Nyx Mini Sculpture

[Qilin]

This is about making the Nyx Mini Sculpture, that little entry for Misc Scribbles. I don't have a DevianArt account or anything like that, so I ran it by Tangerine to post here, who turns out wants to liven up this subforum a little bit, so I guess everything works out.

Eye candy first:

I began by picking a scale. It is important to keep in mind that Nyx has stunted growth, so whatever scale is decided upon, she will still be even smaller than usual. I used the proportions from this tutorial as the template. In a photo editor, I lined up the front and side proportions. Then I made multiple sizes of them, printing out a whole bunch, to get a sense of scale in real life. After consideration, I have opted for the sculpture to be 1.75 inches tall. A sculpture of her at 1.75 inches would make her just about 5 feet 1 inch tall in 1:35 scale, a common military model scale, and a reasonable life-size height for Nyx. The game itself is inconsistent with exact heights anyway.

After settling on a pose, I then loosely followed this guy's method of making a small scale armature. Some changes were made to accomodate Nyx's smaller size. I stripped the plastic from the wire because the limbs with the plastic would have been too thick. I also only followed the wire steps, none of the other steps involving the cardboard and glue. Nyx is too small for me to bother with those steps.

I timestamped the first step just in case I needed to prove I began within the contest time frame.

The sculpture will be made primarily with Fimo clay. I chose polymer clay over epoxy because I did not want to be limited by any curing time. Polymer clay pretty much stays malleable until you bake it. I chose Fimo because it has a lower bake temperature than Sculpey, to minimize the chance of melting any extra material I may decide to add later on. The workstand thingy is just some pair of random nylon picture wall hangers being held together by a screw and some wingnuts. Most Nylon seem to have a higher melting point than the baking temperature of the Fimo, according to their MSDS, so I figured it's fine (and turns out it was fine.)

One problem with polymer clay is that it adheres poorly to wire. Watching this guy on YouTube, apparently you need a layer of Green Stuff (it's a two part epoxy clay) in between. Basically, the wire provides good surface for the Green Stuff to stick, and then the Green Stuff provides a good surface for the polymer clay to stick. I followed that YouTube guy pretty extensively in the making of this sculpture, but I have to be extra careful to apply as thin a layer of Green Stuff as possible because my armature is made of twin wires. On the other hand the uneven surfaces of the twin wires were enough to make the Green Stuff stick, so I did not need to roughen the surfaces with a file.

Green Stuff sticks to everything when it is initially mixed, including tools. I applied a thin layer of mineral oil (baby oil) on the tools and my disposable gloves, although people online usually use their own spit and bare hands. That's kind of gross, and I already had mineral oil and gloves anyway, so I went ahead and used them. The Green Stuff is so sticky that this is as thinly as I could have applied it.


Before it hardens, I spread a thin layer of Fimo on the Green Stuff just like the tutorials teach.


Then the bulking up begins. It will never be visible when finished, but adding individual major muscles helped me keep track of which places require more bulk. People like to avoid focusing on one area too much because it might make that area disproportionate with the rest of the sculpture. I pretty much ignored that practice to focus on the legs to make sure they aren't lopsided. I used some cheap drug store dental tools as sculpting tools, and dipped them in mineral oil so that any clay would be more prone to stick to the sculpture.


After the legs are done, I moved my focus upward until the torso was done too. Then the arms were next.

Individual fingers were rolled and stuck to the back of the hand. At this point I have accidentally bumped and deformed the legs a few times already, so after fixing them again I decided to bake the sculpture to harden the clay...



...which led to tragedy. The sculpture was bumped again and this time a thumb and finger snapped off. Attaching them proved difficult, there was not enough area for the clay to properly glue them back on. They look real flimsy and there was no way they would even survive posing a book on them. Plus the whole thing just plain looked bad.

I decided to break them off and use Green Stuff to make finger placeholders. Green Stuff can be flexible after drying if you mix less hardener. This way they will bend first unless they were bumped too hard, and even then they were only placeholders. Also, the face and nose were sculpted.

