Lesson One

Materials List:

• 3-4 corks (as large as you can get them #9 is common, #28 is best)
• sculpting tools (in the LEAST get the GW one- I swear by it- its that good)
• 20 ga floral wire
• 30 ga floral wire
• epoxy putty of choice (I recommend Green Stuff to start) or A&B
• two sets of small pliers
• pencil & paper
• concept art if needed

Tools pics

Part I

  The first step is to decide what you wish to sculpt- I recommend working on 3 sculpts at a time: one human, one small animal, and one alien or other race humanoid.   Working on 3 different sculpts at a time will allow you to move onto your next sculpt while one or more dry.

  For inspiration check out online sites, magazines, and popular art- if you can imagine it you can sculpt it.  

 

  Once you have selected 3 subjects sit down with a pen and paper (and any concept art) and practice doing some sketches of your subject's body shapes.   Start by drawing a stick man- just a simple figure made from lines.     This part is perhaps the most important as you need to get the angles just right!  Now that you have the skeleton add some meat to them bones...

Dont worry if you "can't draw" or "suck"- all you need draw are circles and rectangles like in the examples below:

 

  The secret is to draw a ball on any point that 'bends' or articulates- a rectangle joins each ball.    I find it best to draw out a few different poses and see which you like best...

Dont worry about drawing clothes right now- focus on the shape of the body.

 

Part II

The next step is to take one of your little stick man shapes and recreate it out of wire- this is called an armature or skeleton/skelly.  Premade armatures are called a 'Dolly'.  The advantage of a dolly is that all of the proportions are usually correct so you needn't worry about how long the arms and legs need to be.     This can be extremely hlepful when you are sculpting a whole line of figures as you would like them to be a consistant size (usually).

I lightly filed some shiny marks on the wire so you can see each joint (knees, elbows etc)

 

  Some people solder there armatures together but I find it much easier to just twist the wires over themselves a few times or to wrap a thin length of  30 ga wire around the 20 to hold it tight.  Either way you do it be sure to leave a long 30ga wire around the shoulder area to make a little 'head' loop.  

  Be sure to poke some holes in a cork and then feed the wire in- if you just push the wire in without pre-punched holes you'll bend and twist your dolly out of shape.  Slide your dolly into the cork- be sure to measure at this stage or have a sample size figure to compare to- you dont want short legs!

(Recently I have found it better to do only the bottom half of my dolly to start with.  Much of miniature sculpting is like this- break it down into smaller and smaller steps and focus on one small area at a time.)

I sometimes put a small plug of GS on the twist to keep it from untwisting while posing...

 

 

     See the secret here is to leave the arms as a longish loop- this offers several advantages:

1. holds the wires even- this makes it easier to get well proportioned legs
2. allows for swords and other long items to be built right into the figure later

  Personally I just use one length of wire and bend it into a loop then make a twist with some pliers, adding the little loop for the head at a later date.

 

 

Part III 

  The final step is to add a little putty to your wire.  Take a knife or similar tool and cut off some 'Green Stuff'.    Before you do you should know a little about green stuff.    It used to be sold entirely in 50-50 strips- in fact this is how Games Workshop sells it.   However when the blue (hardener) is beside the yellow they start to mix and harden.  Older putty will therefore have lumps on occassion as the two sides have already mixed.  The only recourse was to cut the centre out of the old strips.     More recently it has been offered in tubes- with the yellow and the blue as seperate slugs.

  In any case you dont always want a 50-50 mix so however you buy your putty you'll want to cut it into new portions.

 

NOTE if you use more blue than yellow your putty may never fully cure! I now NEVER use more blue than yellow.

  The first time you add putty to the dolly will be more difficult- see the wire is very smooth and doesn't have much substance so the putty will naturally slip and twist around the wire- you cant work well with it!   So the very first time you add putty to the dolly will be a THIN slightly rough skin to bulk it up ever so slightly.

 

 

   Basically you want to roll 2 little wee sausages- they should be just slightly thicker than the wire itself ideally.   Slowly press each sausage on one at a time and wrap them around the legs and torso of the dolly.  If you want to add an integral base then be sure to lift your dolly slightly as if you just add to the putty you will take height off your figure and give him short shins!  For the legs dont worry if they are not exactly smooth- in fact it is better if it is slightly rough I find as it gives further layers of putty better grip.   For the base focus on pushing the putty into the desired shape FIRST.  If there is too much putty in one area slowly tease it towards areas that are lacking in putty.    If you find you have added too much putty then gently cut the excess away with your tool- dont worry!  You can always add more later if you want but cutting and sanding is more of a hassle.

   Now repeat this with your other two subjects and make dollys for them.   After you finish each go back to the previous dolly and resmooth the base- this is how to get a nice smooth base.  If you want a textured base you would do it last of all- most textured bases are little more than a small round tool pushed into the putty repeatedly.

 

 

Questions??? email me or post on the forum: subject "Lesson One"

 

LESSON TWO