Earlier this year I built a series of four terrain panels, each measuring two feet by two feet, and almost ten inches tall on the highest elevation. I was originally going to build just one, but I had such a good time making the first that I decided to go ahead and all three more to it to make a larger gaming table for D&D or war gaming. It’s not something I have done before, but it sure was a lot of fun. I can see why people get addicted to terrain building and 3d printing and such. It was a wonderful creative outlet, and I wish I had the room to use and store an eight foot gaming table with modular mix and match panels. I would love to build a proper wharf, a seaside fishing town, a mountain pass, ancient ruins, a meandering river bed, a proper cliff face and waterfall, try water effects, real rock moulds with plaster of paris etc… a hot wire cutter, a grass applicator and those uber swanky high class model train trees too. There are just so many things you could do with the time and resources to tackle them. My only hope is to help my kids build dioramas for elementary school projects! Or try to build a bunch of much smaller and more compact elements, like castle walls, or ruins or individual hovels & town houses. I’d love to see any of your work if you have images handy!.
The terrain boards.The smaller obstacles and scatter terrain, as well as the earliest buildings I have attempted.
So for the last week or so my eldest daughter and I have been building a 2ft x 2ft gaming board with multi leveled terrain.
I think we got to about 97% of what I was hoping to achieve on our first attempt at a large scale terrain build not from a kit or that was store bought.
A few things we learned along the way were : mdf bases warp like hell. Paper mache based mainly on flour shrinks a tonne. Hot knifing to cut foam smells dreadful (glad we did so outside) and takes a while if you don’t own a heated wire cutter. Static flock applicators will get your grass to stand on end, where as shaking from height out of the container does not yield such results. Tin foil rock moulds are handy but not as good a actual rock moulds used with plaster of paris. Paper mache takes a lot longer than you think it will. It also is a lot messier with a six year old helper. Dry brushing doesn’t take very long at all to achieve decent results. Exploded styrofoam slabs are great for flat surfaces but the extruded xps foam is where it’s at for topographical elements and carving. Sculptamold knock offs are good but not great. Use a fan to speed up drying times by an exceedingly wide margin.
I look forward to building more terrain in the years to come with my daughters. Campaigns await!
Like I said in a previous post, I have pulled back from my writing so that I can continue to dabble in clay. I just like the visceral feel of tacky clay under my finger nails. Watching something grow from a wire armature into a fully realized piece with some detailing on top for good measure. I put nearly 44,000 words to paper in the first six weeks of 2020, and only one full sculpt. So now I’ll do that for a bit instead. Below you can see the bulk of my hard work over the last several years. Enjoy.
Book case of clay sculpts.Last years super sculpey polymer busts.
Writing stuff took me to just over 43,000 words for 2020, which is kind of insane. I have some stuff being edited, so that’s cool. But I think I will turn away from writing for a bit and work on some sculpting projects again. I have had an armature sitting waiting for me since New Year’s day. I think another giant or ogre is on the books. Still slow going with the piano stuff, but I enjoy it so I don’t care that it is taking me a while to learn my first song all the way through. Ten to fifteen minutes a day keeps it fresh but doesn’t really build up much memory. Hope you are all keeping up with your challenges or resolutions or what have you. A huge thanks to anyone who read my short stories, or the micro stories that didn’t take place in space.
Although, now that I’ve said all that I am having some thoughts about a couple of new shorts to write. I am worried that I am starting to write stuff just for the sake of views, likes and such. That’s not really a good way to complete a hobby. Plus, I find they have started to get long. I think I will focus more on the under a thousand word mark, to tell an evocative, compelling short story. Not try to pad it out for the sake of an interconnected series. Say what needs to be said and then move on.
This all came at me while I was sorting and folding laundry. Plus I enjoy the short fast spurts of creative writing. It’s not as visceral as sculpting, but it scratches that creative itch, and fits around working my day jobs. Part time graphic designer, and full time stay at home dad.
All ten bust sculpts from 2019. Some are done in Super Sculpey and some are done in Chavant NSP Hard, and Monster Clay Hard.
I finally got around to putting together a single page spread of last years sculptures, with all of them together, the good, the bad, and the indifferent. I completed less than half as many as I did the year before, but I chose to work the bulk of the years items in super sculpey, so that they could be baked and painted, which is different than the Chavant stuff, which are used to cast and mould items for larger production. I have yet to step into that ring, mainly because it is expensive, smelly and requires knowledge I do not yet have a firm grasp of. Plus I’m not a house hold name, and I’d hate to end up sitting on twenty five pieces of my own artwork for no reason other than hubris, thinking others would like my stuff even half as much as I do in some instances. I chose to add in the crappy sculpts too, because, Hey!, a good portion of creating is putting out garbage until you refine your skills enough to do something you are somewhat proud of. I haven’t put any new clay down yet so far this year, I do have an armature bulked out ready to go, but I’ve been focused on writing, reading, and drinking water until I can’t stand myself any more. I have a couple of ideas for what I will do, I’m just not ready to commit to it yet. I tend to see so many great things over on the Shiflett brothers sculpting forum on facebook, and on instagram, and I squirrel those images and ideas away until I can really get my head around it.
Also I wanted to give a shout out to my Olympus SP-500UZ which I bought in 2006, which is still going strong to this day. I came to turn it on today to get my collage done and it was dark, but with some new batteries, she is up and running and just a great as the day I got it. Although if I’d have had the money, a Pentax film camera would have been my go to, but just out of College/University I chose a point and shoot that had several more options and capabilities. This is pre digital SLR being ubiquitous and cost effective for noobs to own. Although the camera on my phone is really good for this sort of thing too.
One goal I am going to accomplish this year, if to do a full figure again. I started out doing whole people, and then couldn’t do faces and hands and feet. Spent some time with the Ninja Turtles as my muse and could do a passable three fingered hand, and two toed feet and then went to busts to really get to know a face; the eyes, ears, mouths and noses. I have yet to master any other those elements, but I can at least make things look human, or depict the essence of my subject. I think i got fairly close in 2018 with my Thanos, Yondu & Thor busts. Also a big reason I’ve calmed down on my output is that I have limited space in my office/studio for storage, and don’t want to have my rough work scattered throughout the house, or in the basement. We have Nerf® gun fights, and rough house down stairs and I’d get mad if my stuff got injured in the course of us having a family fun Nerf® gun fight. An errant bullet deforming an oil based clay sculpture would not be my favourite thing.
Oh, and another thing, the reason I did 60% of last years sculpting work in Sculpey was because I had ideas about painting them all, and taking the best paint job / best sculpted item to the Markham Fair. You see they don’t really have a sculpting category, but you can enter painted ceramics. Sculpey is ceramic like, but not ceramic. So I can enter to get people to see my work, but it doesn’t qualify for judging or prizing. Just eyeballs, and a chance to show friends and family my work out in public. Which is fun, so I have that going for me.
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