My Sculpting Tutorial

Miniature Mentor has released the tutorial I filmed with them and it is now available for download. Basically in this tutorial I sculpt this figure from the ground up.



In the tutorial I start from a metal armature and progress through each stage including underpinning and musculature, clothing, equipment, hair, face, and hands. Throughout is a running commentary describing each step. Don't let the title or description "sculpting with green stuff" fool you. The techniques can be used for any type of putty and I use the same for procreate, brown stuff, and fimo.

The figure is also available through RAFM here so you can actually purchase the figure and have it in hand as a reference when you are viewing the tutorial.

Visit the Miniature Mentor site here to get the tutorial, just scroll down the list until you see my name and the figure.

Below is the excerpt from the miniature mentor site describing the tutorial:




"Miniature Sculpting with James Van Schaik is the ultimate guide to sculpting 32mm miniatures using Green Stuff. Learn from an industry veteran as he takes you through all the steps required to build this Anime Girl.

Miniature Mentor's Secrets of the Brotherhood series takes you inside the hidden art of miniature sculpting. Learn it all in this massive 6 HOUR tutorial. James covers every aspect of the creation of this mini from building the armature, to laying down the under-pinning to building up the muscle masses to finishing and detailing the face, hands, pouch, shorts and blouse."

New Pulp City Figure

Here is the latest press release of the first figure I did for Pulp City. I posted the painted version and the brown. I really love the paint job they did for her. Here you can see three generations of a character. The first is the concept art I got from Pulp Monsters, the photos of the brown I sent them for approval, and then the final painted version they are using to market the figure. To learn more about Pulp City Hero's visit their site here.

Sculpting Chainmail Tutorial

It's been awhile since I posted a tutorial so I thought I'd do a quick post on sculpting chain mail. The following is an excerpt from my "Basic Sculpting" textbook I wrote awhile back for some sculpting lessons. It has been edited slightly from it's original version.

Step 1

Take some putty about 1mm thick and roughly the same size as the area to be covered, flatten it between your fingers and apply it to the area by gently pushing it onto the figure.

Step 2

Smooth out the putty making an even surface using your sculpting tool and clay shaper. Be sure there are no air bubble’s or seam lines and that the putty is thick enough. If there are any areas showing through you must pinch off a small amount of putty and apply it to the surface.

Step 3

There would normally be a slight hollow under the pectoral muscles. Add this contour by gently running your tipped clayshaper underneath these muscles. You want to create a smooth hollow.

Step 4

Now add the surface details. Start by taking your exacto blade and faintly cutting a grid pattern of horizontal lines about 2mm apart down the area until you cover it. This is your rows of rings.

Now you need to add the rings. Take your pin tool and gently poke holes along each grid line. Continue filling each row with rings until you have completely filled the entire area.

The Invisible Man

Hi everyone,

Just wanted to post some photo's of the figure I did for Reaper. This figure is part of their Chronoscape line and was a little challenging because I had to figure out how to convey the fact that the character was actually invisible.

Here he is:


I decided to use the drapery in his coat to help add the illusion of his hand being invisible, so I sculpted the point where his hand was as if he were gripping the lapels of his jacket.

A Couple of Armatures

Here are a few figures I'm working on. This is the basic stage where I've just added underpinning to the metal armature. One is going to be a body matrix so it isn't posed.

Underpinning is essential to all sculpting, it gives you underlying musculature, a base to work on so you have support, and adds depth to any shape you are sculpting.

As you can see I have basically added the underlying musculature to bulk out the figure. I will add details on top of the underpinning later. I always sculpt from the "ground up" so you can see I've started the footwear on these two first.

Any Questions?

The Skills to Pay The Bills?

Often one of the most difficult parts of being a freelance sculptor in a industry where many of the companies have very little regard for the artist is getting paid. Add the fact that there are a lot of amateurs who are willing to work for next to nothing just to get their work out, and the end result is that those of us who do the job for a living often get undercut by people who don't depend on sculpting to feed their family and make money. Recently, the arrival of cut rate sculpting services from China has made the situation even worse. Some artists are independently wealthy or have spouses with high paying jobs and have sub-par rates as a result.

