Lysander's Big Sculpting Thread (Admech)

[darnarth lysander]

A long time ago, I was quite a frequent visitor to B&C, back in the days when 40k was still fun to play and I could justify buying GW models. Then the editions slowly began to creep forward, the game bloated and the models became so detailed painting a single one became a herculean task. Woe was 6th-7th edition me, who wished so hard that they could just sculpt their own miniatures like those greenstuff wizards on the Internet.

But now its 2023, where Bigfoot and Mothman run the banks (That's what cryptocurrency is, right?) and you can make anything from some plastic cancer juice and a computer box! I realised that, through some of life's happy accidents, I had most of the skills required to sculpt and print my own miniatures. After six months of so of steadily building up from this: 

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 to this: 

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I think I'm finally ready for my first big project: A full admech army. By the end of the summer I want to have a full 1-2k army sculpted, printed and maybe, just maybe, painted of my own mechanical monsters. While I am intrigued by the possibility of 10th edition perhaps being redeemable enough to actually play 40k again, I'm not majorly concerned with the legality of my army list, as I am a follower of the Jervis Johnson school of thought that points dont matter and the rules are made up. 

The general theme of my Admech will be to more closely follow the description of them from the pre 2015 books, which can easily be summed up as "Heavily Armed Tribal Cyborgs". Festooned in animal pelts and trophies, looking like a couple of cavemen who bashed two rocks together and split the atom. I have more specific concepts and ideas for each unit, but I figure it will be best to detail these in their respective posts as each consecutive unit sculpted affects the overall aesthetics of the army. I figure I'll make an individual post for each unit in the army when I begin sculpting it, and then update that post all the way through to printing and painting that unit, with links posted below, as well as what Im currently working on and planning to work on, for easy updates and reading.

What am I working on this month? -- MAY --

• Skitarri Vanguard Proxy (Sculpting)
• Skitarii Ranger Proxy (Sculpting)
• Onager Dunecrawler (Upcoming...)

 

Edited April 30, 2023 by darnarth lysander

[Boc]

That 3d sculpt for the admech adept is outstanding. Looking forward to seeing this project take shape!

[darnarth lysander]

Skitarii Vanguard Equivalent

 

I've already been iterating and sculpting this one for about 1-2 weeks so we'll be rushing through some of the initial concepting process for this one. 

Concept

As one of the main troops choices in the army, this sculpt needs to be easy to pose, paint and modify. I want to be able to pose the torso, legs and arms separate from eachother so when it comes to assembly I can get the most bang for my buck in terms of unique poses. This means I'm going to need something to easily divide the torso and legs like a large belt, and ideally something like shoulder pauldrons to make the arms more seamlessly attach (This is my first multipart model, so I'm gonna take it easy with just flat connection points, and if all goes well, I might come back and modify them to be ball sockets).

My primary source of visual inspiration for this model is this sketch by Christian Schwager, whose Medicae Servitor was the direct inspiration for my example model in the OP:

 

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This is a very neat concept, and I adore Schwager's ability to capture the retro style of older warhammer illustrations while also making them much more well proportioned and clean. However, 3D printing has several limitations we must be aware of; Spikes such as those on the pauldrons and helmet would not fare well being printed at tabletop scale, 3D printing's main weakness is how it softens hard edges and details, which is can be a boon in the cases of the fur cloak, but a negative when it comes to hard edges. Finally, in a more practical sense, while the power halberd is a fantastic concept that I will definitely steal for maybe the alpha or some HQ model, I plan to leave that hand free in my sculpt.

Sculpting

First I began with a simple greybox blockout to figure out the proportions. Try as I might I find it impossible to force myself to deviate from true proportions for the sake of an easier print, but these are gene-enhanced Cyber-Psychos from the *mumble* millennium and I do want them to be very bulky. 

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 This fellows looking pretty stumpy, and the orthopaedic shoes of the future are not exactly giving me the pee inducing terror I'm looking for, time to get the rulers out and adjust!
 

