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."

Update on Pulp City Stuff

Hi everyone

Here is some stuff I did for Pulp monsters. I had been meaning to get around to posting these awhile ago.

The first one is called Trail for a nice painted shot and his background go here, I had fun with the cape on this guy because it kinda reminded me of Spawn, it was challenging because I had to make it one piece so it would mold.



This guy is called Dead Eye and you can find out more about him here. Being a football fan I really enjoyed this one. I tried to get them to let me put a Steelers logo on him but they wouldn't let me :(. He really reminded me of bloodbowl.



This guy here is called Rook, check out the awesome paint job and background here
I used a mix of Brown Stuff and procreate on these. I like using the brown on armoured pieces so I can scrape it after it dries with a scalpel to get really sharp, clean edges. Maciej at Pulp Monsters uses RTV molds for casting his masters so I can use procreate without worrying about them blowing up during vulcanizing.

Check Back later today or Monday for an update on the Chainmail tutorial. I am doing a figure with chainmail so I will photograph the process and add them to the blog.

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?