Marco does something

[RobSkib]

Nice concept, have you any idea of the pose of the actual sculpt or are you going for a fairly neutral stance like the sketch?

I would say, however, I'm not entirely convinced by his '40kness'. I know you've mentioned it, but with just a couple of small additions you could easily bring him into the 41st milennium, and I know you're a bit of a stickler for Background Builds the Model (I am the other way around), but how about giving him a bionic eye, or some wires/ports leading into the back of his head/ears? Pads work wonders as well, especially if they're not symmetrical. Maybe a single kneepad, or a leather double-shoulderpad? You've mentioned 40k gubbinz, which is a good way to go so I shan't further that. How about little skulls here and there? Maybe an Imperial Eagle along the scabbard or around the hem of the boots.

A great start, and a few more 40k touches will make him perfect.

[MarcoSkoll]

Nice concept, have you any idea of the pose of the actual sculpt or are you going for a fairly neutral stance like the sketch?

The sketch is just to sort out appearance without pose yet. Trying to do both in the same sketch could cause issues - obscure angles on some of the details, etc. Likely, I'll copy the pose I was going for with the last sculpt.

I would say, however, I'm not entirely convinced by his '40kness'.

This is a first revision, designed to start him in the right direction and spawn more ideas in my head. I've not done 40k art in a while, and it's taking a while to get back into the right way of thinking.

I need to start thinking more assorted gubbins, and perhaps extra asymmetry. 

I know you're a bit of a stickler for Background Builds the Model

Very much so. It's part of the reason why I got into the whole idea of sculpting, because I didn't really want to have to compromise on what I wanted in the model.

I just ended up going further than I originally thought I would. At first, I was expecting to sculpt some replacement parts for converting models from the normal range, but for some reason, I then decided I was going to do the models pretty much from scratch.

...but how about giving him a bionic eye, or some wires/ports leading into the back of his head/ears?

I don't particularly want to give him a bionic eye, because it would cause one hell of a lot of conflicts within the background.

But wires leading into the back of his head... I like that idea. His character sheet includes a psi-booster, and that sounds like a very good way of representing it on the model.

How about little skulls here and there? Maybe an Imperial Eagle along the scabbard or around the hem of the boots

Well, I've already started on the skull idea with the sword, swapping in a skull design for the pommel.
I'll think about some Imperial iconography, but I don't want to overdose him with it, because Marco often relies on not appearing to be all that important in the ranks of the Imperium at first glance.

It's Mal... with a sword! Does he know which end to hold.

Yes, although he's not a truly fantastic swordsman. He gets a good, but not masterful, WS of 64 - the threat he poses in combat is more a matter of the damage of his Rune Sword.*

*A blade which is actually more powerful than Marco knows. While he knows it's an astounding example of force weaponry, the truth is that it's far older and rather more potent than he thinks.

[MarcoSkoll]

After the completion of my paint stripping experiment, Kai has been cleaned up - few bits of paint in small crevasses, but the undercoat will cover that up fine
It's now time to fix a couple of minor sculpting errors, and I guess I'll start repainting tomorrow.

This evening however, will largely be spent on drawing Marco Concept #2.

[RobSkib]

This evening however, will largely be spent on drawing Marco Concept #2.

Needs more shoulderpads! I havn't seen the sketch yet, but I can guarantee it doesn't have big enough shoulderpads

[MarcoSkoll]

Unfortunately, it seems to be a case of "Marco does nothing" after the earlier post.

I seem to have picked up a dose of the flu (or at least something similar) a couple of days back, it kicked in yesterday, and I've been battling it today.
While I want to get on with things, I'm not really up to sculpting, and my mind's a bit too incoherent to be able to extract concept art from it.

But I have a damned good immune system. Normally, if I catch anything at all, it's normally mild symptoms and I tend to shake things off in about half the normal time - which probably means I'll be alright tomorrow.

[Ynek]

I had something similar to flu about a week ago, so I know what you're going through. It was pretty rough.

Hope you feel better soon, man.

[MarcoSkoll]

Anyway, symptoms largely shaken off, I've got the sculpting on Kai sorted. If you're wondering what work was needed, you can see the main problem area on the inside of his right arm (the one with the sword) in some of the earlier pictures. Somehow, I missed the area completely first time around.

For convenience, I cut the arm off in order to reach the area better. I was considering trying out my new clay shapers, but for consistency, I did it as I had before, using 3/32" and 5/32" brass tubing as tools to create the creases and folds. It's a technique I discovered by coincidence halfway through Kai, but I like it.

In something of a flurry of modelling, I've also started breaking down and stripping some older models I don't use any more - they'll get put into a pot of parts, and I'll remake them into newer characters over time.
One of them is an Eldar Ranger model that was previously a mysterious cloaked character who was pretty much a tool by which I could exact divine wrath upon poor play when I was GMing (He was a veritable walking armoury, hauling around a shotgun, lasgun, autopistol, stubber and power rapier) - but the need for him has waned, and I think better things can be done with the parts (heck, he was carrying around most of a weapons booster pack by himself!)

On the note of sculpting, I seem to be afflicted with a problem called "too many ideas". I have a vast number of models I want to make, with the actual count running way beyond the six I've told myself is already pushing the number I should be trying to do at once. I've easily got enough ideas to fill another run of six after this one.

Even if I manage the rate I was sculpting before (and that was pushing it), it's going to be sometime before I'm without models I want to be making. And that's probably a good thing - I like having things to do.
But I will almost certainly need to order in another load of putty before I'm done with them.
(Could be worse. As I figure it, at typical prices, there's not a lot more than a couple of quid worth of putty in each sculpt. The time spent is by far the most demanded resource in these projects.)

