Cthulhu wears the most ridiculous sweaters

I've used a high speed cutter bit that's 1mm thick in my awesome pin vise to drill two holes. One in the leg drop padding you can see here and one on the vest where the tomahawk is at the moment. I coated the higher hole with Vaseline and applied some Green Stuff to the back of the ax. I then pressed one into the other. My hope is that after curing I can just pull out the ax and have a super snug fitting dowel and hole business so you can cast the ax separately. 

This will be the gun in the holster on the leg drop:

I'll shave and abrade it so it'll serve as a base for the design there. Afterwards I'll fit it the same way to the appropriate hole.

I received a nice envelope with the following tools:

Those are size 0 extra firm Clay Shapers by Royal Sovereign. They were an absolute STEAL on eBay.co.uk. The seller was called "buy-for-less-online" if anyone is interested (I think he doesn't ship to the U.S. but then again U.S. buyers may find other deals). 

Made some more progress on my busts.

Still waiting to hear from you, loyal blog readers, what you think the costume on the self portrait should be. Science fiction/near future theme, yeah?

The alien Cthuloid is now wearing a ridiculous sweater.

Self Portrait progress

Some more work done on the self portrait piece. I find the work on the Super Sculpey Firm to be more relaxing than the Green Stuff/ Blue Yellow Kneadatite. I'm not racing against the clock as I go. On the other hand since it doesn't automatically cure there is a danger that it will be somehow squashed. Anyhow, it's fun and I like the different scale of the work also.

I placed a mirror in front of me as I worked for reference and constantly had these little moments of revelation on how to do the different areas as they were much different from what I "know" on how to make faces. I suppose its part of the fact that folks look different from one another and there are many ways a face can be built, mine in particular is built in this way. It was most enlightening.

A bit more to go before I'm happy with the sculpt. I want to add some costume or science fiction twist on it. Any ideas? You can write in the comments. "You" being the one guy who reads the blog.

P.S. 
Dear one guy who reads my blog,
If you enjoy reading it so much, why not recommend it to some of your powerful friends with lots of money who want to commission work from me? Huh?!?!
Sincerely,
Nadav.

Arms are for holding hands (on the ends of them)

I completed the left arm. It's a bit on the long side because I planned the pose somewhat erroneously. Chalk it up XP++. Some odds and ends yet remain but soon the next guy will be on the table. In this session I added the left arm and hand, collar (should have added earlier, ho hum), a small pouch on the side of the main pouch and the buckle/strap for the main pouch.

More refinement/progress on the self portrait and some development on the alien concept.

Pew pew pew

What? it's hard to come up with titles all the time that don't sound repetitive.

Almost there!

I'm somewhat upset that I did not have enough experience to plan properly for this stage but that's the wages of education I suppose. There's some things that are not exactly right some I may be able to fix, some we'll have to live with. I've got an idea on how to disassemble him for casting but I want to see how it goes first. 

The tomahawk will probably be added with a sort of built in dowel business. My plan is to drill a small hole and then slab some Vaseline on there and impress the shape thereof upon the actual ax so that it can be fitted in there.

Who's this handsome devil?

It's my own visage! At least a work in progress on a self portrait like thing. It's always a good exercise. I may end up "using" it anyways by dressing up the bust to appear like a future soldier man or an alien mind control zombie; write me in the comments if you have a preference or other ideas.

Holding the gun, needs more sole.

I've posed the arms and with very great difficulty attached the V.04. Many issues came to the surface at this point. The angle of his shoulders meant I could not physically pose him as I intended with the weapon close to his cheek, ready to fire. The width of the gun made it difficult to fit and looking at how large V.06 is at the moment that means it's probably going to the scrap yard. No worries, I will soon start on V.07. 

The silhouette already looks really nice except he's leaning too far back, I'll just increase the height of his rear leg- you can see it needs more sole there anyways so it's actually a good thing.

Very difficult to pose the gun so it'll stick.

His left arm is a tad short. No biggie, I'm going to sculpt his hand against the hand guard anyway.

