Thursday, February 20, 2014

TBT: Orc Marines

The ORC MARINES are Here!!

Okay, I have noticed that Thursdays are a time to look back and reflect on photos from the past.  Now, I could leave you with photos of the foolish days of my youth when I had horrible hair styles but I figured those photos should be hidden from sight.  Also, my wife has hidden them from me and I am sure she has nefarious plans for them if I get out of line.

Instead of photos of me, I thought I would reserve Thursday posts to a different sort of throw back.  I am going to share photos of my miniature over the years.  And to kick it off, I am going to show you some miniatures that I did in late 1998/early 1999. These are one of my earliest organic pieces.

To give you a bit of background, I started sculpting while I was working at RAFM Miniatures.  My first miniatures were hardline and I focused primarily on mechs for the Dreampod 9 range that RAFM produced with DP9.  When I had the opportunity to do some organic miniatures, I jumped on the chance.  First, I started by converting some of their existing models and then I sculpted my first complete miniature for them.  I will post my first organic miniature next week in the TBT post.

After I finished my first organic miniature, I wanted to start on more so I managed to kick out a few of these Orc Marines. I remember being so excited about the finished product and thinking to myself that these miniatures were amazing.  Looking back at them today, all I could think was, "Wow, look at that leather...and spikes...and...well...spikes."  I also started critiquing my poor anatomy, posing ideas and a range of other flaws that I saw.

But it is a really good illustration that every sculptor starts somewhere.  No one picks up a sculpting tool for the first time and creates an amazing miniature.  It takes lots of practice and it is a constant learning process and I can still see room for improvement in my work today.

So without further introduction, here are the ORC MARINES!

Orc Corporal

Big Gunner

Orc Sergeant

Orc Grunts

Wednesday, February 19, 2014

Pulp City Cro Mag and Baby Rude

Just wanted to post some greens of some figures I did for Pulp City, their kickstarter is going on now.  As you know, I love sculpting superheroes so it was great to do some figures for them for this project.  The figures that I did for them are two powerhouses so you can really make the poses dynamic.

So here are the greens of the miniatures, Cro Mag and Baby Rude and if you want to check out their excellent kickstarter, visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/472543693/pulp-city-supreme-edition?ref=live.







Friday, February 14, 2014

First Sculpting Course!

I am very excited to announce that the first sculpting course went live.  It is a lot of work and I realized through this process that I needed to learn how to edit the videos on my own.  Despite the best efforts, no one, other than me, is going to know the important parts to focus on in the videos.  Others editors tend to go for "style" and not for the learning areas that are the most important.

What this means is a little extra time getting the courses out to you but it also means that they are done exactly like I want them.  But thankfully I am learning quickly and the first course is up with several under the editing process.

And to celebrate, I want to offer everyone on my blog and on the F4E Studios facebook page a chance to take a free sculpting course.  This will give you a chance to try out a course and if you would like to try more, you can simply purchase them for preorder at kickstarter prices for a limited time at the F4E store at store.f4estudios.com.

All you need to do to get the free course is click on this link: http://www.wiziq.com/course/48380-quiktec-1-cigars and enroll.  In the homework assignment, you will find password for the student campus on the f4e studios forum and that is it.  Let me know what you think.

This is a small QuikTec course and is designed to take you an evening to learn.  A quiktec course is our lowest complexity level.  I wanted to give people a chance to try a course so hopefully you will enjoy the Cigars course that is available.

Thanks again for all your support over the years.

James