Inspired...

As the work on my Sorcerer neared the end, I began thinking of what to do next. I came to a point with my Sorcerer, where I had to wait some hours for certain parts of putty to cure a bit, before I could move on. I suddenly had a timepocket to fill, and while I could have started painting my Dragon Ogres, I thought that the space of time would be better suited continueing sculpting - after all, both putty and tools were already in my hands, so no need to dig out paint and brushes.

But what to do? I do have quite a few regiments waiting in their sprues, and while looking through the boxes, I came over my Chaos Warriors, and it hit me how static they look, all lined up, weapons and shields at same angle and looking quite boring (at least the third time one assembles a regiment of them...), despite the rather great sculpts. Lots of good detail, no doubt about that, just lack "motion".
Then my mind wandered to an image from the armybook, of a charging warrior, and I thought to myself, that's what I want to make! So I cut off a leg, half the cloak and one shoulder, then found an arm and some greenstuff, and started putting it together. A few hours later, and this is what I got:
It's by no means finished, I'm currently working on making the cloak sort of flutter behind him, and I need to find him a helmet. And even if the shield's finished, the arm might need some extra sculpting as I've cut away a large portion of the cloak which'd normally hide the upper arm... His left foot is there somewhere, but it's bet so high you can't see it from this angle.
Owh and here's the picture from the armybook, just for reference:Mine will get a classic Chaos Warrior shield, though, as I think they simply look gorgeous - and besides: carrying half-torn bodies stuck to the shield ain't only unpractical, but slightly un-Slaaneshi, don't you think?
I don't know how you think, but personally I felt so happy with the result, that I decided to make the rest of the regiment in a similar matter, i.e. less static, and all with unique poses, but so far I've only gotten the second one to about the same stage as the one on the picture above, although with quite a different pose. Unfortunately I didn't take no pictures of him yet, and I'll try not to make you wait long.

Anyways, hope you like the idea and how the first one's turned out so far.
Last in this post, I thought I'd include a picture I took this morning, which managed to capture some of the details better.

Sorcerer of Chaos - Finished!

That's more like it!
Name and a short story will come later, I promise to have it ready by the time he's painted, if not earlier.

Here's some pictures of him - terribly sorry about the mediocre quality of them, but I hope you all like how he's turned out.
I do know that the left arm is slightly too long, but the hand has turned out so much better than my first try, so I don't think I'll attempt to cut the 1mm or so off his wrist, out of fear that the hand might get damaged...

Oh, and I did try to take some pictures as I worked, although I doubt they're good enough for a step-by-step guide.. I'll look the pictures through some other day, and make that list of tools and write down tips and stuff I learned while working on him, as I promised.

Sorcerer of Chaos - WIP4

A small update on the Sorcerer.
First of all, thank you all for the encouraging comments so far. Means a lot.

I have gone through with my plan, giving myself a new chance to sculpt the hand and arm better. I have unfortunatly had very little time to do any sculpting, however, so I havn't gotten very far yet, but I think my skeleton for the hand is of a better size this time - like last time, I've used thin staples to create the core of the hand, and then I add greenstuff-"flesh" on top of the "bones". I'll get some pictures at another time.
It turned out surprisingly easy to remove the old head and lower arm without damaging them, so as you can see on the picture above, they're still with me, serving as a reference for "too big", hehe.

I hope to have some more updates in the not so distant future, but february has turned out to be quite the busy month for me, so I can't promise nothing. And I'll try to get a post up about tools, tips and the like, for any who'd like to give sculpting a try themself - it is very fun and rewarding, once you get the hang of it.

Sorcerer of Chaos - WIP3

I'm kind of at a stand-still here, and a bit at a loss as to what I'm to do next. I have finished sculpting my first head (milestone!) and also given him a left hand.
Now, it's not very hard to spot that his hand is way out of proportions, and his head is also slightly too large. On top of that I think the face is expressionless and boring, the cheekbones are too prominent, his nose is too beaky and he's even looking in the wrong direction - at least I think he'd look much better if his head had followed his arm. That was after all the plan when I started sculpting the head, but as I was trying to figure out how to make ears and shape the face, I sort of lost sight of the bigger picture, and I was unable to spot my mistake, until too late.

So, uhm, what now?
In a way, I have done what I set out to do, namely sculpt a head and a whole arm for the first time. And I have learned a lot, no doubt about that, and that's always nice.
I am however not happy with the result, so my Sorcerer won't see any paint in the near future, that's for sure. In fact, I'm quite tempted to scrap both head and arm, and redo them from scratch.
Right now I think I'll take a short break from him, however - I seldom get anything constructive done, if I'm frustrated over my own mistakes. It's the wrong kind of motivation for me, but that being said, I won't abandon my Sorcerer either, his time will come!

I have recieved a request for some hints and tips regarding how to sculpt, and although I'm far from an expert, I promise I'll start working on a list of tools, including a short description of how I use each, and if I've started redoing the face and arm, I'll try to include some step-by-step pictures as well. Hopefully something to look forward to!