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.