Sunday, April 29, 2018

Mollymauk Part 3

I've started working on the clothing for the tiefling.  Starting with the inside and working my way out.  This one will have quite a bit of design work on him and I've done some of the simpler parts.  There's going to be a lot more on the coat and sleeves.  For the collar and pants I began with a sketch of the pattern to get the placement, size, etc. correct.  Easy to get a sense for the look and make corrections at that stage.  Then I went over it to shade and highlight, as well as to refine and sharpen the designs.

Monday, April 23, 2018

Mollymauk Part 2

I finished making my Mollymauk conversion.  Some more putty work to finish off and clean up the coat.  I took care of the other horn and added some details to both of them.  For the sleeves, I mostly just carved into the existing resin to create the shapes I wanted.  I then used a bit of string to create the ties.  I might make a few additions later on in the process, but essentially he's ready to go.

So over the weekend I began doing some actual painting on him!  Focused on the head/chest to start.  I played around a bit with the color.  The purples I had, Imperial Purple and Amethyst, were a bit too red for the character, so I mixed in some blues.  After painting the face I realized I'd gone a bit too far, so I glazed on some red to bring it back to where I wanted it.

I've still got to do the hair and horns, but I think I'll do some work on the clothing next.  Just begun to work on the shirt.  I'd also like to do the inside of the coat and then start to work on the legs.

Tuesday, April 10, 2018

Mollymauk Part 1

For a while now I've been wanted to do a figure based on one of the characters from Critical Role.  Once I learned the 1st campaign would be ending, I decided to wait and pick a character from the new campaign.  Well, that started back in January and the characters they picked did not make it easy!  When it comes to 54mm or larger figures there aren't many options for tieflings, half-orcs, goblins, female monks, etc.  I spent a while looking but couldn't find any current sculpt that could reasonably pass for any of them.  So I turned to plan B, find something I could convert.  I settled on the 75mm Child Thief figure from Terrible Kids Stuff.  I'd started it a while ago but the project just didn't hold my interest.  So it got set to the side and I didn't think I'd ever get back to it.  But when I began to look around for potential pieces to convert, the look and pose made me think of Mollymauk.  I just needed to change him into a tiefling (add horns and a tail), extend his jacket down to the ground, and add a variety of smaller details.


Here's a reminder of what the original sculpt looked like.  I began by removing unnecessary details on the pants and clipped down his collar.  Then I started to add details on the main body.  Redid the shirt, added a belt and boot tops.  I made an armature for the tail and horns and sculpted over them (still got one horn to do though).  Most recently I've begun working on the main coat.


Free cloth, like a banner, is tough.  I don't know how the real sculptors do it.  What I've come up with is to place the putty between sheets of wax paper and roll it out to the desired thickness.  Then I cut it to shape and, leaving the paper on, bend it into the desired shape.  The wax paper helps keep fingerprints off.  Once it's hardened I remove the paper and glue it to the figure.  I doubt this is the ideal approach... but it's working well enough for the current project. Last night I did the other half of the coat.

Up next I'll use some more putty to fix the gap between the two halves and the seam where it meets the original coat.  The rest of the coat details will be sculpted directly on the figure.  I've got to do the fabric under the right arm and the hood.  Lots of details to add to the sleeves... but that will be a problem for another day.

I've never tried a conversion this extreme, but I'm quite happy with the results.  I'm hoping to have him done and ready to prime by the end of the weekend.  Fingers crossed!

Monday, April 2, 2018

Brom Part 5

Getting back to Brom, I moved on to his clothing.  This was an area that I struggled coming up with a color for.  I decided to go with an orange-green-purple palette, which is not a typical choice for me.  But the orange hair and rust and then the green verdigris pushed me in that direction.  Still not much purple, aside from some undertones, but I plan to work a bit more of that in in a few spots.  I made a couple aborted attempts at the cloth on his right arm before I settled on a color I liked.  I initially thought green plus some brown or grey, but that kept looking too bright and vibrant.  In end then, I went more with brown plus some green (maybe 3 parts brown to 1 part green).  This gave the subtle effect I wanted.  I then continued that onto the cloth around his waist. Afterward, I did some of the fur bits and the leather around his left arm.

 

I still need to do the back of his armor.  What you're seeing here is just some of the undercoat.  I started with purple and then started to lay down rust tones.  Normally I don't worry too much about how clean the undercoat is, I just want some color there.  But in this case, since so much of the metal is rusted away, I won't be covering up nearly as much with the metallic.  So I'm planning to put a bit more work into the rust now so I don't have to do quite as much once the metallic goes on.


Normally I try to assemble as much of the figure as I can before painting.  This guy doesn't have a lot of parts, but I opted to leave the hands/weapon off.  The main reason was the cloth and details around his waist.  I'm sure I could have managed if it were just cloth, but there's a rope and a tiny skull dangling from his front.  With the hands/weapon there it would have been very difficult to work on those finer details. Plus the connection between his arms and hands is good, so I don't foresee any gaps or issues there.  The only thing I still want to do before attaching the hands is base coat the inside of them.  You can see the fingers on his left hand are mostly blocked by the body, same for the back of his right hand.  But, depending on the angle, you can still see them a bit.  So, it'll be easier to lay down some initial dark coats/shadows there before attaching.  Then I'll paint the rest.  In the meantime, here's a peak at how he's going to look.