Here's a memo actually written a week ago. And some pics!
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I was looking for buying a box or two of Elven Archers, but the local gaming shop didn't have them on the shelf. Nor did they have any other even remotely suitable options for conversions, such as High Elves, Free Peoples or Bretonnian militia. The Reaper Bones range has a few very nice and fitting Elven Ranger models available, but if I bought twenty of them the seemingly low price tag would reveal it's true nature. No. Those fine miniatures would be saved to act as heroes or unit commanders, not rank and file troopers. I really wanted my Sylvaneth army to have an allied section of hood headed, long cloaked and sneaky good old Wood Elf Archers, accompanied by a hero or two. And of course some animals, such as moose, deer, great eagles, war hawks, hedgehogs... and a Forest Dragon. The alliance options for Sylvaneth limit these choices a bit, as I'd like the army to fit the current AoS rules and Pitched Battle profiles.
Once again I had a lump of ready mixed Milliput left over from sculpting some roots on the Treelord Ancient, I decided to have a go and sculpt the unit of Archers myself. Now I haven't tried anything so ambitious with the modelling putty(s) before. The idea was to have the sculpts on the table all the time, and whenever I had any Green Stuff / Milliput leftovers, I would use them to slowly add structure and details to the Archers. From the first lump of Milliput I formed the rough shapes for 10 hoods. A couple of days later I happened to have enough GS for sculpting the faces on five of those hoods.
I remember seeing one tutorial about scultping faces maybe an year ago. It had some information that I found very useful now. The chin had to be made look too big first. Then deep cuts for eyes, tiny lines for establishing the eyebrows and to define triangular shapes of the cheek and leave the nose protruding from between them. Then three more tiny cuts to lift up the nose, define mouth and the lower lip. So I stuck tiny balls of GS on front sides of the hoods I had made earlier. I pressed them gently with fingers so they got a nice triangular shapes going on, protruding slightly in the middle and towards the chin, and upper corners for eyebrows.
I felt that the exact amount of GS and the initial triangular shape of the face were crucial here. If I got them right, the following simple cuts for eyes, cheek and mouth could already get me pretty close to a decent enough looking face with not much further work to do. Just a little tweaking here and there to make the cheeks slimmer and the eyes and mouth to have some expressions going on. I was surprised how fast this was to do. Even quicker than finding a suitable head from the bits box and cleaning the mould lines off. I'm really looking forwards to painting them, because then it will be truly revealed if these are any good at all. They're propably way too big, disproportional and crooked looking for any fine Elves.
Some days later I was back at the cabin again. Got the modelling putties, wire, twisters and THE favourite sculpting tool with me. Made a few skeleton frames for the bodies, and will start with Milliput to form the basic body structures. It's sunny outside, so I suppose the putty sets up real quick and I can get to glue in the hooded heads and add some details. The huge cloaks will likely be the easiest part here. Any visible clothing on the torso and limbs shouldn't be that hard either. But the hands might prove very tricky, as I can't even draw those weird things properly. We'll see. Some pouches, gemstones, hair and other details will be added in as well.
The bows I'll make from wire. I tried the method already on the Elven Hero. A length of wire is folded in half, so that both ends of it can be bent simultaneously and have their shapes match perfectly. When the curvature is ready, I'll just fold the piece open or cut the middle part off. I suppose it will be easiest to first attach the ready made bow to the wire structure on the models arm, and then sculpt the fingers around the bow.
Here I've worked on the clothes, boots and long curling hairs, which resembled the vines/roots I had done before. Next I might gather some courage to try and do the hands that pull the bows' strings. I'm considering sculpting the cloaks and feet last, only after the models are already attached to their bases. Should be easier to get the cloaks flow better that way.