... anyway, I still need to upload photos of the current progress of "mini-me". It's still bald, as I don't know what hairstyle I'll be giving it (or indeed, whether it may simply have a hat). I'm currently thinking about growing out my hair, and whether or not I decide to will obviously affect what the model will have. The shoulders also need a little fixing, but that's minor work.

[MarcoSkoll]

Oh fiddle. I seem to have found some spare Terminator heads.

That's going to mean a little more delay on Kai while I use them to add a rebreather. I particularly like the reference image, and while I couldn't find the parts before, I'd still like to reproduce that picture reasonably faithfully.

[MarcoSkoll]

Okay, no major developments, but some minor tweaking from the last sketch:


DeviantArt Link

I know, the changes so far are fairly minor - trim around the coat, head wires, a few more buckles - but the fact is, I want to work on the principle of Marco being someone you could believe was an Inquisitor, but not someone you'd immediately expect was.
But this is a drawing in progress - I've started by redrawing it somewhat larger and neater so I can develop it better.
Still some trinkets to be added - possibly a hexagrammic compass (although I'd have to decide if his former mentor would have passed it on, and to some extent, how it would work in-game).

I'm also thinking about possible patterns over the coat's trim. I don't want it to be too fancy, as it was formerly his father's (and given his origins, it's therefore not going to be a fancy nobleman's coat). Any ideas?

[RobSkib]

Still some trinkets to be added - possibly a hexagrammic compass (although I'd have to decide if his former mentor would have passed it on, and to some extent, how it would work in-game).

If your warband is required to roll to determine which board edge they arrive at, they can re-roll the dice?

I'm also thinking about possible patterns over the coat's trim. I don't want it to be too fancy, as it was formerly his father's (and given his origins, it's therefore not going to be a fancy nobleman's coat). Any ideas?

I think a simple celtic pattern would suit him nicely - lots of right angles and straight lines.

Your sketch is really nice too - it's clear you've studied anatomy quite in-depth! My only problem is his face (something I'm sure you'll rectify) - he looks like he belongs in a boy band, not the 41st millennium. I'm not fully clued up with your warband I'll admit, but he looks awfully young to be an Inquisitor. He needs to look angrier, rough his face up a little bit - somewhere between Edward Olmos and the surface of the moon.

[Inquisitor Cade]

He looks like a 9 year old boy*
A facial scar, Bionic eyeball or more sober hairstyle would make him look like a more believeable Inquisitor.


*hyperbole taken from the film 'In the loop' which I recommend.

[MarcoSkoll]

If your warband is required to roll to determine which board edge they arrive at, they can re-roll the dice?

Well, the principle behind a hexagrammic compass as I've written it is that it's much like a normal compass, except that one of the arms of it is inscribed with a tiny psychic ward. This has much the same effect as a weather vane - the ward shifts away from psychic sources, thus leading the other end of the compass to point towards the centre of any psychic disturbances.

As far as rules, I'm considering treating it as a form of crude auspex which can be used to track particularly powerful psykers, daemons or warp anomalies over a short range.

I might include some rules for Marco's own psychic nature corrupting its result, but I'd have to work out what the basic rules are in the first place!

I think a simple celtic pattern would suit him nicely - lots of right angles and straight lines.

Interesting idea. I'll try twisting it a bit to Norse knotwork instead - works well with the Norse themes I've put into Marco's background.

Won't be easy to paint, but whoever said I did things because they were easy?

My only problem is his face (something I'm sure you'll rectify)

Unfortunately, faces are not a strong point of mine. Usually, I'm lucky if I can get something that doesn't look completely wonky before I've managed to rub the surface off the paper with my repeated corrections.
I'll see if I can do some fixing, but in this case, the face is a complete and utter place-holder. I've already decided who's going to be the reference I use when I sculpt his head.

However, Marco isn't supposed to be particularly old - admittedly, older than this picture makes him, but he's only in his early forties and has only held the rank for a brief few years. So yes, young for an Inquisitor.
As a character, I'd decided that I wanted him to feel somewhat out of his depth - not enough experience yet.

[Adlan]

Considering it's a semi-self portrait model, the drawing is very good. Particularly the face.

Marco does have a bit of juve vibe to him, looks younger than he sounds on the boards (it's all that math).

But if it's marco age 40, give him a few more lines and weathering. What you'll look like with another two decades infact.

[MarcoSkoll]

Considering it's a semi-self portrait model, the drawing is very good. Particularly the face.

The face isn't good - I don't kid myself. Unless I'm working on a decent scale, I can find them even more problematic than feet. And I hate drawing feet.

Marco as a model isn't all that based on my own appearance. While there are a couple of similarities, I don't want him to be thought of as "who I'd be in the 41st millennium" - after all, where's the sense in roleplaying yourself? I've already added a major parallel to myself with his background in ballistics, and I don't want to go much further than that.

In the end, it's wonderfully confusing. There's Marco the character, Marco the twonk with a keyboard, and models of each.
Talking of which, I still owe you lot that picture of where the model of Marco the twonk has got to.



His right upper arm and shoulder need adjustment (not that the left shoulder is great). I wasn't really paying attention when I did them, and it shows.
The face isn't perfect either - while it works as a face, it's not exactly my face. But, as I did his face before I even did Kai's, that makes it the first 54mm scale face I ever sculpted, so it could be worse.
He remains bald at the moment, because I can't decide if I'll be giving him a hat or not.

What you'll look like with another two decades in fact.

Which will probably be worryingly like my father...

[RobSkib]

Wow, that face is incredibly well done - I havn't seen many scratch sculpts that have successfully tackled a human head without resorting to "eeerrrr.. he's a mutant", but considering that was your first face sculpt then kudos! I couldn't even begin to pretend I can sculpt faces that well.