10-20mm Hoplites - more test prints

I'm almost coming to the end of the scale testing stage, having landed on a style that looks good printed at 20mm, 15mm and 10mm.

I can't decide which scale I want to do... so making something that's multi use seems like the best idea.

20mm, perfect for Dragon Rampant perhaps. I have a soft spot for this size and think doing some classic fantasy armies like this will scratch an itch for Warhammer Fantasy Battle style gaming (miniature count wise especially - a block of 20 spearmen is more palatable at this size than at 30mm or whatever the warhammer size is now).

Every single mini there is slightly different... but you'd barely notice. Hopefully its subconscious. 

15mm. This is probably my go to for muti-based style gaming.

10mm, Warmaster. Doing 5 minis on a strip with interlinked/touching between the figures is of course the usual approach for 10mm. That's on the back burner, but printing individually isn't too much of a pain, and it really cuts down on production failures (a single broken spear tip on a strip of 5 ruins the entire print/cast). Straight from the horses mouth I recall hearing this from Rick Priestly... the designer of Warmaster mentioning this... in hindsight regretting they did 5 minis on a strip.)

The above shot shows the style evolution, the mini on the left was the fist with more of a realistic Hoplite. At smaller scales though they are slightly flimsy and lose their visual punch. The final version on the right is slightly more cartoonish than I generally prefer (as a sculptor I like the first one best) but the practicalities of production, painting and using them as gaming pieces trumps the 'artsy' sensibility.

Now that I've locked into the basic infantry I can't start on some more fantastical elements.

Little Hoplites (15-20mm)

This is proving to be quite a chore, digital sculpting is a breeze... but getting the sculpt just right for translating into a physical print is certainly a trick!

Heres' a load of test shots. The three on the green base are the latest versions, although those legs were slightly too thin... so they're being bulked out. 15mm toe to eye, so about 18mm to the top of the head.

I can't decide what scale I want to do this in, 10, 15 and 20mm are all of interest so I need to land on a style that will fit all of them.

(These are basic iphone pics)

First 3D sculpts and prints

 There's definitely a learning curve to this...

It involves sculpting something, printing it, going back to the sculpt and making tweaks, printing it... then going back to make more tweaks before printing again. And so on again...

These are very quick and messy sculpts just for practice. As we all know- it's not as simple as scaling a sculpt up or down, the entire style of the thing needs change - take the spears here as a prime example.

I'm a convert to digital now so 2022 should be extremely productive.

Tox Troopers remastered

After a long hobby drought I got a sculpting itch, so jumped in on a whim a remastered my tox trooper sculpts. I have no idea if these are still on sale or in stock at anvil industry at the present time.

In terms of remastering it was more than touch ups here and there... I completely chopped off all the feet and re-sculpted them (I never used to be good at feet) and added some more bulk to the lower long coats.

When I originally made them it wasn't to proxy into an existing game system, the style of my sculpts was very slim and tall, unlike most of the popular ranges out in the market. I've picked up some Games Workshop stuff recently and think I'll use them as heresy era traitor guard at some point.

If I can finish up a heavy weapon trooper and some command/characters I might have them cast up.

They are still quite slight and make the old space marines look suitably superhuman. Compared to the newer Primaris space marines though they will be completely tiny... so I did a mock up of a heroic style trooper...

Daughters of the Burning Rose

I was lucky enough to get some of the initial test casts from Anvil Industry for their Daughters of the Burning Rose kickstarter.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/1637892615/daughters-of-the-burning-rose

As to be expected from Anvil by now these are superior miniatures - solid design and perfectly cast.

Do note these are not the production miniatures (I don't expect anything to change between these tests and the actual production miniatures).

I'm a backer on the project so will get another of these Inquisitor miniatures... I'm glad of that, I'd like another chance to paint this miniature it's definitely up there as an all time favourite.

17mm...

One minute I'm trying to paint up some of the great Copplestone 15mm* barbarians, next minute I've started sculpting a load of minis in the same scale!

I'm torn between casting some stuff up like this, could do a skirmish/dungeon crawl set... or could do full blown armies in ranks maybe.

Left to right: Uruk-Hai Spartan, Arabian good guy spearman, Far Eastern legion bad guy, skeleton.

(spot the Fallen Dwarf. His heads loose in case I want to use this as a little dolly"

Few others in progress as well but not photographed.

I'll take a break from sculpting for a few days and have a think about what to do with them...

*actually 17mm.

MOTN scale

28mm/30mm, heroic, true, to the eyes, top of the head... you decide.