Thursday 8 March 2012

Sculpting Space Dwarves


As I'm sure you know by now, I have been using a Demiurg army that I have written a codex for (always improving/tweeking/trying new things to see what works best).

While playtesting the army I have been using the fantastic range of Grymn models made by Hasslefree Miniatures - http://www.hfminis.co.uk/

Although these models are fantastic they are don't really fit the style of the space dwarves I want. My idea is that they should be shoulder-height to a human, be stocky but not fat, muscular and do not have to have beards and if they do they are not over the top.

So I have decided to sculpt some figures myself. I bought a box of the Dwarf Berzerkers from Avatars of War to use as the armateurs for them but there is very little left from the original models. I found the legs to me too short and bulky, the heads were all really beardy, the arms were nowhere near muscular enough and I have made so many alterations to the body that you couldn't tell I used them as a base.

With the body I cut off the neck that sticks out straight forwards and drilled out a neck socket on the top of the shoulders, the neck muscles made a very nice collar. I then cut off the belly and to make the body sit upright I filled in the back. I then added the carapace armour over the top.


I have done several head variants, with different helmet designs, but I am not completely happy with any of them so far.


 After trying to get the legs to look right, trimming them back to fir to the new waist just wasn't working, I bought a box of GW thunderers to use their lower half, and their weapon arms. I did a lot of work carving away the bottom half of figure to make it into a kilt, as the social structure of the army is similar to the clan culture of the Scottish Highlands and Islands. I then sculpted on the belt and sporran.


Then moving onto the arms I found that the arms were simply not spread far enough apart for the body I had made, and then that they were not muscular enough either. I have not started the arms again using GW Catachan arms. I have attempted trying to make the weapons myself but I may have to get someone with more experience to do them for me.


 After starting on the arms and doing some test fits I decided that the leg section was too short and started them again, this time from scratch. Now the figure stands at the right height and has better proportions. I decided to try and cast up as many components myself as possible so cut the feet from the kilt.




With the components separated I made moulds of the body and kilt sections.


This is how the components look all together



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