Finishing the basic sculpting was done relatively quickly, and the fingers were then removed and replaced with Liquid Green Stuff. It is a completely different product, not a clay. It is a goop that dries into a hard solid. It can be applied by paint brush. Here I formed the fingers using Liquid Green Stuff by touching a goop onto the hand using a paint brush, then slowly pulling away to form a finger. The Liquid Green Stuff also works as a gap filler, I thinned it with water and brushed it onto the sculpture to fill any unwanted gaps between the clay (which are all baked now) that have been there until now. It will dry rough, but that is not a problem because I was going to sand the sculpture's unwanted bumps smooth anyway. The colored sheets in the background are the Testor sand papers I was going to use.

It is easy to see where the Liquid Green Stuff filled any gaps. I also used some to add some bulk in the back. Some fingers on the other hand broke off too, but at this point I didn't really need placeholder fingers anymore, so I just remade them directly.

The next thing I moved on to was the cape. It is not made of paper, these are just templates. I found a random lid with a close enough curvature and traced it.

Tamiya masking tape was used to hold the cape templates to the sculpture, to see how it would look.

I will post more of the progress later, this post is getting long.

Edited April 13, 2017 by Qilin

[swiftbeorc]

Wow, very cool. I love how meticulous you were with keeping the initial model proportions and scale. It turned out great!

[Tangerine]

Really cool submission! Surprised you went through the trouble of saving a time stamp lol!

[Into Oblivion]

The attention to detail on the finished product is excellent. :) This is one to be proud of, that's for sure.

[Qilin]

Thanks guys. It's always nice to hear your work has been appreciated.

After settling on the proper sizes and positions of the cape pieces, I discovered a technique taught by this guy on another forum. I mixed some Green Stuff, inserted it into a Ziploc bag, and rolled it flat to create the cape fabric. Then, while the Green Stuff was still soft, I laid the three cape piece templates over the bag and cut the shapes out using a sharp pair of scissors. I now had all three pieces of the cape sandwiched between the Ziploc bag material, instead of sticking to everything it touches. Finally, I added curves to them in a semi-random manner by gently placing them over and under a few toothpicks, held in place with Blue Tac.

This makes the cape look like it is flowing in the wind once it's on the sculpture. The Green Stuff was mixed so that it would remain somewhat flexible after curing, but still strong enough to hold its shape.

 

After fully curing for one day, the Green Stuff readily separated from the bag material. A pair of tweezers really helped grip onto the plastic better than fingernails.

Ultimately some Green Stuff oozed out between the layers, so some trimming had to be done on the edges, which made the edges uneven, so now sanding was necessary. The Testor sanding films shown before was used. Fortunately the cape pieces are flexible so rubbing them against the sanding films was easy.

The sanding brought out some of the unevenness of the cape, so they were sanded even and then progressively smoothed with finer grit. Here are the capes shown with the grits used to sand each of them to show the difference. Eventually all three pieces were smoothed out up to the red film's grit.

The cape pieces were carefully positioned and supported in place before using Liquid Green Stuff to attach their bases to the neck. The side pieces were attached first.

After they dried thoroughly, they were sturdy enough to support the middle piece. The Liquid Green Stuff was also used to sculpt the triangular rear collar above the center cape piece, even though this detail would be covered up by hair anyway.



I agonized over most of a day trying to carefully sculpt the hair, but it was all in vain and I was not satisfied with any of the attempts. Then I stumbled upon this YouTube video teaching how to do fur and hair for miniatures and followed it. I happened to have the exact same tool already so that was fortunate. I know I got praise for the work on the hair, but honestly it literally took me under a minute with this technique. Imagine that, a whole day I couldn't make hair as nicely as this technique in one minute. It was so quick I didn't even have any progress pictures, but the gist of it is that, starting with an oval piece of Fimo, I simply followed his technique to make one side, flipped it over to do the other side, and then break up the edges using the same technique, and finally drape one end over the head to press it on, pinching the two sides to create some volume. I then took two more small strips of Fimo and did the same thing, then draped them up front to create the bangs on both sides of the head. Finally I rolled some hooks and stuck them on the top surface of the main hair so that the hair isn't simply a flat piece of clay, so that it better resemble what is shown on the character art.

