FOs: Meabh and Solkist

Two new finished objects to post today.  Well... actually they've been done for a little while but I only got around to taking pictures today.

Meabh

Meabh was my first mini that I built a skeleton for from a wire frame to build the clay onto.

You can see all my finger prints and the dust and everything!  Okay, so stuff I didn't do in this one:  Hadn't started using the baking stuff more than once thing - and it could have used it.  A bunch of places I'd have made, and then mess up while I was working on other things.  The character is meant to be draped in a silver chain and carry the blade of a legendary sword.  You can see her legs especially are a bit messed up.  However, she is a step up, I feel, from the awkward postures of the goblins from my last post.  I was really proud at the time of the chain, and the cloak, especially the gathering at the hood.

And here's the back of the cloak and her hair.  Very flat hair, I don't think I'll do hair that way again... it looks pretty much like what I did, which was cut it from a rolled out sheet of clay and stick it to her head.  I am pretty happy with her face though, especially in this side shot.

Solkist

Sol was made for a friend, whose request was 'an elf wizard with safety orange robes'.  He's made with a wire frame, and I did it him in two baking steps.  The orb on the end of his staff glows in the dark.

The first step I made the head/ears and the torso (the white undershirt) onto the wire frame for the wizard.  This let me not worry about messing up his face/ears while I was making the rest of him, and already having a bit of bulk to build onto for the torso helped too, and held the wire frame together.

I'm really happy with how his hair turned out, even if it would look completely ridiculous on a real person.  The bow is pretty nice.   Actually I'm pretty happy with how he turned out, period.  I did a lot better at not getting fingerprints all over him, too.

Lessons to carry on and ideas for future projects:

• Doing the wire frame to build things on works pretty well, but it works even better done in multiple steps.
• I've been having droopy/curving weapons a lot lately.  So I think in the future I'll either bake them separately, or support them with their own wire piece like Sol's staff.
• I need to watch more carefully the sorts of impressions I'm leaving on the clay.  Could I do this on purpose, maybe get some fabric to press on the clay and give it a 'woven' texture?
• Hair is not a flat sheet.  It doesn't look okay to make it like a piece of fabric.
• Learn how to stage photos a bit better.
• The better the picture in my head is starting out, the better the mini turns out.  Going to do more detailed sketches before starting minis in the future.