so bad. Granted the quality is no where near a professional standard, but for my purposes, I think it'll do nicely. And it'll cost much less money than the $30+ Trolls that you can find elsewhere.

As I've said, I have very little money-- but tons of time.

Pictured above is the first step of layering putty onto a paperclip armature into the rough form of the body. I decided to leave the arms off for now, as I think it will make sculpting some of the torso detail a little easier.

Since this Troll is a Bloodbowler, I decided he should have some shin pads. Don't know why, but the idea of a Troll in shin pads makes me smile.

To make them, I simply took a couple of small cones of putty and squished them flat with my ruler. Make sure to keep both of the surfaces lubricated so the putty won't stick. I then got a roughly uniform shape with my sculpting tools (right now i'm using bargain dental tools, but I'm going to try making my own soon) and then presses the lines in to represent padding.

Then I just transferred them to the figure. I made some straps and a belt in much the same way, using a roll instead of a cone.

 For the shorts, I just flattened out some putty 'discs' as thin as I could and slapped them on. I didn't worry too much about tears and holes, since I figured a troll probably wouldn't bother with a sewing kit for his uniform. The best part was that the putty wrinkled itself in much the same way that real cloth would, and so required very little shaping.

 All in all, I'm having a lot of fun with this project so far. There is some serious zen to sculpting, perhaps even more so than with painting. And it really doesn't take too long to get some good results. I only really work for around 45 minutes at each stage. Beyond that and the putty will start to harden and become difficult to work.

Back From the Wild & Hobby Time To-Do List

I must apologize to my follower for the lack of content over the last several (yikes) weeks. I have spent my exile in the silent wilderness beyond the edges of this blog stalking that ever elusive pray... a job.

Also, Sveta and I have moved into a new apartment. Naturally that whole process has taken a lot of time. Good news, though-- I'm going to get my own study!

Picture this little room with a big ole desk in it, covered in hobby goodness. Actually, if you want a currently accurate idea, picture it full of boxes. *Sigh*

 Anywho, I have managed to get some things done, so look out for them over the next few days.

In the meantime, I find that the projects I want to do are starting to multiply in my head-- to the extent that if I don't put them down I fear they too might be lost to the silent wilderness.

Projects to do:

Bloodbowl:

• Finish painting/ modeling the Bashington Redskins
• Assemble, sculpt, and paint the Axe-Pick Murphys (dwarf team).
• Paint my human team (probably not going to bother making it complete, but we'll see)
• Get my hands on some Mantic Games elf scouts to convert into a high elf team.
• Finish my custom Bloodbowl Pitch.
• Pre-register for the Chaos Cup and book a hotel room.

Skulldred

• Make a couple of warbands! This will include a lot of sculpting.
• Make a battle mat out of VFF Suede
• Make some scenery-- this will include more trees, some hills and rocks, ruins, a couple of magical objectives, and some treasure/item tokens.

 Red Sand, Black Moon 

• Make up some gladiator profiles (I'll use my skulldred warband figs to represent them. Kill two birds with one miniature!)
• Come up with my own setting, compatible with my skulldred setting.

Beer Brewing

• Get a job, make some money to buy ingredients, and brew some dang beer. Oh yeah, and move all of my equipment from my old apartment. Ugh.

 Aside from all of this, I've been thinking about ways in which I might be able to design a multi-system, multi-scale narrative campaign incorporating Skulldred, RSBM, Warmaster, and maybe even some dungeon crawling. I think I could make a pretty awesome and engaging story this way.

But that's a long way off and a lot of thinking from now. If you're reading this, leave a comment on any cross-system campaigning you've done, and what you thought. Or just leave any old comment. 

I should probably just start by playing a campaign in each of these systems separately. That in itself will take some time.

And on that note, I must away! There is much to do!

Oh, and Peace.