As you may know, making a good female miniature (which often means 'sexy') is considered a difficult task. There is a good reason for that. When you sculpt some kind of ugly or twisted creature, you can help yourself by exaggerating some particular parts of the mini. In fact, a more caricatural features will often make the final miniature better - since our cognition is based on feature extraction, making some features more visible increase the probability that the viewer will associate the miniature with those motives that you want him to.
Now, this is something that you can't really do, if you want a nice female character, since caricatural approach would most likely end like this:
... or even worse. What you want to achieve is actually an effect of subtleness - so you can't really take a caricatural approach here.
I'm talking about this, because I need a kind of excuse, why work on my new miniature is progressing so slowly. Well, that's right - I'm trying to sculpt a female character for INQ28 from scratch. This is how the miniature looks like so far:
I have a sort of special plan for it, but this is a matter for another post.
There is one more thing. As suggested in the title, this girl is kind of big (at least if you consider her to be made in 28mm scale). Actually, she is slightly taller than the Chaos Cultist Champion from the Dark Vengeance box. As you may know, DV cultists are rather oversized when compared to most of the GW miniatures. In fact, GW is known for scale inconsistencies.
I'm going to ask you the same question that I've posted somewhere else - how do you deal with those inconsistencies?
Surely, it's natural that some people are taller, some are not etc. and the grimdark SF setting actually makes those differences in size and body proportions even more plausible (natural selection, genetic manipulation, mechanical prostheses and so on). Perhaps, it's not a problem at all?
Thanks for reading and see you on the comment list!
Wow, hats off to you for trying your hand at sculpting a model from scratch (and a female one at that!). Looks like you are making good progress. Do have a clear image of the character in mind that you are trying to sculpt? Any sketches or descriptions of what you are going for? It sounds like you do have a plan in mind.
ReplyDeleteKeep up the great work!
Hello Adam!
ReplyDeleteI have some sketches and a kind of general idea of the model, but it's constantly changing. This is a slow process, so I tend to get all sort of new ideas and inspirations that gradually change the initial concept.
This time I actually have a plan for more than one miniature! That is, I want to cast the unfinished miniature at some point and use the copies as foundations for a new miniatures. That's why I've avoided making her too unique thus far. The current model could evolve into an inquisitor acolyte, but also into, let's say, a Slaaneshi cultist or even a daemonette. Moreover, I would love to share a few copies with fellow hobbyists and see how they would approach it, but that probably depends on whether you/they like the casted miniature. :-)
Cheers!
Great to hear you have lots of ideas for the model and future ones. Your thought about casing an unfinished base model is a neat idea. That will make it much easier to experiment with different concepts and ideas. I can't wait to see what you come up with! :)
DeleteI really neat to try my hand at casting stuff. I imagine it could come in handy. Keep me informed with how the eventual casting goes. I would certainly be interested in trying my hand at converting a model using one of your casts!
Keep up the great work!