I seem to have been very busy with lots of different things over the past few months but I haven’t actually produced much that I can talk about here on the blog. I have been trying to get my head around some vector graphics design software (Serif DrawPlus X5) for a project that I am working on with Sholto Humphries of Scheltrum Miniatures, however, I can’t really talk about that yet.
My day job is very chaotic, without producing much, as we totally rebuild the workshop. At the moment I am working out of (not much more than) a cupboard. The good news is that once the building work is done the workshop will be a fair bit bigger and that should be completed just in time for the arrival of some new CAD/CAM machinery, a CNC Router, 3D milling machine and a 3D Printer. This means I an presently investigating training for these machines and ,once again, am not getting very much completed work done.
Looking at figure sculpting, I have had a pretty quiet year (to busy in other directions), I completed a commission in early April, more about that further on. Then started work on a personal project that would involve a 54mm figure in modern clothes in a very simple pose. It is a challenge to pull of a simple modern figure and achieve a really satisfactory result. I made up the armature and started bulking out the figure but that is about as far as I got with it. I am hoping to get back to it in the next couple of months. I also decided to take part in the Hasslefree Miniatures Sculpting Competition which is currently running. I have the design pretty much set, but again haven’t progressed very far with the actual sculpting just yet…
So what can I show you? Oh yes, the commission I completed in April!
I sculpted a convention figure for the KantCon 2012 convention which was held in Kansas City at the beginning of this month (August 2012). KantCon has been using the Jabbergluck as their mascot for a number of years and I was given the job of realising a 3D version based on the drawing by artist Jay Carter. Jay had not designed a miniature before but did an excellent job of developing a figure design that would translate well into 3D and survive the mould-making and casting process. This was the final design that I received for the job:-
The first thing I did was print it out with the sized version in the top corner so I could get a feel for the actual size of the figure. The commission stated that the figure should be approximately 40mm high, now taking this as being the height of the figure if it stood erect (or as it happens the overall height of the sculpt in the pose given in the drawing) this would qualify as a small troll, or very large Orc.
As I say Jay did a great job of designing for the manufacturing process, especially as he had never done so before and he only had an email (a fairly long one admittedly) from me explaining the problems with figure design for manufacture.There were a few things that had to be tweaked, but nothing insurmountable!
I sent regular photos of the progress to the crew at KanCon for approval and the sculpt went very well, with only a few minor revisions along the way.
These photos show the virtually finished figure. The company that was casting the figure for KantCon did ask for a few changes, the removal of the head being the main one. So, the final sculpt that was shipped off to Kansas looked like this:-
I am waiting for some sample casting to arrive at the moment.
