Temple statue

Hello everybody!

Here is another recent sculpting project, digital this time.

Those of you who are familiar with this blog might have seen this enigmatic feather-helmeted character of mine from time to time, through paintings or tiny sculptures.

I wanted to have another take on him, sculpting kind of a "stone" statue. Here it is:

And this is a 360 video, easier to see the shapes and volumes:

A fun little sculpting project, meant to be very personal and relaxing. If you ever come across that statue, deep in a forest, have a thought of me ;) 

The soundtrack is from Serart, a collaboration between Serj Tankian and Arto Tunçboyacıyan, and fits with my current mood both musically and in the lyrics. I've always loved that record.

This is the text: "Loosing sight of the eternal garden can be devastating at best. What drives me insane are the catastrophic perplexities of those closed souls with whom i have drank from the pure fountain of harmony. As long as there is a maze the mouse will prevail. But when enclosed and quartered my health will fail. The enigmatic loss of vision and its accompanying diverse avenues of existence cause this lockdown-hysteria."

I sculpt wargame miniatures most of my time, but I find quite relaxing touching on different subjects like this. 

I like religious effigies, little shrines, enigmatic statues from ancient civilization. I especially like to think that they probably incorporate details that reflect what life was in this era, but that we don't fully grasp, leaving some of the story untold.

Maybe this statue could tell stories about our near future, and would look as enigmatic to someone bumping into it a hundred years down the line. Maybe this person will wonder what it was like to live in our times, why we would have sculpted such effigy? What were our struggle or challenges?..

 

Anyway, I hope all this doesn't sound pedantic. I've never considered myself as an artist per se, but there is obviously an artistic dimension in my job and the things I am drawn to.

This is simply a way for me to express some feelings, I guess.

Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed this article.

Da Green Giant !

 

Hello everyone! No this article is not an add for your favourite sweetcorn brand, just a little sculpting project I've had fun with in the past few weeks.

Some of you might know that I am a miniatures designer working exclusively on the computer. But I wanted to do a bit of physical sculpting for a change, not having been playing with putty this way for nearly 9 years!

So I decided to redesign a model I made for work as part of the Death Guard range, but to give myself a bit of a challenge, I decided to make him about half the size. The scale is not a technical issue working digitally (still some important design considerations apply...) but by hand it is another story!

I decided to go for a bit of a Chibi style, which suits reduced-scale models nicely, but also would look quite cool on that specific Plague Marine since I approached it in a very graphic way. But enough words, let's have a look at some pics!

As you can see, the model is drastically smaller than its 40k scale inspiration, but I tried to retain as many design features as possible.

Saying that, I did not want to be welded to the original, this is why I took some liberty with the pose, and changed/rationalised some of the details to fit the scale.
I could have made a carbon copy, but it would have been more labourious. After all, this is just a fun hobby project ;)

I decided to make everything with green stuff, for pure nostalgia: I remember being super excited as a teenager seeing pictures of "greens" in White Dwarf. I think there is something quite magical about green stuff sculptures. The pose plays that nostalgia card as well, referencing models from the 90's.

Oddly enough it is miles better than the last models I sculpted by hand, which shows that even if I have been working digitally ever since, the same part of the brain and design/shaping muscles are used.

These are my tools of choice. I actually use the metal one 99% of the time, the rubber brush is only when I need a softer/more gentle touch.

And here are all the step by step photos I took with my phone. They are not as good as the final shots, but it is always good fun to see the process (not that I have been particularly methodical, but it shows the stages I have been through):

Thanks for reading! I hope you like this little dude, he was really fun to sculpt!

I might sculpt something else in a similar style again. Maybe another resculpt of my own model... just have to find what!

Oh, and finally: I am sure it goes without saying, but this model is not for sale ;)

Cheers!