Skorne Mammoth

A long time in the making the Mammoth was the last project I worked on for Privateer Press. Originally started in January of '12 this was a co-project between myself and one of the PP in-house sculptors, (not sure who there got waylaid to work on it otherwise I would post his name. Could be Sean, could be Brian. I just don't know.) My job was to sculpt the nekkid body. No armor or weapons, just the body. Once the body was done it was shipped to PP where someone else would have the task of putting all the complex Skorne armor on it. Since it took me about 5 months to do just the body I think I would have killed myself if I had to do the armor as well, and if I had ground my way through the whole project then it wouldn't have turned out as nice as it did.
One of the major problems with sculpting large things like this is the threat of the miniature collapsing under it's own weight while you are making it. The armature can support only so much before bad things begin to happen, using lighter, non bakeable puttys or clays like Chavant or Castilene is a way to combat that, or using armatures that are much more rigid will support it. But considering it would have to be cut apart and the armature removed for production as well as shipped in the mail then that restricted my materials to work in. Super Sculpey would have been ideal due to it's light weight but is kind of brittle after baking and Fimo is far tougher but much more heavy so I ended up making a mix of both in hopes of getting the best of both worlds. It sorta worked... Sorta. One other thing was I didn't break the model down when done. Normally the main body would be split open and hollowed out to cut down on material costs and shipping weight but outside of the arms and head/tusks being separated from the main body he was left intact otherwise the sculptor after me would have to reassemble it just to add his work. I did what I could to keep it as close to the concept art while making sure there would be enough space for the other sculptor to add the armor. I hope it went all right.
Regardless, my hats off to the other person who worked on this project for making some stellar armor to put on my dude. He looks a whole lot better then when he left my hands.
Picture provided by Privateer Press, painting by Privateer painting staff, sculpt by me and... Someone else...

Edit: Sean Harrison did the armor, thanks to http://daughteroftheemperor.blogspot.com/ for tracking down the info. 

"Ping Pong" The steamjack of crushing might!

Blast from my past, I did this guy sometime back in '03 I think and was one of several Iron Kingdom themed figures I made to show off to Privateer in hopes of getting a job as a sculptor. Funny thing is is that I was already sculpting steampunk themed figures before I knew about Warmachine as I was in a D&D game that had that element in it. Steam and fantasy was a concept who's time had come but there wasn't much in the way of figures available in that genre. I think Mage Knight was the closest but I wasn't a fan of their figure production so I started to make my own. When I found out that there was going to be a new game that had all the things I was trying to do myself I got excited and started to make figures inspired by the Iron Kingdoms.
At one point I was invited over to Mike and Ali McVey's place and in his work room he had the masters for Magnus the Traitor's jacks there. After taking about techniques for sculpting armor and mecha I got inspired to give it a shot. I really liked the idea behind the mercenary mecha and I knew I wanted to make a utilitarian jack turned into a make shift war engine. I came up with the idea of a mining machine with a drill for digging and a massive claw for moving rubble. With that rough idea I went to work and just sorta free form built it.  Ping Pong is primarily made from Plastruct, brass rod and screws, acrylic spheres, brown stuff, some guitar wire and... A ping pong ball, (Which is how he got his nickname.) The head is the only part I didn't entirely sculpt and is an old Khador Destroyer head modified as I was still leaning about sculpting and wasn't comfortable just doing one from scratch. All the spikes and studs were done using a process I had never considered at the time; press molds! God, I wanted to smack myself silly after learning that and just how simple it was and how many problems it fixed. I remember the drill being an odd, spur of the moment inspiration where I glued varying sizes of plastic tub inside each other to make it solid, carving and sanding it down to a cone then heating a strip of triangular shaped Plastruct with a heat gun and wrapping it around the cone in a spiral. Don't know where I got the idea from now but at the time it was so obvious how to do it that it was spooky. I think I made him over the course of a week during the down time I had working graveyard in a porn shop, which there was a lot of. He stands just shy of a whopping 90mm which is even taller then the extreme Juggernaut I think. But, he does fit on a standard large base, so, he's got that going for him at least.
Soon after I had a meeting with the head honchos at Privateer's production site. Mike introduced me to Matt Wilson and Brian Snoddy and I showed off my stuff, Matt was kinda surprised by Ping Pong as he said he was working on something similar, some kind of warjack for the dwarven faction. Funny but it's not the first time my work has paralleled Matt's. Kelly Yeager who is head of casting joined the meeting and Mike wanted to know if the jack could be reproduced but it was a definite "No" as he was made from plastic and wouldn't have withstood the molding process, (Privateer had yet to make he push into resin so everything was metal cast.) But this guy, a new necrotech figure and a couple of concept pieces of what an Ios-ian soldier and Scorn warbeast  would look like was enough to pique Matt's interest in hiring me on at PP.
Every once in a while I look at this guy and want to do touch-ups on him. Fill in gaps, add detail or just refine him but I always stop myself since it's an example of my early work and to mess with it would ruin a reference point of my life so he stays as-is. I do get cravings to paint him too but something always comes up, who knows, maybe he will get a makeover some day.

