Sculpting Chaos dwarf models. Advice wanted!

Some serious improvements here, from the beginning to the last mini.
I think you have a good general perception of the proportions, and luckily for us, the sturdy body of chaos dwarfs, along with their taste for full armors, come at hand in this. Hard to say if something is slightly off place under some scale armor and a proper curled beard.

IMHO, one thing you should focus now, is in the “finiture” phase.
Which, unluckily, the green stuff is a bit tedious, but can be done, with some patience and skill.

Like, for example, hard edges, or flat surfaces. You will have figured out that freshly mixed green stuff is very gummy, and you won’t probably sculpt anything straight or precise out of it.
But as the time passes, GS will start to cure, getting more and more firm. If, as the time pass, you get to redo that sharp edge (like and armor plate), you will notice green stuff will react better and better. At one point, you will need to push hard with the metal tool, to form that sharp corner, but then you will be sure that the GS will retain that sharp edge once fully cured.

Also, for surfaces like skin, clothes, etc etc before they get too hard, try a pass on those with a brush an some white Alcool. Try to smooth the little bumps, irregularities and so on, following the “flow” of the sculpt.

If you have some around, a little tip of Vaseline on brush/tool is brutally effective in smoothing green stuff. Then you can wash the Vaseline away with white Alcool. But this is not strictly needed, is just a trick some sculptors use.

It’s boring and tedious, the cleaning and smoothing, but thrust me, you will see difference at the end.

Keep up the work!

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Great advice - thank you!

Really clear improvement in a short time and getting to know your subject matter better and better!

Really nice designs here and the final model with mancatcher is a massive jump up in quality. Reading those tips and tricks is paying dividends :slight_smile:

The raised arm’s chainmail is a bit soft as you’ve identified, but the lowered arm is certainly decent. I see people have already beaten me to the punch for a chainmail tutorial.

Suffice to say, the best sculpting work comes from layers. Get the shape of the arm and sleeve, let it fully cure, then add a thin layer if greenstuff to make the chainmail texture. From there, practice being precise - form a vertical line of dots, where you push the tip of whatever tool (even a wetted cocktail stick) and then lift slightly at one end. You can also do it by angling the tool to be much less angled (I.E. instead of sticking it in at a right angle, try laying it much flatter, like using the side of a brush to edge highlight). Once you have one column done, do the next one. Dependent on style of chain/ringmail you want, as @Admiral above said, do the next colum in the opposite direction (definitely want less lifting the tool upon taking it out when doing it this way).

Looking forward to seeing more! If you decide to homecast, I’ll find @Xander’s tutorials from the original forum, as they’re fantastic and ahead of their time :slight_smile:

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Thanks for the advice mate!

Have been painting tonnes lately so haven’t picked up the greenstuff for a bit but no doubt will at some point.

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You’re very welcome and great to see you’ve been painting loads. Hope we get to see it soon!

P.S. I am no master sculptor myself, but I’ve picked up the theory over the years and managed to use greenstuff as suits.

Did you want me toto find the tutorials or is the one above sorting you for now?

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Sure :slight_smile: thanks

@Xander please check your E-mail. You’ll find your tutorials copy-paste ready for Discourse. :stuck_out_tongue:

Until such a point, here’s the thread on the old forum for the Battle for Skull Pass Hobgoblin conversion guide.

This one, however, is the Battle for Skull Pass Chaos Dwarf conversion guide thread.

However, for a HUGE wealth of sculpting tutorials and information (whilst the change to Discourse continues at least), check out the whole section here.

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First off, that’s a great sculpt and very ambitious if you haven’t done much sculpting recently, kudos!

Secondly, I would recommend you try sculpting the same bloke again a few times and refining your skill set; without rushing to casting. For instance you could increase the depth and 3D effect of the beard if you used single dreadlocks for each beard strand, the hat could be made from already available pieces such as dowel which you can sculpt over to give it some more structure, also the head of the axe can be done with a single piece of plasticard which is much easier to manipulate than plastic sprue.

Lastly, I would recommend sculpting a standard hand clutching his belly to give anyone that buys them their own choice of shields (if you are feeling creative cast your own set of shields).

Hope that was useful, you are way ahead of me in my own project to sculpt my own Chaos warband! Good luck.

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