Finally, some of the smallest details were added. Her crown points and bikini were sculpted with whatever material seemed easiest to make those shapes. I saved them for last so that they wouldn't be lost to any more sculpting piled on top of them. Once I was done I baked everything to finalize them.

The sculpture is basically done, all that's left is the front stairs of Fort Dragonfall. Once the Nyx sculpture was removed from the oven and cooled, I clipped the extra wires off, leaving only about a quarter inch exposed. Then I mixed more Green Stuff and began sculpting the steps by piling pieces after pieces around the feet. After getting enough Green Stuff to keep the sculpture steady, I set it down on a flat surface and began separating out the actual steps. I had to keep in mind that the base needs to support the weight of the hair, and ended up deciding on this arrangement of the steps, where the outermost steps extend rearward to give the base some leverage. The surface texture of the steps is not important right now, but I did make sure the steps were kept rectangular.

 

After the Green Stuff was allowed to dry, Liquid Green Stuff was slathered over the surfaces to make the texture, as well as to add some bulk to any rounded corners to sharpen them.

After the Liquid Green Stuff dried, I looked over everything to make sure they were to my satisfaction. Any places I deemed too smooth I added some more specks of Liquid Green Stuff and let dry again. The result:

Then I primed the whole thing with Vallejo surface primer. It didn't require any thinning, I just painted it on straight from the bottle like everybody who uses it said on the internet. It didn't even need to be a thick coat either. It covered surfaces very well, I mainly focused on spreading it to minimize brush strokes. I started on the sculpture and ended on the steps so that any excess paint ended up on the steps, so that if I was going to lose any surface details to thick paint I would at least lose them on the steps and not on Nyx.

[Qilin]

I guess I forgot to finish this write up. Well here is the last part, the painting and the books!

To be clear, miniature and scale model acrylic paints are used, namely Vallejo Model Air, Vallejo Model Color, and MSP colors. Acrylics are chosen in favor of enamels and lacquers because it is the least reactive. This is my first time sculpting whatsoever, let alone the first time using Fimo polymer clay and Green Stuff epoxy, so I have no idea how chemically inert they are against stronger paints. All I know is that acrylics are less prone to eat away model plastics. Better safe than sorry. The specific brands are chosen due to a combination of price, availability, and the fact that they come in dropper bottles, making them easy to note down how much of each is used in a mixture of colors.

In addition to colors. Matte additive, flow aid, and drying retarders are also used as their instructions directed. This is a tiny figure, which means tiny brushes, which dries quickly without a retarder, and since the retarder is gel-like, flow aid was added to make it liquidy again. Adding flow aid also helps reduce brush strokes, and it works better than thinner, which usually quickens drying; and also works better than water, which has stronger surface tension than the actual paint and may cause the paint to blob upon itself instead of spreading on the surface, if too much water is used. Matte additive is what it says, it makes any glossy colors more flat, so I used it for parts of the figure that aren't supposed to be as shiny as the rest.

Since the primer is black, I decided to work with it, and have the next coat be the shadows, then paint the base colors over that, and top it off with any highlights. This way any missed spots would naturally just expose one shade darker and not be too glaring of a mistake. The coloration of each part is studied from a bunch of pictures shown both from within the game and from official artwork. They actually conflict sometimes, but I just saw that as an opportunity to pick the one that looks better. The first and some second layers of colors are painted here (I used the stairs to test color mixtures, some colors change colors upon drying so it's important to test first):

This is never going to be seen normally, but the underside of the cape is actually purple. Here, I blended a brighter shade of it on the convex portions to exaggerate the shading. The blending is done by letting the darker shade dry completely first, then painting a band of the lighter color and then wetting and drawing away from its edges toward the darker portions while keeping the whole lighter coat wet.