X-95 V.06

Noted how incredibly fat it was so I shaved it down, eradicating most of the details. I added the top cover thing. I'm going to finish it, despite not coming out like I intended but I am also going to start another iteration.

x-95 / MTAR 21 profile view, V.06.

X-95 / MTAR 21 V.06

Concept alien men

Baked the grey-snout alien and sanded some features, mostly the cranium. It's really neat to have this bust all cured and stuff. I don't know, it's just awesome. I can't describe why right now.

Still working on the other guy. I've got this strange compulsion to add a funky sweater or a bowler hat just so he's not so alieny concepty like that. I started also another bust but there's not much to see yet.

AWESOME!

Leaning a bit.

If you've got any comments about any of it please write them.

Melting alien faces with solvents

Working more on my alien bust concepts. Just winging it, really. It's sort of like doing a sketch in 3d and then refining and rendering it. I feel like it's wrong I don't do concept art first and then models but I suppose it's just as legitimate to sketch with clay as with pencils. There's the added benefit of the result being pliable and "fluid" with the Super Sculpey Firm rather than fixed on the paper. Until you bake it, of course.

I'm experimenting with smoothing shapes and surfaces with different solvents. I'll go read up again on other's techniques. 

Getting close to adding the arms on our operative here. I've added pull tabs to some of the pouches on his vest. My plan is I'm going to connect the X95 V.01 or 04 permanently to his hands which I'll probably pose next session.

The tomahawk is inside a holster. There is going to be a securing strap running across the head of the ax. I'm considering where to place it or maybe leave it loose. We'll see. A lot of decisions now are about how to build the figure but allow for breaking him apart so he can be cast properly. It may go either way at this point; either I'll maximize on appearance and ease of work and make him one piece with no consideration to the technical aspects of casting or I'll treat it as a learning experience for commercial work and try for the most convenient casting ability.

Some progress on the MTAR 21 Version 6.

Making the pouches I had some down time and as always spare material so I worked on another face. Also made a skull with brown stuff. He's going to need a cranium implant, though.

Write in the comments if you've got something to say. Comment on things, so to speak.

A stand for the alien bust, pouch pouch pouch.

Alien guy

I worked more on my alien bust concept guy. I thought to deviate further from the cliche he should wear clothes. Maybe now he's just a simple Star Trek type alien? :)
He's on a sort of base now. Might try casting him. I'm going to start on another one soon enough.

Who is this guy? What's his name? What does he want? What abilities does he have?
Comment if you've got ideas.

Pouches, ho!

Started pouching up the vest. I had a sort of panic attack when I thought that I should also add some equipment that's not, you know, mysterious pouch content but something you can identify. I started on a tomahawk because I saw on History's Top Guns ('sup Colbs) that spec ops maybe like it sometimes.

I'll scavenge the net for some intel and pictures as to what things a spec ops might carry with him. In the meantime if you have suggestions you can write in the comments!!!!

X-95 / MTAR 21 V.06.05

Did a bit of work on old V.06. It's getting to the point I'm paralyzed with fear to do anything because I dearly want it to come out perfect. I need to accept that it won't and go from there. After all, if I make a lot of guns and iterations thereof in the end I'll have to be good by sheer volume of XP++.

More musings on ETC game

We already covered some of the design ideals, now it's time to get to specifics. Rather more general vague ideas that can lead to specific things. 

I'm imagining a game that's quick to pick up and play. That means not too many stats. Simple turn actions. Only one, max two dice rolls to resolve events that'll make it fast and brutal, too. 

Nice big cards that tell you what you need to know- unit stats, game flow chart. 

I'd like for there to be a sort of playing card mechanic as well so you can play equipment or special abilities in key moments to spice things up a bit. 

I want there to be cardboard scenery like office walls or out buildings so there can be interesting tactical play. 

A typical game would consist of three matches lasting 15-30 minutes or so each. Players should also be able to choose to play different styles of games, maybe only one quick skirmish or a huge battle or a succession of various sized battles in a grand campaign that lasts for a month. Maybe each component can fit into a higher level so you can add up your play history with your friends into some grander scale that'll reset every few weeks.