Modelling Typhus Part3 -Torso & Arms

Typhus, being a champion of the chaos god of disease, Nurgle, shows his fealty to his lord by carrying a virtual hive of pestilence on his back in the form of these open funnels. I had to do some serious cutting and grinding to remove enough plastic from the top edges of the box-like torso, to allow the putty funnels entry. They initially were difficult to form and handle in the soft putty but after a few goes, the process sorted itself out.

  

At first the funnels were made as singles, but as the putty hardened, I found it was easier and more interesting to make them as doubles or even triples. A largish piece of putty was rolled into a rough solid cone, inserted into a single funnel, then hollowed out and formed with a wooden pointed tool. Once in place it was much easier to form the lip, any curves and texturize the whole new funnel. This is a characteristic of working with putty, in that it needs some sort of stability, be it attachment to a base or given enough time, the stability of curing.

As per the original miniature, the whole top of the backpack had to show the rotten ravages of Nurgle. It was an easy job to incorporate those trusty micro balls as pustules as well as erupting spines and various holes, scars and general rot. A favourite tool of mine for this type of surface texturing is a silicon tipped 'paint' brush. This is great for inserting at an angle to form an off- centre hole, perfect for the entry or exit of a disease carrying grub or maggot. Yum!

 

 Here we see the doubled up funnels and a clearer view of the surface damage.
Just below can be seen the three large 'hive' bulges which are characteristic of this model. Remember that the symbol of this god is a cluster of three rounded things, be they circles, skulls or dead faces.

The rear view of Typhus' backpack has those circles plus more rotten armour and two special cone centred bulges which form part of the under arm connection detail. This was an area where the miniature wasn't really helpful because it was just so difficult to figure out what I was looking at. Really you shouldn't worry too much about problems like that - I mean, who else is going to pick you up on whether Typhus' armpit didn't look like that? My solution was to find a suitable detail form and bung them anywhere there seemed to be a gap. I chose a raised patch of diseased armour and riddled it with maggot holes - space problem solved!

Again with the combination of finished parts. This is getting ready for the arms and that underarm problem is starting to come to the fore. The arms have to fit not only the proportions of the figure as a whole, but they must be positioned in such a way as to fit the already made weapon. Hands do not hold weapons, the weapon has the hands attached to it. I had to make the arms, always with the distance apart and above the ground in mind, especially this weapon which is physically much taller than the whole figure. Because the attachment points of the hands on the weapon are fixed, the end points of the  wrists had to be a specific distance apart and so the question of underarm angles and included detail burns brightly.

pic 5

 

 

 

Here is a sequence that shows the Push Forming of the pauldrons or shoulder guards.
Pic 1   The tools required - plastic sheet  held in place over a hole in a piece of ply, hot air gun, the steel round ended master to be pushed into the plastic once heated.
Pic 2   After the push, seen from the lower side.
Pic 3   The regular view with the damage done.
Pic 4   The form removed but not yet trimmed and a sheet of putty, dusted with powder and rolled out ready to cover the shoulder guard once cut. Powder stops the roller from sticking to the putty.
Pic 5   The form was cut in half to make two curved shoulderguards. Here is one, covered in its layer of putty.
Pic 6   Two pauldrons, complete with curved inner 'fences' and fitted next to the torso.

What's this? Two purple pauldrons? On fitting the push formed white pair to the figure, I decided they were too big for the arms I was in the process of making, so the search began for something that would be a better fit. I didn't go the push form route this time as the master needed to be smaller and I just didn't have such a master that was heat proof. I did find however, a deodorant top (purple), which seemed to fit the bill. Great! So I went ahead and covered these halves with putty, fitted them to the figure only to find that they were too small! Thank goodness I didn't go to the trouble of 'fencing' them before I found a solution.

 

There is a considerable size difference isn't there? Two solutions - one easy, one more difficult. Cut the big one and remove a section, rather than cut the smalls and add a filler piece. Piece of cake!

 

 It seems that I did put the backing 'fence' on the smaller ones after all - forgot that. Well they'll  do for a space marine figure if ever I get the urge to go there in the future.
The first large one and the same, with a section removed are seen here on either side of the little purple job.

Here are the final sized pauldrons, slightly pointed at the top with all joints shimmed together and ready to go.

This is the starting process in making an arm, in that is a piece of wire being bulked up with aluminium foil. That is standard practice for most putty covered models, but the interesting thing about this photo is where the work is being done and to a lesser degree, the way I have found to work the foil. Apart from an article in Fine Scale Modeler (Maximo Salas on modelling dinosaurs), all the techniques I use have been self taught. Necessity has been the instigator of the way I work as I do not have anybody to bounce ideas off - no clubs, no modellers  and when I started, no internet. I needed a bulging piece of foil at the top of the arm to fit inside the pauldron and it needed to be flat on one side. By drilling holes in my temporary bench, I was able to position the piece and using a small hammer, pound the foil into shape, very tightly. This precise shaping of the underlying foil allows the top coat of putty to be thinner - a saving in putty use, not only in amount used but in curing time. Those holes, on the sides as well as the top surface, have been in use for any process involving wire where a bit of stability is needed.

He looks like something now, even with a rudimentary arm, doesn't he? The foil was twisted then wrapped tightly to give a good 'tooth' for the putty to adhere to. It wasn't measured as such because any adjustments could be easily made at a later stage, however, when test fitting the pauldron, I found my enthusiastic funnel building had encroached into the pauldron's fence. (I really should find out the proper name for that raised arch of armour that backs the shoulder guard).
Some heavy grinding took place and the area in question was relieved. This too can be fixed at a later date with part funnels being sculpted where needed.

 

More arm work here with the under pauldron support piece sculpted. This posed a problem as it is very hard to see how these underlying structures are shaped. The fact that they are partly visible means that the making of them requires some thought.

Pic A

Pic B

Pic C

Pic D

These last four pic's show various stages in the modelling of both arms.
Pic A   Here we see the elbow armour formed, a difficult piece requiring full curing, followed by grinding to shape. The ribbed joint structure is formed and you will note that some of the belly detail and chest cabling is also present. These details will be discussed in the next entry, but needed to be done before the arms/weapon/hands unit was attached. How small is that little guy?
Pic B   The forearm piece (vambrace?) is added with its complement of Nurgly nastiness.
Pic C   The right arm was much faster to model once the lessons were learnt on the left. BUT - a problem showed its ugly head way at the end which required some drastic intervention. More about that later.
Pic D   This is a critical picture concerning the relationship of the arms to the holding of the weapon. Where and how to model the hands - hands being only second in importance to the head. Rubbish hands, rubbish figure.

Next entry, chest and belly detail, cabling and hands.