The hair works a little differently. A dark shade of drab purple is mixed and then painted on as the base coat. Then a wash of pure black is applied to the whole piece of hair. The wash is just an extremely thinned black, blobbed onto the hair. It naturally settles into the nooks and crannies, bringing out the detail. Being so thinned and slathered on means it took a little longer than normal layers to dry though, and it does darken the base color somewhat, so the actual dark shade of drab purple was actually a little brighter than it currently looks to compensate. I contemplated adding a layer of highlights but the source materials don't really emphasize her hair highlights all that much so I left it as is.



Some more colors are added. As a brighter shade is painted on, I stay further from the edges to expose more of the dark tone underneath, at places where I imagine a shadow would be cast upon it. At the same time I also added more basic details, like the eyes. The mouth was never going to be visible, so I didn't put too much effort into it, but I still painted it so that I have a reference of where it is. At this scale, it's "ok" if things look slightly off. This picture actually shows the figure bigger than you can see with your eyes (Also note that the sideburns have not been painted on yet, because at the time I didn't think it was necessary. You will see that they are painted on later, another reason why the dropper bottles letting you note down exactly how much of each color you previously used in a mixture, is a good thing).



This is how big it is next to the Robin amiibo, although I am sure people who paint Warhammer will still be laughing at my detail skills, since their minifigures are even smaller and they still paint more accurately than this.



The shroud for her face is a little different. It is actually pure acrylic paint, no clay, no plastic. I got this idea from cleaning dried acrylic paints off my paint palette. Brush a layer of paint on a packaging material and let dry overnight.



Then cut it out, peel off the plastic gently, and you get a dried piece of acrylic paint. It is extremely weak and you need to handle it very gently, but you can dab some school glue on the cheeks with a sewing needle and put the acrylic over that using a pair of tweezers.



The books are next. Both are made of Fimo clay. Fimublvetr consists of five parts, the hard cover front, hard cover back, spine, and two thicker slabs to represent the open pages. They are cut using a new blade of a hobby knife, with a top-down motion instead of slicing to avoid deforming the pieces. Then they are baked solid and fully painted before being super glued together into a book shape, then glued to the hand. I was pressed for time by then, so I couldn't write the contents more intricately.



Her naughty novel is much easier, being just one thick slab made the same way, and a rough sketch of a half nude buff guy painted on the front cover.



This close up really shows why I tried my best to avoid using super glue until it became necessary out of time constraints near the end. It cures so fast you don't have time to adjust the pieces at such a small scale. I could dissolve it with either acetone or purpose-made super glue debonder, but I had and still have no idea how much damage those will chemically do to the area. I know acetone will dissolve the paint as well as weaken any plastics and I did not have time to fix any potential destruction, so I left Fimbulvetr lopsided.



Lastly are her sandals and the stairs themselves. The same color for the pages are used for her sandals, then carefully outlined the edges to differentiate them from her feet. Supporting clay beneath her sandals are left black to blend in with her shadow. A dark navy blue similar to Dragonfort's in-game steps is painted on. Once dry, a wash of brown is applied, similarly to hair, but erratically instead of uniformly, to simulate dirt without obscuring too much of the dark shadowy areas. Finally, a lighter shade of blue is dry-brushed onto the raised edges to represent wear and tear. This being a background makes it more forgiving. If you think you applied too much dry-brushing, simply paint over the overdone parts with the base color again, if certain parts look too clean, put a wash of brown on it again, you can be creative with this more than with the figure because it's ok to look random here.



And then we're done! If I could do it over again, I would choose a bigger scale. I made this sculpture tiny to safe time, knowing I basically entered the competition late, and it worked for that purpose, but the size means you really have to strain your eyeballs to paint the details. Maybe an amiibo sized sculpture would have been a better choice if time was not of essence.

[henrymidfields]

Awesome! Congratulations for achieving such a detailed model!! When did you start clay-modelling? And are you going to do other characters too?

[Qilin]

4 hours ago, henrymidfields said:

Awesome! Congratulations for achieving such a detailed model!! When did you start clay-modelling? And are you going to do other characters too?

Thank you. This is my first clay model. I have built scale model kits before but never anything from scratch. Everything besides painting and sanding is something that I am doing for the first time here.

I think I will stop and let others show off what they can do next scribbles, like the winner from last year did, unless the prizes are really good.