I used to draw

...Like, a lot. I was so-so at it but I was always doodling or drawing comics or something but since I got a job as a sculptor I rarely have time to sit down and just draw and to be honest, it's not as satisfying as sculpting. In fact, if I am working on a personal project I usually skip the concept art stage and jump right into the sculpt. I always work on artwork provided by the company I am doing a job for and there is something satisfying by just working off of a loose idea and free form sculpt from there. 

A few years ago Ron Kruzie ran across a sketch I did for one of his Warhammer armies from, "Back In The Day," when neither of us did anything on a professional level. ( You can reference some of this story on the Iron Back Spitter post I made a while ago http://monster-zer0.blogspot.com/2010/11/ironback-spitter-king-of-koopas.html ) Ron asked if I was capable of producing concept art? Good question. It had been years since I did anything 2D and the best way to find out was to do it and see what happened.

I did three pieces of art and sent them in, nothing ever came of it but I thought I would post them here just to share. Now, before we get into it I have to do a disclaimer: These are NOT concepts that Privateer will be releasing! I am NOT showing you a preview of, "things to come." These pieces of art are my own ideas based off of Privateer Press's products and was only to see if I was creative enough, and capable of conveying a dynamic idea in the form of a drawing. So that being said if you start the rumor that these are in the works it's all on you.

(And yes, that is what my handwriting looks like, misspellings and all.)

First up is, "Wulg," Mulg's welp. Remember when I told you the bedtime story about how Mulg came into being and the original concept behind him? If not, go look. S'cool, I'll wait... http://monster-zer0.blogspot.com/2010/07/hello-my-name-is-mulg.html Anyway, The idea was that Mulg had suffered from some kind of horrid magic attack, something his troll metabolism just couldn't entirely deal with and the club fist was the best it could do (also the reason for the scar across his eye, chest and arm) So, Wulg was the product of that accident, A welp spawned from, "the most ancients," blown-off arm. Even though he's a welp being from a dire troll and more muy especial then just any old welp (imbued with an ancient earthborn dire trolls abilities and whatever residue magic that caused the accident in the first place) he's grown to the size of a trollkin. One massive stone hand from whence he grew is his main weapon and since he is from a dire troll he's got all the bad attitude that comes with one. some of the fun ideas for rules would be causing earthquakes (a cone effect) by slamming his fist into the ground, being able to move terrain by 1D3 inches in a direction of his choice. The other was that Mulg has animosity towards the welp; if on the same battle field and within a 6" radius of each other the player has to flip a coin; heads Mulg goes about what he was doing, tails and Mulg tries to eat the welp in an attempt to get back the power the little bastard stole from him. I thought it would have added a random and fun element to the game, sorta like some of the older rules for Orks in 40K. I chose the name Wulg as a play on the Mario/Wario nonsense Nintendo did a while ago and in the drawing Wulg's bigass arm should have been his left since that was the arm Mulg had lost in my original concept.

Next is, "The Blessed Of Everblight" A crazy-ass Nyss Warlock uses a complex spell and submerges himself in a spawning cauldron (willingly and still alive) in attempt to become closer to the dragon he worships and this guy is what came out. A Nyss / draconic hybrid, basically a warbeast that can cast. If you look at the chest you can see his head, chest and arm sprouting out of the beast. 

"The Privateers" - This was an idea for MonPoc I had a while ago, a fleet of intergalactic pirates come to Earth to plunder it. Ala Captain Harlock, Star Blazers, Macross, stuff like that. Space cruisers with a battleship theme to it. I thought it was a fun nod to Privateer Press.

Even though I am waaay out of practice I hope you guys still get some enjoyment from this post.

"The Thing that should not be..."

