2015-01-31

Sculpting Thranduil on stag/moose/elk

I think I am excused for not trying to sculpt the elk/moose/stag from scratch - as a few of you might remember, I did sculpt a stag a while back ago. That was before Games Workshop released their Sisters of Thorn, which was an awesome kit. Awesome like a hundred million hotdogs. A box of said sisters were purchased by me and myself, and while the stags were waaay to large for LotR (possibly even too large for Warhammer Fantasy Battles AKA WHFB), I have reached a conclusion which says that in this case, the giant stag works not only fine, but indeed very well.

Please read, mr FoB
But why do I post these very early pictures of Thranduil on a moose (please disregard the antlers, they will be changed in due time)? Because I had originally planned Thranduil to stand in his stirrups/things that riders put their feet in (stigbyglar?) - the problem is obvious when looking at the weird filler I made under him to make the model easier to sculpt: The gambezon of Thranduil - from what I can gather from the movie - is open from below his navel and splits fully open and is divided against each of his thighs... it looks weird, and I would like to hide the weird filler-saddle I made for him.
     The saddle is there to stay, sorry to say it, because the basic skeleton-model is way to brittle to change anymore, it is in fact a Mahdist Ansar Holy Warrior and his legs have been sawed off and repositioned with only some plastic glue (not plastic cement)!



Some people may say he looks a bit stiff, but I say he looks stiff because he is majestic! The weird, slightly tilted angle is there for a reason: He is supposed to swing the big sword in a weird mix of attack and leading-my-troops kind of way.

An enjoyable problem will be to sculpt the tracks on the armour, the ornamentations - which I do believe are called "flutings", after reading on mr FoB:s homepage! It is time for me to step up my game and learn how to sculpt such difficult things - it is not the actual sculpting nor is it the effort to design some suiting patterns, no, it is actually the issue of getting the epoxy putty to stick to the oily base of hardened putty!
Below we can see my second phase of painting the homemade Thranduil model. You may notice he lacks his crown of thorns and twigs. I have yet to dare sculpt it, and may even make another model... a new model of Thranduil with the cloak and the crown...

As stated before, the sword is huge, but still smaller than GW's version, I think... Notice the elk-sketch in the background, yep, that's all me, I can draw!
 


I had managed to forget sculpting the rings! Notice the difference between basecoated Thranduil to the right and the washed Thranduil to the left? Super small blobs of GS, but I think I managed to get something done - it's not that I could ever paint super nice detail anyways...



He's got racoon makeup because my hands are trembling with boredom.



2 kommentarer:

  1. I am probably not answering your question(s): The main thing that struck me is that the rider should sit further to the front of the elk. Also, he should be leaning forward more so that the legs point straight down. That is, if he is intended to stand in his stirrups they will be pushed straight down. As dictated by gravity (said in a douchy besserwisser voice).

    SvaraRadera
    Svar
    1. I have tried to fix this in the new update. Still, he is sitting a bit farther from the stag than you'd probably wanted.

      Tips fedora

      Radera