I've now completed the armor for the Battle Frog. This stage has been a bit frustrating, due to limitations with the materials. Once I had coated the frog sculpt with glue, I couldn't use Sculpy and bake it any longer. I used Epoxy Plumbers Putty to add on the various elements of armor. Unfortunately, the time-window to mix the putty and then sculpt before it hardened was brief. It didn't allow me to refine some of the shapes as much as I would have liked. No excuses, but I would have changed a few things. There are epoxies out there with longer set-times, so I'll have to explore that on future projects.I won't belabor the details of how I made each component of the armor. It's pretty straightforward. I make a section, then coat it with wood glue...sculpt more...coat it with glue.
It's a mixed bag of results when I use the glue. I do lose some detail in the sculpture, but the overall surface is more unified, and it softens the edges a bit. I can thin the glue with water, if I need to. A lot of the detail will be brought back when I paint everything.
Here's the full armor...forearm gauntlets, shoulder pads, chest plate, back blanket, cute little sumo-style briefs, hip guards, thigh and shin guards. I'll make a saddle later.
Next time, I start working on the rider...a "Samurai Beetle"!
5 comments:
Interesting to see how you work. I hadn't heard of anyone using wood glue to coat the sculpt with before. Some epoxy putties are better at holding sharp edges, others are good for organic rounder shapes. For example, I use greenstuff a lot, which is good for organic chapes, but hard to create sharp edges. There's another putty, from the same manufacturer, known as "brownstuff" that holds sharp edges better.
I'll look forward to seeing how this guy paints up. :) Great work so far!
Thanks, Fitz...the glue technique is something I learned from making tabletop terrain. Some guys use Elmer's glue to coat stuff made from styrofoam, so it will accept a coat of paint better. I have also used wood glue (with wood fibers in it) on other sculpts, to give it a rougher surface. Just depends on the look you want.
Now that you mention it I've heard of people coating styrofoam terrain with glue. I thought it was so the styrofoam didn't melt when sprayed with spray paint, but as a basecoat for accepting/holding paint also makes sense.
On sculpts meant for vulcanization though I would do a test piece first to make sure it doesn't cause problems in the mold-making process. Of course, that's probably not an issue in your case. :)
Yeah...I'm avoiding the whole mold-making process altogether. It's a lot more fun not having to worry about that while I making whatever I feel like. These are "one of a kind" pieces.
And you are correct about the glue protecting the styrofoam from spray paints...it'll melt for sure...but sometimes that creates a cool technique...especially for "damaged" surfaces.
Hey! I just heard what sounds like great news from G about today! Awesome! Same with the package we received the other day too! I now own a Ludwig original woohoo! Safe travels and good news to boot!
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