Often companies expect the artist to work for free and have the opinion that they are doing the artist a favour by giving them exposure. When you do ask for proper compensation they end up turning to one of the above mentioned cheaper sources. Often companies just don't pay their bills on time or put off paying for months on end. I don't know how many times I've had a company with long outstanding debts just leave for weeks on end without paying their bill. It's usually at times where you need the money like Christmas; the convention season is also a time when this is a common occurrence. I've often wondered what some of these people would say to their boss who left town the day before payday and said "oh by the way, I'll be off at Gencon this week so I'm not going to give you a paycheck".

What any artist should realize when they undercharge or low ball a price is that they are taking food from the mouths of my children, not just my own but every other professional sculptor out there who depend on their trade to pay the bills. Any new sculptors who low ball are really only hurting themselves because once you charge a company one price they will never, ever, give you a higher rate; you are just locking yourself into a low wage. There is always another desperate artist waiting to give them what they want for next to nothing.

The sad part of this environment means that there will be fewer and fewer professional sculptors in the gaming industry as it becomes more and more impossible to make a decent living from sculpting. The death of the metal miniature, and rise of the cheap, pre-painted mini sculpted by a cut rate, sub par artist from China will also drive many of the great sculptors into other lines of work.

My wife is a writer and unfortunately the writing Field is afflicted with the same rot that plagues the gaming industry. She found this video on one of the writing sites that she visits, which is an interview with Harlan Ellison and he eloquently sums up how I have felt for many years. My first reaction after seeing it was "Amen to That," then I wrote this rant. Here it is, he is talking about writers but if you swap the word writer for sculptor it is the same situation. I'm sure my peers will truly appreciate this.

One word of caution, this isn't a video to listen to at work or if you have your kids present.



James Van Schaik

How a Miniature Begins-The Armature

For this weeks tip I thought I would show everyone how a miniature starts. I know this is a little advanced but I thought everyone would like to see how a figure is sculpted from the beginning.

The videos below show how I stretch and pose an armature and I go into underpinning a little.

The tools I use are simple miniature pliers and clippers that you can find at most hobby stores, and a pair of calipers which you can find here . Calipers are essential for measuring proportions so if you are serious about sculpting humans I'd pick up a set.

If you are interested in getting some armatures Reaper miniatures sells some Here. They also have some with muscles, these are good if you want to get a handle on how things work for practice but its always better to do it on your own.

As always if you have any questions feel free to post them and I'll answer them as best I can.

I apologize for the number of videos but I had to break them up into parts because blogger only accepts short length videos.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

Part 6

Part 7

Part 8

Part 9

Part 10

Part 11

Part 12

Professional Sculpting Lessons

The first course for my sculpting lessons will be starting soon in London Ontario at the Comic Book Collector.
Course 1 – Sculpting Fundamentals and Miniature Converting, is a 8 Week course and includes a sculpting kit that contains all the tools you need to start sculpting. This course introduces the student to the tools of sculpting. In addition, students will learn how to use the media (putty) and also learn how to implement many different effects and surface details. This course is designed for the miniature enthusiast who wishes to learn more advanced techniques to create highly intricate conversions or modeling projects. Students will learn the fundamentals necessary to carry on to more advanced sculpting classes that involves creating entire miniatures rather than conversions off existing miniatures. Some of the areas covered include:

Hair
Straps
Fur
Basic Jewelry
Pouches
Skulls and Skull Reliefs (shoulder pads detail etc.)
Chainmail
Chains
Wood
and more....

Space is very limited so if you are interested email me at: jamesvanschaik@excite.com to obtain more information about the course and pre-registering. As the deadline approaches and dates are set I will post more information.

Sculpting Putty Part Four- Drying and Storage

The putties I described earlier all have the same properties and methods for storage and drying. You should only keep about an inch or so of putty out in your work area at a given time, chances are you will never use more than this amount on a given project. The rest should be stored in the freezer to keep it from drying out. If putty is left out it will slowly cure from the exposure to air and you will notice that your putty will have small lumps of hardened putty that will generally not mix and leave your putty with a rough, gritty texture. Make sure you "pick" out any such lumps before you start working.
Keeping putty in the freezer retards the natural hardening process so if you find you are working on a piece and have to leave for any reason before you have a chance to finish you can put the piece in the freezer and it will keep it from drying for a short period of time ( I wouldn't push it past 24hours). When you come back to work on the piece just pop it out of the freezer and in a few minutes it will thaw and you can resume work.

