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Thursday, August 08, 2013

Sculpting Linna - Hair

Here I will be sculpting hair for the Linna Babe™ for Bombshell Miniatures.
Ordinarily I use the same method for each figure I sculpt. They may be shaped differently but it is essentially the same process.


In this instance I had a bit of putty left over from the previous session so I added it to bulk up the back of the hair and then cured that under my putty lamp.


I mixed a fresh batch of ProCreate and then formed all of the masses for the hair.


It is important to get the volumes correct at this stage. All the forms must show the correct weight of the hair and it must flow in a consistent manner to the direction of the movement. Here again. reference is good for this.


All of the forms of the hair must be smoothed. Any seams that run across the direction of the hair flow will be impossible to work out.


Using the rounded tip of my Spoon Shaped Putty Knife I add a tiny amount of Vaseline to the tool and wipe the excess off on the side of my thumb. I begin to block in the general direction of the hair flow lightly. If the smooth motion of the tool starts to drag, I will clean it if it has putty stuck to it, add more Vaseline from my thumb or the brush and then continue.

It is possible to use water for this as a tool lubricant but it dries very quickly and you continually have to add it so it takes longer.


After setting up the basic flow and direction of the hair, I go back over this adding smooth curves and flowing strands with the #64 Scraper Tool. I use Vaseline the same way for this process too. One the hair is done it's time to move on to finishing up the figure with whatever final details are left and to add either a base or tab to the feet.