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There we go! My dear old friend the Space Sabaton has come out to play again, nothing makes a man tremble like the idea of being turbo-punted by a big metal shoe-spike. As you can see I've also began diverting away from my inspiration in some key ways. Though don't get too attached to that helmet as it wont be sticking around. The proportions are now so that the model is roughly inbetween a GW Skitarii and a GW Primaris marine in height and overall bulk. While there's an uncanny resemblance, I don't want anyone to be mistaking these for space marines on the tabletop!

Lets take a quick diversion to look at that arm gun:
 

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In keeping with my overall theme, I wanted to keep the arm gun closer to functional than baroque, but that doesn't mean it cant have a bit of flow to it, as a treat. Free flowing wires are a bit of a no-no when it comes to 3D prints, but I quite like them so I'll see if I can finagle them in anyway. This still looks a bit plain though, so perhaps some inlay would help spice things up a bit?
 

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That's better, that bottom monstrosity was my attempt at inlaying a Celtic cross design, which was a fools errand. Instead I went with some nice and brutal hazard stripes, which actually have a chance of showing up on the final print, unlike the more intricate designs I was tempted by. At this point in time I was due for an existential crisis about whether I this sculpt was going anywhere or if I really should have finished that STEM degree and chosen a more stable career. To fix this, I decided to do a test pose to see if it actually worked.

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Hey, that ain't half bad! As you can see I made even more adjustments, including even more cog chasing around the neck and belt because I'm being paid off by Big Cog to sublimally brainwash you. It was, as per usual, only after painstakingly spending a day fully rigging the arms that I realised that the bottom of the pauldrons being just empty space probably wouldn't look too good, so I did a bit of a DIY job where I just added a random shape to the bottom of it to block the seam and called it a day. Now it was time to turn to the Polygonal TARDIS that is Zbrush and sculpt the fur cloak and tabard.

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*ooh* *aah!* Yes, doesn't it look nice? Thank you Zbrush for not only managing to hold the bajillion computer exploding polygons in place before I managed to decimate them, but also nicely lighting them for me. I did briefly consider sculpting some sort of alien/terran animal head on the cloak like Chris' concept but the aim of the game here is repeatability without obvious duplication, so I kept to a nice a simple non-descript fur cloak that can be shaped for each pose. As you can see, I added EVEN MORE Cog chasing to the helmet, (which almost definitely wont show up on the print btw, unless you got an 8k printer or your reading this a few years from now when all printers are 8k) and a lurvely little Judge Dredd-esque face that's actually a the head I sculpted for this happy chap:
 

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Once I've got everything sorted I plan to sculpt 10 or so heads, but I wasn't sure which head design (pictured below) looked best so I decided that now was probably a good time to give everything a quick test print. It should be noted this isn't the final design btw, once everything else is squared away I plan on adding extra grbblies (String of ears/teeth, skulls, grisly trophies ect) and lets not forget the special weapons and omnispex as well as a unique head and weapons for the alpha (I'm pretty tempted by that Space-Halberd of Chris')
 

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Here's how the disassembly works currently:

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 Head - Arms - Torso - Legs. Obviously you wont be able to mix and match every torso and leg combo due to the cloaks but I think there will be some interchangeable ones. Time for a test print!
 

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If you're thinking "That's way too many supports!" you'd be entirely correct. In fact, *alot* of mistakes were made in this test print, not least of all my decision to print the torso, with its lovely, delicate insignia facing DOWN so that it would be ruined by the supports. The outcome of this print is not something I feel like doing the dignity of photographing, so I will instead return to the slicer and have another go with revised supports and a better layout and photo that instead. From that first print though I did learn that pairing the arms up is the way to go, and that the bubble eyes on the helmet are not very nice looking printed out, so I decided to go with the ol' one eye with the excessive cog chasing down the middle as my primary helmet.

And then it was now, while I wait for the opportunity to print again, I'll start work on the Skitarii Ranger equivalent and start thinking of concepts for the Dunecrawler, I'm very intrigued by the idea of a spherical one.... 

