Ben's Miniature Gallery

Hiver (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
This is my first real non-humanoid sculpt. I bulked it out with Milliput, then added a skin coat of Tamiya putty. I applied the skin texture with an old canvas dice bag, then made the hard plates on the back with little squashed putty balls. The underside is mostly unfinished; I plan to finish everything I can reach from the top, then remove it from the cork and sculpt the underside. I'll probably wait until after I do the underside to do the toes on the feet that are on the ground.
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Mercenary With Goatee (final) added Sep 23, 2005
i went back to black primer with this one and I think it worked out fine. once I put him next to my other sculpts and the GW minis, i realized that I hadn't scaled him quite right; he ended up closer to 25mm than 28mm. Still the proportions are good, and nudging the size of my template upward should fix the scale issue. the face and hands are still not perfect, but definitely improving bit by bit.
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Mercenary With Goatee (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
There's not much exciting about the pose on this one, but I worked on some other issues this time around. First, I printed out a template based on a scaled-down skeleton image. I used that to make sure the proportions of my armature were correct. After the scale issues I had on the last one, I decided to be a bit more careful this time around. It worked pretty well. I also wanted to make a better weapon this time than a featureless rectangle. I did a little research, looking for a weapon to use as a template that didn't look like the typical modern assault rifle. I decided to make a bullpup-style rifle. I roughed it out with a milliput/gs mixture around a piece of wire. I filed and cut it down to the basic shape I wanted, then added the clip and handles with beige putty. The two putties didn't stick together well enough, so I ended up building up the sides with beige putty as well to anchor the extra bits on. In the end, the front grip broke off and I had to glue it back on. The merc's body was roughed out with milliput again, then the details were added with beige putty from the feet up. as I was getting to the arms and last details, my new supply of green stuff arrived in the mail. I'm quite pleased with it. It's hard to see how it's going to look with all the different colored putties, but I think it will be pretty good once it's painted.
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Alice Contest Entries added Sep 23, 2005
A while back I submitted these sculpts for the Frothers Unite! UK Alice in Wonderland sculpting contest. Amazingly enough, my Mad Hatter managed to tie for third place in the "Tea Party" category. The "Wyatt Rabbit" sculpt (on the right) was certainly the best of the ones I submitted, but the competition was quite stiff in the "Other Characters" category. A few notes on each of these: The Queen of Hearts was done back before I had learned to make recognizable faces, and it shows. I also was attempting to do some patterns on her skirt with a stampingtool carved out of milliput. It didn't really work as well as I would have liked. I was pretty happy with the basic execution of the dress, though the details left much to be desired. I built the skirt over a crazy spiral armature, which I ended up filling with milliput. The hardest part of the Hatter was trying to visualize what I was doing when everything was upside down. The arms caused me a lot of traouble, as each one was built over a separate wire stuck in a hole drilled in the torso. They were very hard to get positioned right. I should have gone back after the putty had cured and done a better job of finishing the details there, but I think I had just gotten too frustrated with it to do any more work on it. The rabbit was based on a photograph of Wyatt Earp, which made it much easier to figure out the details of the clothing. I forgot, however, to put any fur on him before sending off the pictures.
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Engineer (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
I'm happy with the hair on this one, though the face is stil a little ugly. the head is usually the last thing I do, and I'm worried that I'm getting burned out by the time I get to it. I think I may try doing a series of disembodied heads just to practice faces. Then I can just stick them onto bodies as I make them. I did some more experimentation with sheet styrene here. The belt, buckle, and wrenches are all cut from styrene, while the pistol is carved from sprue. I like the way the belt loops turned out here. I'm starting to get more comfortable working with tiny specks of putty, like the belt loops and eyes. I want to add some pockets to the jumpsuit and a holster, and also clean up the tool belt a little, but I'm fairly pleased with this one.
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Engineer (final) added Sep 23, 2005
The body is decent, nothing too exciting. The hair I like, but the face is atrocious. I'm fond of the little wrenches. The deck plates on the base are cut from sheet styrene.
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Ember added Sep 23, 2005
I got this WotC mini soon after switching to 3e D&D, because I had no female monks. Unlike most WotC minis, she isn't particularly weird looking.
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Elf With Crossbow added Sep 23, 2005
This Grenadier mini is one of a pair that I received from a friend. The other one is still sitting around half painted.
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Dwarves added Sep 23, 2005
These three are part of a Grenadier box set of dwarves. I started repainting them at one point but these three were the only ones I finished. The fighters have some decent NMM on them. The wizard gets used a fair amount, as dwarven wizards are hard to find.
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Dengar and a Stormtrooper added Sep 23, 2005
These two are from the West End Games Star Wars Miniatures Battles box set. The stormtrooper is painted normally. I started painting Dengar like he is shown in the movie, but ran out of steam. I came back to him recently to repaint him as a character I'm playing with modified clone trooper armor. It's hard to find Star Wars minis that are a perfect match for PCs, and I hate the thought of altering the few I have since they're so hard to find. Are there any sources for them aside from old out-of-print West End minis and the handful of WotC ones?
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