Ben's Miniature Gallery

Cowboy Bounty Hunter (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
One of the things I wanted to do with this sculpt was to make use of the somewhat oversized shotgun I had built some time ago. Not only was this guy big enough to not be dwarfed by the shotgun, i decided that he was big enough to fire it one handed. Maybe not very realistic, but impressive. To accomodate the giant gun, i had to give him very large hands, but they didn't seem too out of line with the rest of his body. I added to the body one roll and fold at a time, and I must say I'm quite pleased with the final shape. I did the same thing on the face, starting with a basic face mask built over the original stub, then adding chins and jowls until it looked right. This is the first mini I've done since i got my new supply of green stuff, and I must say it's a superior product for general sculpting. I still used milliput for the basic body shape, and beige putty for some of the mechanical accessories, but for the most part he's all GS. After reading the discussions on the Yahoo sculpting list about the different properties of various proportions of blue to yellow, I decided to experiment with them (sometimes by accident). You can see that many of the details on the shirt have a higher yellow content, and they were indeed much easier to shape. For once I find myself looking at the finished sculpt and not just hoping that it will look better when it's painted. Part of that I think is that the green putty is less translucent than the beige, and its opacity and color makes it easier to see details on the sculpt. Mostly, however, I think the more rubbery nature of gs makes it easier to make smoother shapes with less effort.
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Cowboy Bounty Hunter (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
I was trying to come up with a subject for my next sculpt, and kept drawing a blank. I didn't have any specific characters that I needed, and no new exciting poses really jumped out at me. One of the things that has bothered me about my sculpts so far is the somewhat rigid and boring anatomy that my sculpts have ended up with. they're fairly conservative and realistic in proportion, which isn't really the norm for miniatures in this scale. I decided to try something to expand my anatomical horizons. I was looking for reference images for extremely fat men on the internet, and found it surprisingly difficult. I ended up going more or less from memory. I started from the feet up again, which seemed to work well last time. I flashed out the legs until they looked right, even though many of the folds and details would be covered by clothing. I wanted to make sure the clothing would drape believably over the underlying body. In this case, I also had to do all the belt details before working on the torso, as the belly would have to partially obscure those details later. I wasn't sure exactly what sort of person this guy was going to be when I first started doing the design sketch, but somewhere along the way it struck me to dress him up in western-style clothing. you can see the detailing on the boots in these pictures, though the upper body proved to be even more fun to do.
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Cowboy Bounty Hunter (final) added Sep 23, 2005
I'm really pleased with the way this one turned out. Smooth surfaces are a lot more enjoyable to paint than uneven ones.
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Warrior In Blue And White added Sep 23, 2005
This is from the old Mithril line of LotR minis. I don't know if anyone is still producing them, but they were awfully pretty and came pre-primed. This is his second paint job.
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Belter (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
The finished sculpt (the hole in the left hand was fixed after these pictures were taken). I'm pretty happy with how this one has turned out.
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Belter (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
This is my first commissioned sculpt. Not much exciting at this point.
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Belter (final) added Sep 23, 2005
The painted belter sculpt. Aside from being a little flatter-chested than I would have liked, I'm pleased with it.
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Imperial Battle Dress (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
Many stages came between the last pictures and these. I'm pretty pleased with the final product. It's not the most striking design, but it seems at least plausible.
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Imperial Battle Dress (sculpt) added Sep 23, 2005
I've finished all the sculpts that I really wanted to get done, so now I'm looking for new things to try. I decided to try sculpting someone in battle dress (powered armor), which I really haven't done before. I decided to start with a good body shape, so I could fit the armor in a plausible way around it. Even though it was all going to get covered up, I tried to get the base body as smooth and well-formed as I could. Once it was well-cured, I started adding bits of armor. The "muscles" in the abdomen are copper wire coiled around a wire core, and went on first so I could cover the clipped ends with other armor pieces. I'm going to let this stage cure for a good long while before I start the next phase. Eventually I'll come back and try to sharpen up the edges, though the Tamiya putty holds a fairly good edge to begin with.
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Imperial Battle Dress (final) added Sep 23, 2005
I'm much happier with the static grass this time around. I mixed some brown paint into the white glue before applying it to the base, so that I didn't have to try to paint the base through the grass. There is a little bit of rock and sand scattered under the grass, and a little bit of dry brushing with yellow on top. The mini itslef is painted fairly simply, and the "floating" effect works quite well, I think.
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