Sunday 18 November 2012

Hobby: 28mm Armatures: It's all about scale!

This week I have been nearing the completion of a couple of 'complete' sculpts for my Imperial Guard army, and discovering there's much more to armatures than just twisting some bits of wire together and then fixing any scale problems later with green stuff. Both of these were created using the '7.5 Head Height' theory, but ended up being far too tall when compared to my existing models!

Where it all started.

Commissar, left, and Primaris Psyker, right. GW Guardsman for scale.
Yes, I did cheat a little bit by using existing arms/faces/hands, but for me the experience was making a model from 90% sculpt, rather than the usual 10%. The photos may not speak for themselves, but scale wise I have made a giant! Once the boots are done they will stand a good 1/2 head height taller than my other models (Space Marines included). Maybe they grew up on a low gravity moon or something? I'm looking forward to painting him this week and using his Leadership to prevent my Guardsmen running away so much!

High Five! The pose is based on a sketch from p33 of the Imperial Guard Codex.
On my second sculpt (above) I set out to create my own hands and face, which requires immense patience and lots of cross-eyed headaches! I have literally torn off three hand sculpt attempts and started again, each time the ball of green-stuff reducing in size. I also wasn't happy with the lips and chin, so I added a beard to obscure the imperfections. The latest hand was a two stage process, using wire to support the fingers.

My second style of armature, this time I will sculpt the head separably and attach it later.
With my third sculpt I have set out to spend a little more time getting the armature scaled correctly, and rather than using the '7.5 or 8 heads high' technique from my first two (very hard to measure 28mm models based on head height) I have basically eye-balled the scale against an existing model. Less scientific, hopefully more artistic. I may end up using this model for a future diorama so I plan to spend a little more time on the details, whereas the other two are just for gaming. Wish me luck!


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