help with sculpting smooth, muscular skin.

[Orth]

My latest sculpting excapades have lead my to sculpt africal looking half trolls, and "mahud hunters" based on the mahud chieftain in LotR. Both of these require muscular bodies, obscured by little cloth or armour. I am having a bit of trouble getting it smooth. Here is a WIP pic of a sculpt that was ruined, and i am restarting....i need any help i can get before i restart the sculpting.


this was done a while ago, i can soo many faults. as i said before, any feedback and help from other sculptors (especialy the big man upstairs(ebob)) would be much welcome.

also note, this guy is big...as he is a half troll. Its hard to tell from this pic, but he is quite a bit taller than any lotr minis (suits what he is, half a troll)


EDIT: BIG ANNOYING LETTERS TO GET SOME PEOPLES ATTENTION.

FREE DONUTS AND BEER!

[nikin]

ooooooooo beer lol

if you want to get a smooth surface, use a rubber tipped tool, coveniently available from ebob and in the UK you can get them from hobbycraft

[goatman]

I find that a smooth finish for muscles can be achieved by just working over the putty with, oddly enough, a #11 craft knife which you probably already have. No idea why it works, if just picks off unwanted raised areas and removes them.

[eBob]

The trick with getting smooth skin as far as I'm concerned is to use the rubber clay shaper tools - then it's very easy.

[Orth]

ok, thanks guys. I will pick one up.

any feedback for the mini itself? i know it doesnt exist anymore, but i could do with any tips for the next one.

[eBob]

It's not bad at all - but I'm not sure why you've added so much detail when it has no legs etc.
The first step must always be to get the pose right - and for that you need a complete armature - then pad it out and make adjustments before finally adding detail.

[Orth]

ah, that.

he had legs, but i realised just how bad they looked....so i cut 'em off.

[angus147258]

I went to a class taught by Matt Gubser about sculpting muscles, anatomy, armatures, ect. and this is what he says to do:
Apply blobs of putty to the bulked out and complete armature.
Taper the blobs into each other and into the armature with a tool
Smooth everything out with a rubertiped tool.
You can also optionaly add some of the lines in the muscles with a needle tool or similar (a toothpick would work or optionaly you can make one yourself with some wire and a stick)

I hope that helps!
Jake

[Orth]

thanks.