First Sculpts, It's never pretty

I don't want anyone to feel intimidated about posting their work for feedback. Becoming a good sculptor is a two step process:

Step 1: You suck.

Step 2: Practice.

Everyone starts off terrible. Here are some pictures of my first sculpts:


This guy was my first sculpt, back in late 2000. He was huge. Probably 45mm kneeling. I didn't sculpt the weapons or the little skulls. I remember constantly getting my fingers stuck to the figure while I was working on it. I sold it painted for $40 on ebay.



My second sculpt a few weeks later. This one also came out about 40-45mm tall. Still have this one.



And here's Gunther, my first professional sculpt, done in 2002. He's the mascot for Other Realms, a gamestore in Hawaii. I don't know if he was ever cast.

Well, those are still pretty good! Thank you for the encouragement. Your site and your attitude is very refreshing.

Everybody starts somewhere. Spatial awareness and a steady hand are a good start, but really anybody who is willing can learn this stuff.

Well, this was my second... done in May of 2004.



I don't think I ever shot images of my first. I pretty much gave up sculpting to paint, and with the lone exception of a few familiars and then my Player Character I did last year I really haven't touch on doing figures.

I did do some drop in bases for Reaper, but those DO NOT count. LOL!

I'll leave the sculpting to the experts...

It's not bad Rob, especially for your second. I guess some guys just aren't tough enough to be sculptors. Wuss.

Wow!

I really like that satyr. Well done and your second effort??? Amazing.

http://www.sanitaryfun.com/index.php?optio...xpose&Itemid=30

How about a whole bunch of “first” sculpts?

Sorry about that gallery format. If you want, please look into the gallery “Khul Krafts” to see my sculpting/conversion work.

My ‘first’ sculpt was the gallery for the “Worm” (Super Sculpey), but they all are pretty much look like first sculpts, don’t they?

Most of these were the result of my desire to have something BIG to punctuate a gaming session here or there, though the Mouth of Malice (Magic Sculp) was borne out of an opportunity to create a ‘green’ for a local shop that wanted to start its own figure line. That was one of two attempts to help out a friend (who ultimately went with a professional!) and ended up in my Chaos Army as a Spawn beastie.

The “Blood Worm” was the result of ‘extra’ material that I didn’t want to go to waste.

The ‘Kryomek Queen’ started as a game piece, but ended up as a diorama I entered at Gen Con 1994 (and won!).

I only wish I had discovered Super Sculpey and Magic Sculp when I was in elementary school! I realize a lot of what I need is practice, but having a place like this to find advice and wisdom is just fantastic.

I lament the years I could (and would) have been tinkering and practicing, but didn’t because I didn’t even know the media existed.

Anyway, thanks for looking and I appreciate any comments or suggestions you may have.

And thanks, again, for this web site, I think it’s great and an inspiration.

You sure likes 'em big, doncha? Those are very cool! One of the next couple tutorials is going to be on textures, so you may find that helpful for your "Next Big Thing."

Damn those are HUUGGE!

I think a big ol' beastie like one of those would definitely be a fun sculpt. I have to find time to do some one of these days.

What they lack in quality they make up for in stature.

I can't help myself!

I think I've been drawn to do bigger stuff, just because it either didn't exist or was too expensive to buy. Smaller stuff? I leave that to the professionals!

So, yeah, the worm thing is the smallest thing I've sculpted (except for some evil canoptic pumpkins I've done for set decoration for my Confrontation Drunes).

I haven't posted the balrog I sculpted yet onto our website--I did him when we were playing the LotR:CMG game. I sculpted him to be as near to 'scale' to the figures as I could, figuring they would never do a balrog (they did!).

And the Cthuhlu stuff...well, that stuff just is BIG by design! And the group I game with has always been miniature-intensive in our approach to RPGs, so I created the Shub and Ithaqua for two different CoC scenarios.

Thanks for looking and for the kind words. I look forward to your tutorials.

I can only imagine the looks on the other players' faces when you spring the Cthulhu sculpts on them!

Ok, here is my first and only sculpt so far. So, as of yet, I have not gotten past the "you suck" stage.

It's for a game that I am DMing, from a Goodman Games module called the Sunken Ziggurat. It's a tablet golem, made of magical clay tablets. When you hit it there is a chance that one of the tablets break and will trigger a spell. Pretty fun.



Here is the artwork from the module:


I know, my version looks like Gumby on roid rage, lol

Matt had given me the advice to make a mold and manufacture blocks for the tablets, but I decided to not to do that, mostly because I'd had luck making sculpted flagstone bases so I thought it would not be too hard. I was wrong, it was hard. Really hard. I had to keep telling myself that it was just for fun and that even if it looked like a pile of green turds, it would be ok. If I hadn't, I'd have thrown the dang thing away about a thousand times.

I'm pretty sure that I could do a much better job if I were to do it again. Don't know why I'd want to do that, though.

Comments appreciated!

Looks pretty close to what it's supposed to be. Some of the edges are a little soft, but that comes with practice.

This is my first, and so far only, sculpt. I have plans to make some more figures, I'm just lazy.

I remember seeing that on the Reaper boards a while back. That's a figure I really wanted to do, but I think Chaz had already started it by that time.

Thought I'd add a couple, just to throw into the mix there

My first ever:

Yahoo Photos

And one of my most recent:

Yahoo Photos

Still suck, still practicing, but just maybe I suck a little less than when I started

Thanks for posting Brian. The finish is rough on that first fig, but the detail you put on that bow wasn't bad. You've made quite a bit of progress. How long have you been sculpting overall?