Drying
Once putty is mixed it will "air" dry within roughly 20 minutes. Air drying does not mean that it is fully dry, in order to completely cure the putty needs to be "cooked" in a oven or type of kiln that we sculptor's refer to as "The Cooker". This precision engineered piece of equipment is an amazing amalgam of common household parts that can easily be assembled by even the most novice modeler. Here is my cooker:

I know.. I know.. your asking yourself "how can I ever obtain the parts for, let alone construct, such a wondrous device?" Well here's how:

"The Cooker" Parts List*

1. A large empty coffee tin (don't waste the coffee! Drink it!)

2. A simple desk lamp or heat lamp (these are larger and may be necessary for larger coffee tins, you want to be able to rest the lamp on top of the tin)

3. 1 50 watt bulb (DO NOT, I repeat DO NOT, use any higher wattage, it will melt your figure!)

Once you have gathered your part simply cut open one side of the tin with tin shears or similar cutting devise (be very careful here we don't want any dismemberment) as shown.
That's it your done!

To dry putty in the cooker just place it inside for about 20 minutes and the putty should harden. Brown stuff will harden to the point where you can shave or sand it and green and procreate will fully cure so that when you touch the piece it won't warp or distort. I recommend cooking any project at each stage before going on to the next to ensure that you have a solid base to work on and you don't accidentally smudge something you just spent a half an hour sculpting (trust me I've learned this the hard way).

Hope you enjoyed the tips on putty, oh and yes the photo didn't make it past the sensor due to NDA reasons.

James

Sculpting Putty Part Three- Procreate

In this last post on putty I am going to cover one of the newer putties on the market- Procreate. Procreate is made by a company called Kraftmark, here is a link to their site http://www.kraftmark.biz/. From there you can find many suppliers. The average cost for a package is about 10.00.

The makers of procreate boast that their putty has the consistency of green stuff and will harden like Brown stuff, making it superior to both for sculpting. I have to admit that at first I had my doubts about these claims, after all how could such a miracle substance exist? After using it I can tell you that it does come close to the companies claims as possible. Since trying it I have switched to it for most of the sculpting I do. My only complaint with Procreate would be that while you can shave it slightly, it still does not compare to brown stuff when it comes to hardening. It is for this reason that I still use Brown Stuff for all my hardline sculpting which is still the best for that job.

It mixes and dries pretty much the same as the other putties. Add more hardener and it is thicker and dries faster, more softener and it takes longer to dry. I am not certain about the ability for procreate to be vulcanized as the company I work for at the moment uses RTV technology. A few years ago I did do a piece with procreate for a company and when they vulcanized it it warped and broke down from the heat however many companies seems to be using it.

My next post will cover storing, drying, and sanding all the different putties.

Sculpting Tip #2-Clay Shapers

I thought I would continue profiling the various sculpting tools I use and picked one of the most useful - clay shapers. The clay shaper is an awesome tool used for smoothing and creating folds in clothing and many other jobs. Clay Shapers rank in my top three tools that I use and they are a must for anyone that is serious about sculpting.

You can find them easily on the web by doing a Google search for "clay shapers", be sure to order the size 0. The type I use are made by Royal Sovereign. The shaper comes in three different colored tips, white (soft), grey(firm) and black (extra firm). I use the black tipped ones the most although I do have a grey set.

Here is a link to the Royal Soviern website:

http://www.colourshaper.com/

There are five different shaped tips in a set. A flat tipped shaper that is great for smoothing out broad surfaces, a pointed tip which is used for creating grooves and folds, a circular "cupped" tip that I use for rounding off things, a wedge that is great for cutting lines, and finally a curved tip which I honestly haven't found a use for but I'm sure there is.

I decided to include a little tutorial video of the clay shaper in action. In this video I'm using the flat clay shaper to smooth out a figure I'm working on and a cupped tip to round off the "naughty bits". These tools are quite easy to use, to smooth with them you just run the tool across the surface of the putty in broad even strokes. Please note: the little munchkin in the background is my 3 year old son, he decided to add the commentary to the video. Also please excuse my stubby fingers, I'm still working on my cinematography degree.