Starting My First Sculpting Project

Transcript

Welcome to the Hobby Nomicon. Today I’m doing my first attempt ever at trying to sculpt anything.

The Starting Point

I recast this Miscast Daemon Prince and the print came out pretty bad—the legs were totally jacked and the back was wrecked. I used an X-Acto to round over the edges and give myself a blank canvas to work on.

Mixing Green Stuff

This is the most green stuff I’ve ever mixed together at once. I cut out the middle strip where the two colors meet because that part’s always partially cured. I ended up using that strip later as filler material.

With wet gloves to prevent sticking, I smoothed the green stuff into the pre-existing sculpt. It looks like I just globbed it on, but it’s actually pretty flush with the surrounding areas. As I worked it in, it started looking more and more like a shoulder. My goal for today was getting the basic forms flushed out and adding some texture.

The Shoulder Work

I don’t have any real sculpting tools yet—just a sail needle (technically a leather needle). Looking at the original Daemon Prince model to match how the shoulders should look, I rounded them out and blended the green stuff into the existing cast.

For the neck, the skin folds got distorted in the casting. I put a small clump of green stuff in and used the needle to press the skin folds back in. When I pressed too hard, I went back with water on the needle and smoothed it out.

The Isopropyl Alcohol Trick

This is a game-changer: isopropyl alcohol liquefies the green stuff. When you come back in after applying it, you can really work the green stuff into the surrounding model and make a smooth transition between the resin cast and the sculpted areas. It also makes the green stuff super smooth.

Adding Texture

For texture, I first tried a piece of Lego, but then found balled push pins—much better. I hit the whole thing with them to create this almost toad-like skin texture, which is where I wanted to go. Some of the finish came off the push pins, which actually added more texture. Happy accident.

I pushed the pins in deeper to make indentations where I can sculpt mushrooms and things growing out of his back. Kept it asymmetrical—I didn’t want one on both shoulders.

The Backstory

The footage of the actual casting corrupted, but here’s how this project started: when I cast the toad for the Children of Gomb challenge, I made too much resin. I poured the extra into the Daemon Prince mold just to see what I’d get. The head had come unstuck from the mold bottom and floated to the top, so the whole top half was missing. I thought it would be a much cooler opportunity to sculpt something myself than just recast a clean copy.

Results

After sitting all day to cure, you can get a better idea of the textures. The divots from the push pins will be spots for mushrooms coming off his back. I purposely left the ridge area unfinished because I want to do something different there.

This is the most green stuff I’ve ever used, the first time I’ve used it for anything beyond gap filling, and I did it all with just pins and my fingers. If I could do this, anybody can do this. Pretty happy with the results.