By Jason Miller
I made this site with the hopes of helping other 'new' individuals who may require a little more guidance than that already available online- still my advice is to spend hours reading and searching the net for any little nuggets of information you can find ;)The following is a rather long post I made about how to really get started- I've reposted it here as people have asked me to repeat it on occasion:
Expect your first, oh say 50, miniatures to 'look like shit'. For every person who starts to sculpt and gets it right off there must be fifty who actually need to practice to get good. There are a variety of tutorials online but here are my tips for what it is worth.
If you can draw it you can learn to sculpt it. So practice drawing- LOTS. But to do this you need to start with the basics- how to draw a human form. I recommend polykarbon of course as excellent as this is it still doesn’t afford you lots of practice by itself. I'm sure we can all find numerous examples of the 'human form' online but if you want a PG site go to page3.com It has great females in good 'sexy' poses. I haven’t found a great one for the male form yet- (edit- Muscle fitness). Anyway just focus on drawing the outline of the pose- don’t do the detail at all just the form.
I spend 2-3 hours a day with sheets of scrap paper beside me- I search for good things to draw and whenever I see a cool mini I try to capture the pose to transfer into my sketchbook.
Ok so you have practiced tons of 'dummy' drawings of just poses- now what? Well get the wire skeleton out and make a super thin version of the pose you want. First bend the wire into the pose then add the TINIEST blobs of putty to build an emaciated version of the dummy you sketched. Why tiny? Well cause if you need to add more you can- but if you add too much it will just blob about and be trouble- you'll eventually wind up with a fatty looking figure. Great if you are doing fat Albert- not so good if you are doing the average Joe.
Ok so make up 3-4 of these dummies- they should look like a series of European fashion models when you are done- I mean these things should be little more than stickmen really- what’s the point? Well you want to get the body's proportions right and this is the first step- arms the right length? How about legs? Is the pose even possible for a human or have you started sculpting a contortionist? I usually find that I need to over exaggerate the pose at this stage to really convey what I want the figure to be doing. Think of a comic book- to convey any dynamics you need to have 'force' in the pose.
Anyway at this point you have a sketch of a dummy and a little wire version of the dummy. Now I go back to the sketch and add muscle to the drawing of the dummy. If you still have the original pose handy use it as a reference. Focus on the large muscle groups more so than the small ones (unless you are doing a ripped barbarian type). For example great abs are a waste of time to draw or sculpt unless you are doing a figure with an exposed (and muscled) midriff. However leg muscles really define a figure as do the arms I find. The chest can vary a little more though a larger chest should usually accompany larger arm and leg muscles (in general- I know there are exceptions to the rule). So now you have a little nude figure draw on your paper (try to avoid leaving these around where family members can snoop- North American society seems to view nudity as porn and not 'art'.) I leave the head as a blank face with no hair.
Self-portrait figures done at various times
Now go back to your puttied dummy and add TINY little blobs of putty in each of the major muscle groups. Again unless you are making a nude muscled figure you should make the dummy just a little thinner and less bulky than your drawing- certainly not bigger than your drawing. I leave the head as a little nub usually but you could round it at this stage- just dont go and try and add any detail just yet.
This is also the stage that I spend smoothing my green most- I like clean surface areas for the following stages so I use a small, flat, rounded tool (GW sells it I'm ashamed to say lol) and VERY gently rub in small circles all over the figure- shaping ever so slightly as I go. This usually takes anywhere from 5-15 minutes depending on how much of the figure I am working on (sometimes I do the whole figure- other times I work from the legs upwards). You should have a little nude version of your drawing now- smooth and somewhat shiny- if you can get this far in sculpting you have won half the battle and the rest is all (mostly) downhill.
Back to the drawing stage- I take the little nude picture and get some idea of what clothes I want to dress it in. Add the clothes and pay attention to where it will bunch- where it will hang- where one thing overlaps another thing- I usually add the figure's face and hair in at this point too- its not really clothing but it overlaps the clothing in some cases. When you are done you should have a drawn picture of what you want the figure to be- concept art if you will.
The tricky part is how to sculpt it. First step is to find the deepest clothing- the visible clothes nearest to the skin as it is. Don’t bother to sculpt stuff you can’t see such as underwear or some such- focus on what you CAN see on the drawing. Look at those and try and break them down into simple shapes you can fashion out of TINY blobs, sausages, and wraps of putty. As you sculpt 'work outwards' adding each layer of clothing over top of the next. This is the stage that if you get something perfectly right put the mini down and walk away from it for a good half hour or more. Don’t go onto something else on the figure and then put a big 'ol thumb in your perfection seconds later! Oh- and personally I don’t worry about adding little fiddly bits such as buttons on a coat- at my skill level it is enough for me to make sure I get the actual coat and its folds to look right.
I usually look to Mark Copplestone's work as he has nice strong figures without lots of little detailing.
My last stage is the head- I do the face then the hair (no fast method here- just practice, practice, practice- the human face is perhaps one of the hardest things to sculpt). Things I have noticed from my drawings is that too many lines makes for an older face- smoother makes for a younger/woman's face. Pointed chins make a face more feminine as do high cheekbones and v-shaped brows. Conversely flat chins, flat cheeks and straight brows are more masculine. Look at comic book art as it is a great reference on how to make some great faces. Also look at your favourite miniatures and see how they were captured. Lastly I put on the hair.
In all of these stages the real key is to work the putty till you are happy- if it doesn’t look right then keep toying, fiddling, swearing and pleading with it until you are 100% happy. Oh- if at any point you get discouraged and want to throw in the towel and start over DONT. Finish darn near every sculpt to the best of your ability. Practice makes perfect and you'll never get good at a whole figure if you never practice a whole figure. So what if you mess up the body- practice the clothes, the face, the hair etc.
Now you may wonder who the heck I am- what have I had produced? Not a damn thing. In fact I only seriously started to sculpt in December 2003- so I have a grand total of 3 months real experience. So who am I to talk? Well I used to fancy myself as a budding writer. I wrote several short sci-fi stories that were much enjoyed by my friends. Then one day I watched an excellent show about Robert J. Sawyer and he gave some excellent tips on how to be a successful writer- Heinlein's Tips. The biggest and most important one was this- 'A writer writes'. Everyday a writer must practice his trade to hone his skills. Even a day in which he churns out crap is a day that he can learn what didn’t work and what did. (The second most important rule is finish what you start) Sadly I found that I had no urge to write every day lol. So much for that dream. But the ideas (found at sf writer) are the same- a sculptor sculpts. So every chance you get sit down with some putty and have a go at it- if you are on a tight budget I recommend Sculpey as a great practice medium as it only hardens when heated- if you churn out garbage that day roll it back into a ball- if you make a great work then heat it up and save it to refer to later when you are working with other putty.
And if the figure you were working on looks like crap when you are finished... move on to the next.