 

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Printing

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My second attempt at printing fared much better, I did away with the attempt to speed up the print by having everything as low as possible and went for the standard diagonal printing instead for detail. Its only just after printing that I realise, if I had angled my torso better, I could have gotten a much sharper print on the cloak. But I was very paranoid about not geting the insignia on the cog to show up again (You might notice btw that I increased the height and lowered the number of cogs on the various chasings, hopefully to make them more tabletop friendly, as well as upped the gun size and deepened those hazard stripes, which as you can see in the next photos, paid off)

 

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Some improvements to be made for sure, but I wouldnt have any qualms fielding this fella on the tabletop right now!

Now I've ran out of room for pictures on this post, so I guess it's over to part 2 for some candid closeups of this mechanical marvel.
 

 

 

Edited May 2, 2023 by darnarth lysander

[Pearson73]

Really cool to see your design processes and follow the evolution of the sculpts. I LOVE the final design, particularly the helmets.

[Firedrake Cordova]

That's an interesting write-up (and I definitely like the humour ) - you'll definitely have a unique-looking army! For me, the gun doesn't quite look "chunky" enough, but that's likely what a couple of decades of looking at GW minis does to you  

Edited April 30, 2023 by Firedrake Cordova

[ZeroWolf]

I'm always in awe of those who have the skills to do things with this. My only attempt was decade and a half ago and it resulted in hideous block men  

Fantastic work though.

[darnarth lysander]

1 hour ago, Firedrake Cordova said:

That's an interesting write-up (and I definitely like the humour ) - you'll definitely have a unique-looking army! For me, the gun doesn't quite look "chunky" enough, but that's likely what a couple of decades of looking at GW minis does to you  

Thats funny, I thought the exact same thing. You can see in the photo of the slicer software I actually printed a version with a slightly upscaled gun to see which I preferred. (What that actually means is I printed that version to see if I could get away with not having to re-rig the arms yet again) If nothing else the hazard stripes are much more faint on the original size, and I do like want those stripes to be visible.

[darnarth lysander]

Skitarii Ranger Equivalent

 

Due to life getting in the way and some first-pancake problems with my  vanguard equivalents, I spent a bit more time in the quagmire of concepting than I would have liked, and so Im hoping (and jinxing myself in the process...) to get this next unit sculpted much quicker.

Concept

Unlike my vanguards, I don't have any specific concepts to consult in regards to my Rangers' design, I have a jumble of images and ideas in my head that Im hoping to sort of mash together into a viable model while using my Vanguard Design as a reference for keeping the army theme consistent. That being said, the first definite thing I know is that I want the Ranger to be a completely different design to the Vanguard; Lightly armoured skirmishers that have vague energy of an iron age irishman who has been turned into a cyborg and given a magic boom stick. The Irish part specifically refers to the style of cloak I'm thinking of, which you can see in this Illustration of mine from a while back:

 

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I also thought that I might try to work in a sort of cog like torc (the neck jewellery in the illustration) into the model somehow, but Im not too sure about how it would work with the hood. Other than that the only real concept I had (apart from the determination to cover everything in cog chasing again) was to reuse this abdomen cavity idea from a previous sculpt:

 

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Naturally with a cloak going over the arm this sculpt is going to be less multipart than my vanguard, I'd say I'll probably try to split it so the gun arm is detachable, as well as the torso and legs and maybe the head if the hood isn't too finicky to deal with.

 

Sculpting

 

Lets begin with what I am certain about, that abdomen cavity:
 

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Segments like these are great for making something look armoured while not actually taking alot of work to make, plus they print very well at 28mm. While I was making this I had an idea for a helmet that I thought I'd tale a swing at:

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That ain't bad! The flat buzzcut-esque top appeals to me, although it looks dangerously close to Star Wars territory, I'll have to see if I can 40k it a bit more, but as a blockout its quite nice.
 

