My last class of Thursday was the Sculpting class with Jose Orteza.
This class started poorly. I think a few of the guys in the middle row had to much to drink at their events, and they weren’t focused all that well. Jose was either tired or not as organized, and it felt like he was trying to organize his stuff while these guys were joking around, and the class started a bit late. I was sitting around at 10pm for a class that’s going until midnight, and I wanted to get on with it. We ended up going a half hour overtime, which wasn’t great.
After a bit, Jose started. The class started with a number of great basic things (this is Intro to Sculpting), and…a bunch of places to buy specific tools. “You can buy the wax 5 at X”, “this Royal Sovereign set of tools can be found at Dick Blicks”. I don’t even know why I need all these tools, let alone care where I would buy them from. This took up even more time, and I started to wonder if the class was worthwhile at all.
Thankfully, it got good after this for a bit.
Increasingly, I’m finding I have ideas for models I want but I can’t find. I want to work on solo models and make them really nice instead of big units. Malifaux is good for this since everything is solo, but my heart still lies in Lizards even if I’m not overly happy playing Warhammer. I’ve seen what dear Patrick can do with putty, and I’m jealous. I’m jealous because he’s spent years sculpting little things, so that he can sculpt bigger things. I’ve got an idea, but no method of actioning that idea.
Here’s a few tips I left with:
- He recommended starting with 50/50 yellow/blue extender/hardener, although some items (cloaks, away from the body) need more hardener to survive.
- Fingerprints are very bad!
- Pushing “overworks” the GS. (I still have no idea what “overworking” is).
- Polymeric Systems sells tubes of GS (this was the one “buy this here” piece of advice that I thought was immediately useful).
- Any moisture between the GS and the surface will prevent it from sticking.
- If you’re gap filling, fill to 90% and then dry and finish later.
- Waiting 10 minutes after mixing the GS together is the optimal time for working with it. 90 minutes later it was still malleable, but harder.
- You can scrape with a hobby knife against the GS to remove any “doughiness” – I think it’s that rounding that you sometimes see.
- To cut, you have to chop like a paper cutter. Dragging your knife will pull the GS.
- Almost anything big needs an armature to provide shape and structure.
- You can use a small mirror to sculpt on, and then transfer your creation to it’s final place.
He provided a lengthy document that contained steps to create a variety of different things like hair, scales, jewelry, purity seals, etc. We spent the middle part of the class working on making a purity seal, a length of chain and a feather on the mirror. This was really good!
The last part of the class he rushed through a bunch of ideas on how to make a cloak, a kilt, a banner but he really sped through it and I didn’t retain anything.
I feel like sculpting is the sort of thing where he can show you how to sculpt a feather, and a chain and a purity seal, and then you know how to sculpt a feather and a chain and a purity seal, but you don’t know how to sculpt much else. So I didn’t really learn what I necessarily wanted to learn, but I did gain enough confidence to think I should try. I’m still afraid of trying (and failing), but that’s better than not even thinking I should try.
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