Ben's Miniature Gallery

Riktar Izen (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
Finished adding all the bits and pieces, including the details on the laser pistol power pack. It's a little extreme for powering such a small laser, but it looks cool, and that's what's important. I had intended for this one to be practice for making smooth surfaces, but I ended up adding so many little bits and pieces that there are hardly any large smooth areas left. Ine of the problems with sculpting people in vac suits is that you can't see their faces with the helmet closed. I made this helmet fold back rahter than leaving it off altogether. The laser pistol looks kind of like a hair dryer, but I'm willing to live with that.
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Riktar Izen (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
This sculpt is also in the Tamiya putty, though it looks a little green in the pictures. I figured that a creature with a tail would have a vac suit that would accommodate it.
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R5 Droid (part 2) added Sep 23, 2005
I built legs around the wires, smoothing the feet down onto the top of the base. The wire was pushed through holes drilled in the base and bent over, but I think the putty alone would probably have been sufficient to keep the mini from falling over. After looking at the pictures, I noticed that it had gotten leaned back a little too far; I've since bent it further forward. The cutwhere I removed the bottom of the skewer wasn't very clean, but I'm not sure how I'll be able to correct it. I'll do what I can once the putty is cured, but I may just paint the remnants black and ignore them.
category: /other | permanent link

Riktar Izen (final) added Sep 23, 2005
A nice bright color scheme for this one. the only interesting thing I did here was the cycling lights on the power pack. I'm not sure how visible it is, but at least I know it's there.
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R5 Droid (final) added Sep 23, 2005
I was informed that the droid in question is black with white highlights, so that's the way I painted it. I went for a metallic sort of black, with a base coat of gunmetal followed by a fairly heavy black wash. This droid has apparently seen some hard use; it's very dented and crumpled. I'm starting to really enjoy using putty to customize bases as well. In this case, you can see tracks from the droid's treads.
category: /other | permanent link

R5 Droid (part 1) added Sep 23, 2005
I've got the sculpting bug now, so I decided to fill one of the other gaps in the Star Wars game. We have an old R5 droid, but I have no droid minis. Compared to a humanoid, an astromech droid is really not much of a challenge. I built the main body around a wooden skewer. I had originally intended to add a separate head, but the body ended up a little tall, so I just sculpted the head on top of it. I tried adding tiny pieces of wire for the droid's eyes, but that ended up being more trouble than it was worth. I may still try to add some out of putty after the rest is cured, but for now little holes will have to do. I tried to get the details on the body as close as I could to the reference picture I had.
category: /other | permanent link

Pilot (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
I'm overall pretty happy with this one. I hit the pose right where I wanted it, and the face looks like a real face. my faces are starting to look better from straight on, but the profiles are still a little off. This face looks completely different from the side than from the front. I guess I just need more practice. His hair also ended up bigger than I wanted it. I had originally planned to give him a sidearm, but I may just go without.
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Pilot (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
This is a fairly straightforward pose for an aerospace pilot. I don't have any profile pictures in this set, but I managed to avoid the flat-chested look that has plagued my male figures so far. I cut the backpack from a bar of partially-cured Milliput, and it has the clean edges that would have been impossible with GS. you can also see the beginnings of his helmet at his feet. I'll be adding more to that a little later.
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Pilot (final) added Sep 23, 2005
A nice, simple paint job. Not the most handsome face, but acceptable. Practice, practice, practice.
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Number Six (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
They've been showing The Prisoner lately on BBC America, so I thought I'd do a sculpt in that vein. It was nice to have a fairly good selection of reference images from fan sites. It isn't exactly the spitting image of Patrick McGoohan, but I think I at least got the right flavor. I went back after these pictures were taken and smoothed out some of the rough spots, as well as giving some more meat to his right hip.
category: /other | permanent link