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Thats right, MECHANICAL HOOVES! Why? You ever seen a sheep climb a sheer cliff face? Thats why. The actual hooves are up for debate, but I know I want digitigrade legs, and while hooves are typically plantigrade I just think they're neat! Im definitely considering adding a brace or back toe to balance the model, but I'm not sure if it only looks uneven cause of the T-Pose I have the model in, maybe with the torso and legs leaning forward like the should be on this leg configuration will balance it out, we'll see. Also I gave them a nice little jacket, cause tbh it was either that or just a smaller version of the Vanguard's breastplate, Im still not sure about it though...

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Arms to bear arms! Stole the hand from the Vanguard because why not and made sure I could articulate the limbs all the way down to the hips (although dont ask this fella to raise the roof, cause fashion trumps mobility any millennium)

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BRING ON THE COGS. Now it looks more Admech! Bringing back the cog belt and insignia from the Vanguard to tie the models closer together and adding some joint armour to those bare knees, I tried the knee pads from the Vanguard but they looked a bit like he was trying on his older brother's clothes.
 

Speaking of siblings... Heres a comparison! 

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Lots of work to be done here, but Im off to a good start and only a day or so into sculpting this fella, feels good to be productive every now and then.

[Pearson73]

The idea of hoofs is a good one, and I think the more slender physique suits the role well. The two troopers look good together as well, clearly from the same force, but just as clearly designed with different tasks in mind.

[darnarth lysander]

Skitarii Vanguard Equivalent Part 2

As promised:
 

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Most of my printing issues have been resolved, but I do need to adjust everything a little to get the parts to fit together better, as you can see some rather large gaps between the non-gun shoulder pauldron and the enlarged cog chasing on the belt prevented the torso and legs from joining smoothly, but overall I'd say this model is finished enough that I could prime it up and use it to test a colour scheme on, so thats what I'm off to do!

 

Theres always alot of nerves between printing one of my sculpts and getting to the point in the painting stage where I apply the wash, cause thats when you can really see wether the detail came through or not.
 

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I am very happy with how this has come out over all, and other than some key adjustments and additional bitz I think I can firmly declare my mandatory crisis of faith over with and get on with finishing the rest of the poses for this unit. 

As for my painting method, there isnt really much to say on that front. I use a limited palette of 16 vallejo paints, mostly two variations of everything on the colour wheel, and then just mix whatever I need from there, which is a great money saver but does mean it is a bit hard to retrace my steps. The metallics are Scale 75 (What, did you think I was gonna take all that money I saved on regular paint and *not* spend it on 30 different kinds of metallics?)

oh and I also use Skeleton Horde Contrast paint (as you can see on the cloak) because its basically Blanchistu in a pot!

The other colour scheme I was considering is the Metallica Forgeworld colours of White and Gold, but Im very tempted by this scheme as well mainly because I am a terrible model painter and have to repaint over mistakes about every third brushstroke, which is alot easier with a deep red than a dirty white.

Edited May 2, 2023 by darnarth lysander

[ZeroWolf]

Honestly, I only noticed those gaps after you pointed them out  what colours you going with?

[darnarth lysander]

1 hour ago, ZeroWolf said:

Honestly, I only noticed those gaps after you pointed them out  what colours you going with?

As you can see in the updated post I went with a deep red and gold trim, with skeleton horde contrast for the cloak and black and white chequers for the tabard, thought I dont know why I keep putting myself through that particular exercise in misery as I have terrible freehand skills at 28mm.

[McDougall Designs]

This is a very cool project, and I like your sculpting style.

 

Constructive criticism:

 

Left leg / left leg armor looks slightly janky and out of scale compared to the right leg.

 

Question: how long have you been printing, and what's your setup?

[ZeroWolf]

On 5/2/2023 at 8:14 PM, darnarth lysander said:

As you can see in the updated post I went with a deep red and gold trim, with skeleton horde contrast for the cloak and black and white chequers for the tabard, thought I dont know why I keep putting myself through that particular exercise in misery as I have terrible freehand skills at 28mm.

I think it looks good, and I wouldn't even dare attempt anything like that, so you're doing better than me