Micro Mini Update

I've nearly finished a couple, and more are getting there! (like the three beasties above!)

You can kind of see my odd sculpting method when working in this small scale. I start by making an armature, and then sculpt in sections. I generally start with one or both front legs (including shoulders), then both back legs (and hindquarters), then head, then neck and body, then mane and tail. If I have a bit of extra Apoxie left from another horse, I might add it on to a belly if the material has set up too much to be easily detailed. Once all this has been done I go back around the horse, refining and fixing errors.

Hopefully it's not too obvious from the photos (since my goal is to make horses that look good, regardless of scale), but these are all micro mini scale. That is, they stand about 1 1/4 inches tall. The foal is 1" tall and the jumper will end up under 2" tall, including his/her base (haven't decided on gender for that one yet!). It does mean that they generally look much better in person than in these huge photos.

I've been productive!

I've been working on micro minis lately. I hadn't done any for many months, due to school. But I finally have gotten back into them, and I think I had forgotten how much I enjoy the little guys.

So here they are: mostly unfinished, still plenty of work to do on almost all of them. Right now there are, clockwise from lower left:
walking Mustang stallion, extended trot WB (standing up, just a skeleton right now), cantering QH (also jst a skeleton), jumping horse (likewise), standing mare, standing foal, prancing Spanish horse, and galloping Arabian stallion.
The Mustang is the only one that's pretty close to being finished; all the rest need varying degrees of work. The Arabian balances on his hind legs and tail, and is turning slightly.

I work in a combination of Green Stuff (GS) and Apoxie Sculpt on the little guys. It's a good combination, and works well for what I like to do. I can't work very effectively when it's too hot in the house, as it is right now, because it tends to set up too fast.

I've also been working on a few other projects, including a Shah Azim painted black for a customer. No pictures just yet, though.

Work, moving...

I am finally all moved out of my old apartment, yay! I'm not really properly moved into the new place yet--everything is here but it's in boxes, some of it's in the garage, etc.

I managed to get some work done on both Khayne and Abel yesterday. I'm trying on Abel to smooth out his mane and tail a little bit. After talking with Caroline Boydston at Breyerfest and thinking about both the painting process and how hair really flows, I realized that maybe I somewhat smoother, softer style is better for hair. I've always struggled with hair; it's just been one of those things that's hard for me to get right. I tend to make it too rough, which isn't really attractive and is hard to paint. Caroline does wonderful work, including detailing in the hair by hand in the finishwork, and I think the results from that type of treatment are far more realistic than trying to sculpt in the hair detail.

As a sculptor it's hard to let go of trying to fully detail out the hair, since there's no guarantee that the finishwork artist will do a good job. But I think I'm going to see how it goes with making it a bit softer.