Double Eagle

evening all, thought I would bring you latest updates (as requested    )

So, I have some armour plating teqhnique that I was going to use to do the framework of the shoulder pads and the other areas of extra plates that appear. Those being the knee pads etc.

Let me know what you think, they are real rough and not at all trimmed to size or anything, just testing the technique before making any real atempt:

That’s all for this evening sorry, not had a chance to do a lot to this model tonight, sorry guys.

D

Hi everyone, I have been a busy man this evening, have been testing some armour techniques that I will be trying out and have also been making a push mould for the suit seals at the backs of the knees:

May or may not work as I planned, but will have to wait until the GS dries to find out!

So, onto the new head sculpt, I will be honest, this was going very badly and my earlier (I think) successes seemed a bit of beginners luck. But I pressed on, found a few excellent video tutorials on YouTube, and decided not to scrap this head but persevere, I am glad I did.

Again, this head not absolutely perfect, but I am more than happy with it. It conveys the attitude I wanted so works for me!

And yes, that is a battle scar on her left cheek!

Well, would really like some feedback about it if anyone would like to. I know the headshape is not perfect either, but most of this is going to be covered in hair anyway so only the basic shape was needed.

Thanks all!

So, made my first attempt at sculpting anything other than a pouch or gap filling last night, and I have to say, I am really quite pleased with the results!

I trawled the internet [as usual] to find some information and some tips on sculpting and found a number of great sites out there, so if you are thinking of trying something like this, I suggest having a good look round (I assume you have already, if you are reading this!).

Onto the step by step then I guess. I will write this as a kind of tutorial and will post in the relevant sections and I may even produce a pdf or something to download, we shall see. Continue reading

So, not much to update today… Didn’t have a lot of time to work on the model last night for various reasons that i won’t bore you with.

I managed to get some more Milliput onto the bodice part and shaved off some of the lower leg/ankle part of the armour.

I also had a stab at doing a rough Gorget(sp?), this turned out pretty bad but it did give me the chance to plan out something better. I have more of a clue about what I need for this now, and going back to my reference artwork, tells me that the basic shape of it, need not be massively detailed…

People keep asking me about what I am doing about the head on this build, and as of writing, I fully intend to do a full face sculpt, but that may change once I actually have a go at sculpting a full female face…If it turns out just too horrible, then I will be making a closed visor helm!

Sorry, no piccies as last nights work was not really worthy of it…

N

Hi all! Thought I would bring you the latest update on this build. Spent some time last night filing and sanding the armour panels to get them not only smooth, but some final tweaks to the main shape. The next stage for these is to build up the flared lip along the edges.

I may use milliput again or a mix of milliput and GS, as this retains some of the useful qualities of each compound and also has the added benefit of the colour difference from the main armour plates, so easier to work on.

I was thinking last night that I may change the shape of the leg armour, where it reaches the foot. I think it’s ok now, but I was looking at a SoB model and the armour here does not go all the way to the floor as in my model, it flares out at the ankle a little.

I have also found some nice hemispheres to use for the cups on the bodice. I wanted these to be a regular shape as possible as I didn’t want to have to sculpt them, because they would not have looked right to me. These are from some mirror fixings I had from a DIY job around the house, and I think they will work nicely! I need to fix them in properly and mould the chest and neck area around them and they should look great.

Really looking forward to making the bolter and I have the idea that I want to make this from brass stock as it feels a little crisper on edges etc. than plastic…Will have to experiment with this, as I have not modeled anything in brass before and I suspect the soldering aspect will be a pain!

Thanks for looking all!

N

So have done some more work on the plates last night, and got my dremmel working on a few areas like the feet. they were a little large and the dreaded size creep seemed to be setting in…Have shaved them back to a more sensible size now, ready for the next phase of plates.

So, having left them overnight again to cure, will progress with the bodice parts and the underlying structure for the pouldrons…

N

So here we go with some more images. Fleshed out and some armour on there…

So after that stage, using some Fimo, put some flesh in there too….I have to say, hate it at this stage and was ready to bin this one right here!

As a test run, I put on the armour plating to see if this could be rescued. I think it has worked ok…

I know it needs loads of cleaning up and a little reshaping with the dremell and some sand paper, but am mostly ok with this…

Hi all, thought I would catch up and post something a little new so you can all see what is happening in Cirque du Dragunov!

I have decided to try something that I have never attempted before and that is, a large scale 40k sculpt from scratch. Now, I have obviously tried the odd sculpt here and there with a little GS as we all have, and got mixed results. Mostly small detail items or simple gap filling exercises, so nothing on this scale.

Have seen a bunch of stuff around the internet and I am always blown away by some of the talent out there and the fact that they are so willing to share what they know. So that was my first step on the path, research as much as I could regarding sculpting at this size. I wanted a model that was large enough for me to get my teeth into and not small enough to become really fiddly and so bore me because, hey, I am not a detail person sometimes…

I found a great site called Instructables and on there, a fantastic resource and tutorial about creating an armature for your sculpt, I suggest you check it out, as apart from a great guide, it’s some great work in there too! So following that guide, I went and found a scale guide for my armature and printed out to the sort of size I was after. This model will stand about 6-7″ high, so I don’t really know what that would be scale wise, perhaps I will work it out at some point…

So, armed with my printed scale guide, I was sourcing some sturdy wire I could make my skeleton from. The only thing I could lay my hands on at the time was infact, exactly what the tutorial said to try and avoid, coat hangers… I thought they would do the trick, but in hindsight, I should have listened as they are a little tough to manipulate properly so maybe not the best for my first go!

Anyway, made my armature in the prescribed methods of tying off the wire frame with some smaller guage wire, and then found a slab of scrap timber that I could use for a steady base. Drilled that with the same width drill bit (2mm) as the wire is and pushed it into place, pretty sturdy and feels secure:

I think it turned out nice, so next step will be adding some ‘flesh’ to the wireframe, so will post later!

Thanks for looking guys!

D

Hi all, as the judging has now started over on wip, I thought it only fair to post the image I have over there.

I will of course add some more here for you to see later on today. Pity I couldn’t get it painted in time, I could have started but painting always looks messy in the middle of the job, so didn’t want that. Anyway, enjoy!

And please vote if you haven’t already done so!