So .. don't laugh too hard.  well laugh as hard as you like ... I am a big boy and I can take it.  

So Having decided to scratch build a CD army I started to sculpt heads last night.  They still need a bit of work ... as well as some horns but I am pretty happy with them ...... considering that this is the first time I tried to use green stuff ... much less sculpt anything.

   

Hopefully you can still see what I am doing even with the poor quality of my camera work.
As you can see I'm going for a bald look with a large moustache.  Small horns will be added to the forehead.  I have not decided what to do about the beards yet.  Maybe I'll be strange and not do beards at all.

Hats off to you for undertaking such a massive challenge!

Good start

A fine start! A good idea about twisted moustaches, too. Do you find eyes as tricky to sculpt? I do, and I wonder if other people also have difficulties with them, or if there is a quick method to achieve good sculpted eyes.

Are you sculpting these for casting and putting on regular dwarfs?

I cannot think of any reasons actually why it would be easier to sculpt the heads separate from the body.  If it is to use on plastic dwarfs it would have been easier to cut the head off, put a pin in (without glue) then sculpt, then pull it off when dry.

If it's for entirely scratch sculpted models it would probably still be easier to sculpt onto the bodies as you'd be sure of them fitting perfectly.

Something else I would highly recommend to anyone:

Sculpt a small ball smaller than the head first.  
Let this dry.

Sculpt the face/head (including eyebrows etc but no other hair)
Let this dry

Sculpt the beard, tusks and perhaps moustache at this stage.

Trying to do it all in one go is surprisingly hard.

This post was last modified: 03-27-2012 04:33 PM by Grimstonefire.

Sculpting heads separate because I found a tutorial written by a professional miniature sculptor that suggested that was a good way to start.  Eventually I want to resin cast the results so if i keep all the parts separate I should end up with somewhat modular minis that I can put together in different combinations to give more variety.  And yes I am working on them slowly ... I keep letting everything dry then I go back and play a little more.