Here is something for you Monpoc fans, a proposed figure that was never used for the Lords of Cthul faction. Much like the, "Extreme," sculpts I did; as in: "I'm inspired to sculpt something on my own," this guy was sculpted after I had done all the figs for the faction. My understanding was that even though PP liked it there was no current place for it so it has been sitting around my works space for a couple of years now. I've got far too many things like this half finished and floating around but I thought I would post this guy to see how or if people would react to it.

I changed the overall design and instead of a fat gut and larger lower body I made him look emaciated, switching the mass to his brain. I remember watching the movie "The Time Machine," ('02 version,) and really liking Jeremy Irons character. The idea of a brain growing down the back really appealed to me and I decided to make that the central focus of the sculpt. His hands and feet are all webbed and three fingered/toed keeping the aesthetics from the other figures in the line but I made them more wiry and lean as if all it's body's nutrients are going straight to the grey matter.  I also had him squatting like a toad from the bulk of his brain and added a fifth eye. A third eye wouldn't seem that impressive since there is already Cthul who have 4 so five makes it just that much better... Right? He is about the same size as guys like Yasheth or Cthugrosh but only because of his vertebrae. 

The general idea is that he was a psychic attacker/defender. Maybe causing madness in the opposing forces by flooding their fleshy minds with disturbing nightmares or images of other realms. Anyway, hope you enjoy a bit of what might have been; cortex and tentacles.

Noh Rashinma-To

One of the cool things about Gencon is that all the companies that I've sculpted for finally show off their work which means I can finally talk about it. Here is the Hunter, (I think he is called "Rashinma-To,") and his warhounds that I did for Soda Pop Miniatures. Leaner then the Berzerkers and a tad taller since his hair is bigger he was the third Noh I sculpted for John Candice. The concept art by Chris Walton had a pretty wide stance and to keep that look and fit him on the correct base I made a scenic insert for him to stand on. Not sure who did the color drawing but it looks like it is based off of Chris's concept art. Anyhoo, no official picture of the mini yet, (that I could find) so the ones here are either from me or scrounged from the net. In the 4th pic, Zenida and Sprite were sculpted by Aragorn Marks using a digital haptic sculpting tool which I thought was pretty cool.

Kasaro-To, general of the Noh faction

John Candice has had me working on a bunch of the Noh figures for the release of Relic Knights and this guy is the latest. General Kasaro-To, his mount Dahaka and his cipher, "Azi." designed by Chris Walton this guy was a crazy complex puzzle that kept me busy for quite a while. Just when I thought I as making progress or getting things done I would notice/remember some detail that would need to be added. And then to top it all off, making the pieces fit together AND on the base? Oh yeah, I was having a ball. Noh are big so squeezing this guy on to the base size while keeping the dynamic stance was a big worry but I think he turned out OK. The mount's head is on a ball and socket as is the tail so a little freedom of posing is possable right out of the box. And even though there is a joint-key in all 4 shoulders and waist they are still ball and socket too so with a little cutting customizers can get more poses out of the mount... But I don't know how the general will fit on the back after that is done.

Anyway, here are some pics of the greens to go along with the other Gencon pics. Sorry, I'm not a photographer but it should give you an idea of the parts breakdown. Sculpted with Fimo, greenstuf, Magic Sculpt with cast resin parts and brass rod.
Pics snagged from Gencon, art is based on Chris Walton's concept art, (but I don't know who colored it,) and the last three photos are done by inept, 'ol me. Hope you guys like.

Pyre Troll part Deux

Heeeeey! Privateer released my Pyre troll! This guy was done around November of '10 and was sort of a side project with Ron Kruzie. Something that was a bit off about the original was that he was kinda on the small side, more of a Trollblood then a Troll so we wanted to get his size increased as well as a new pose. I wanted to do something different in that regard so there was diversity on the battlefield, I ended up with a Hulk-like pose of the Troll charging into battle rather then spitting fire. The two things that got changed was that he had fire coming out of his mouth that ended up getting removed, not like a fire ball but rather that his insides were on fire and the flames were licking up the sides of his face. Like a furnace on full blast. The other was the pose; originally he was balanced on his forward foot which I thought made a more dynamic charge but they didn't like that and requested he be re posed so that both feet were touching the base. This was done with a simple cut on the right foot's ankle and the figure leaned back about 30 degrees. I kinda felt that this took away a lot of the implied momentum and made it look more like he was strolling forward to give a hug. Oh well.

Picture provided by Privateer Press, painting by Privateer painting staff.