Dire Troll Mauler Extreme

This guy was the first in the "Extreme" line of minis put out by PP but that is not how it started out as...

In my last post I talked about how it had been 3 years between when the Dire Troll Mauler was done and its release, three years of sculpting in a production capacity and expanding my repertoire of techniques. I was on a hiatus from sculpting after my move from the Seattle area and was working as a temp elsewhere.

One of the perks about working for Privateer is that you get SWAG for the projects that you worked on, one day I got a package in the mail from PP that had the brand-spank'n new Hoards Primal book in it and I was blown away by the artwork on the cover. The Dire Troll Mauler was on the front getting ready to put the beat down on a Titan and it was glorious! THAT was a picture of a Dire Troll; texture, dynamics and rage. I had begun to think that if I had some conceptual artwork to do the original DTM how different would it look? The picture inspired me to give the sculpt a second try and this time since it wasn't going to go into production I could use whatever material I wanted to make it.

This time I started the guy out of Fimo; an Aluminum armature with Greenstuff to bulk up the general shape and finally Fimo for the detail. I did a little work for Randy Bowen of Bowen Designs and read a kick-ass article about sculpting concept Maquettes for movies http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=18287 and I was eager to try out a whole new bag of tricks . Also, I planned to cut him up as you would for production as I was attempting to teach myself mould making with room temperature vulcanizing materials and I thought this could be one big self taught lesson for me.

Rough sketches were done again but the whole thing was sculpted with a more free form whatever-looks-good approach to it. Besides the book cover what was really inspiring me was Peter Jackson's movie King Kong, I always thought the Trollblooded were pretty apish looking so this movie was perfect inspiration to help add to it all. In fact, the facial expression I used for the Troll was inspired from a particular scene in the movie where the crew is attempting to escape on their landing boats from Kong as he chases after them through a seaside cave. Some of the crew are firing their rifles at him from the reefs and as Kong passes by one the crew mate manages to piss Kong off enough that he grabs the guy and bites his head off. I loved the look he had on his face and I kept rewinding that part of the movie so I could see it over again all the while mimicking the facial expression and making adjustments to the sculpt.

Since this guy was mine I didn't worry about size restrictions, I could make him the size I thought he should be. Normally you have to make sure the width of the feet have to stay within the inner bevel of the plastic base which can lead to some awkward looking poses but again that was something I didn't have to worry about. I could get the dynamic stance I wanted and to get around him fitting on a base I would just make a piece of terrain to go on top of the plastic base. Problem solved.

I also decided to make a couple of weapon variants for his forearms; one was a set of crude looking blades that would replace his natural forearm spikes made to look as if they had been riveted directly into his flesh and I made a couple of stone obelisks attached by a length of chain that was bolted to his arms. His upper body pose could look as if he was punching with his standard arm spikes, slashing with the chunky blades or whipping wighted chain in a spinning arch. (The alternate weapons were not used as the marketing strategy they were shooting for meant that it could not brandish anything that they didn't already have existing rules, but if you own the DTMX and wondered about why the forearm spikes were separate, that's why.)

Just at the time that I finished sculpting the DTMX it was time to attend one of my favorite conventions. The Portland Lovecraft Film Festival is my chance to catch up with friends from out of town and previous PP coworker Jason Soles is a regular there. I mentioned the Troll to him and he said he wanted to see it so I bought it with me the next evening to show him off. If any of you have met Mr. Soles you know he usually has a slightly evil smirk that could mean just about anything, well, I found out what that smirk meant about a week later when Matt Wilson emailed me.
Matt said that Jason had told him about the Troll and wanted to see it, maybe make a limited run of it for the PP crew. I sent it up and Matt responded with a desire to purchase it. Ironically this was just before Christmas and my temp job laid everyone off to save money over the holidays. With my first freelance sculpting check in hand I began to seriously contemplate sculpting as an actual job. My girlfriend was totally behind me and I have been doing it since.

So, this guy who started as a personal project turned into my gateway as a freelance sculptor as well as kicking off the Extreme line of alternate gaming minis for Privateer Press.

Pictures provided by Privateer Press, paint by Team McVey

Back in the day...

So I thought that I would give a little back story on some of the minis that I've done for Privateer Press since what most people get to see is the finished product. The first one I wanted to talk about is the original Dire Troll Mauler since it was one of the first production figures I ever did. This guy was done sometime back in '03 and unlike most of the other figs I did this guy didn't have any conceptual art to work from. Usually the sculptor is provided with artwork that shows off the details, poses, multiple angles, size and sub notes; all the info the sculptor needs to get the figure done how the client wants it. This guy however was a test.
Mike McVey had invited me over to his place to talk about a future project that he wanted me to work on, when I got there he broke out the Monsternomicon and showed me the picture of the Dire Troll and asked what I thought about sculpting it? Funny thing was is that since I was trying to get Privateers attention I had been sculpting figs that were inspired by their work to show to them and when I had picked up the Monsternomicon and saw the Dire Troll I had already decided that I was going to sculpt one anyway so when Mr. McVey gave me the project I jumped on it with genuine enthusiasm. This project was to see what I could do with an actual figure assignment and since Hoards was projected so far out they were safe if I screwed it up as they had plenty of time to reassign it to a more competent artist.
I am not a fan of sculpting with Greenstuff, I've rarely ever gotten what I intended when using it but it seems to be a current necessary evil in the industry, (if you don't know why I'll talk about that in a later post) and at the time PP didn't have a standard system for dealing with Fimo (which is primarily what I use) so Greenstuff it was. Mr. McVey had given me a rough size restriction which was to make him no bigger then a Warjack, that he had to fit on a large base and that the pose had to be dynamic. we talked a bit about what would look good with me stomping around the McVey's living room striking poses that we thought might work for the sculpt. I did some rough sketches when I got home and then I went to it. Because there was no due date There was a lot of experimenting and corrections done to him, I think it took around 6 months to finish him off and even then there were issues with certain bits on him, specifically his quill-hawk which had to be redone several times to ensure good castings.
I had gone to work directly for Privateer as a caster then a mold maker and sculptor and moved out of the Seattle area before this guy even went into production for Hoards. By then I had done a bunch of figs for PP and had gotten more familiar with the whole process but this figure is still pretty special to me as he was my first sculpt.

Picture provided by Privateer Press and paint job (I think) by Team McVey.