GUIDE TO CUSTOMISING - PART 4

SCULPTING THE HEAD

In many ways, sculpting can’t be taught from the screen - you either have an aptitude for it, or you don’t. But there are certainly tips and tricks for making it easier, should you want to give it a try.

Most importantly - take it in small stages. There are obviously mediums that require everything sculpting at once - the Robert Harrop figurines are good example - or anything that requires firing to set. Given that I’m working in an epoxy clay though, everything will dry by itself in a matter of hours, so there’s no need to do it all at once. And it can be much easier to tackle individual areas and then come back and sculpt on top of or adjacent to them once they’ve dried. If you try to do too much at one time, you run the risk of getting one part right, but then accidentally smudging/damaging it when you move elsewhere - especially if you have to hold different parts of the figure to work on it. Be patient!

As mentioned before, I work pretty much exclusively in Milliput. I’ve become reasonably good at judging how much I need for any bit of sculpting, but it’s probably best to underestimate at first - you can always mix more if needed. Alternatively, have a spare project on your bench that you can donate any excess to! Slice off 2 equal sections (I tend to lay the 2 tubes sideways and mark off an equal amount) and mix thoroughly - twist, smash, roll round your hands. It will leave a mess on your hands, so if that bothers you, wear gloves. 

I usually start sculpting on the face, as it’s the trickiest area. It also helps make the custom look like the end result early on, which is usually a morale boost! Looking at Karvanista, I’m going to start with the ‘beard’ of fur - this disappears below the ‘moustache’ section, so it’ll be easier to work on it in isolation. Place a portion of putty below the mouth, and shape it roughly with your fingers or sculpting tool. Here, I’ve done the same with an area on top of the head, as this won’t be affected by future sculpt work. I’ve also placed a little putty on the inside of the upper arms - with the armour around the outsides, it’l be easier to have this area pre-sculpted.

Once the putty is on, you can sculpt any fur detail into it. Here, the fur is long and straggly, so using the sharp end of my sculpting tool, I’ve scratched thin wavy lines into the surface. With the initial lines in, you can rework some - make some lines wider and deeper, join some, and have the beard disappear into small points at the bottom. This is mostly instinctive work, so do what feels right. I’m not sure how well Davison’s mouth will show up under all that fur, so I’ve sculpted small lower lip protruding past the original - the mouth behind it will be obscured by later sculpt, but if anything shows, a dab of black paint will sort it.

There’s a chance the hair will look a little rough or bobbly , depending how dry your tool is, but a light sand afterwards will probably take care of that. Once you’re done, step away! Leave it to dry for at least 6 hours before touching it, or the clay will still be soft enough to smudge any details. Don't worry if the figure looks a bit weird at this stage - it'll start to make sense later.

For a second pass, I can fill in all the other fur around the main features. Again, take some mixed putty and stick small sausages onto the areas in question - bridge of the nose, cheeks and round the eyes. Using the knife, score new hair patterns into these areas - studying the reference images to see which way the fur lies. Hopefully, at this point, the face should start to look more recognisably Karvanista. Separately at this stage, I added some putty to the chest for his breastplate - this I smoothed down with damp finger as much as possible (any rough patches can be sanded away later.

For the ears, it’s easiest to sculpt on top of an existing support structure, rather than trying to create a free standing structure from the soft putty. So I cut 2 small triangles of rubber from Davison’s coat (see, told you it would be useful) and glued them to the head, bending them around to the right position. Once there, they could be sculpted over using the same technique as before. At this point, I also added in the nose (I decided it was too fiddly to attempt on top of the soft hair sculpt).

At this point, the head is more or less done for now - next, onto the body…