Week 31 (9 Feb - 15 Feb 2003)
Centipede
"Ow," said Erodon, lifting his hand out of the treasure chest. A huge centipede had clamped onto the elf's index finger.
"Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow. Ow," he continued, shaking his hand vigorously.
"Ow. . . ."
Stipple stroked his chin thoughtfully and examined the dull metallic sheen. The elf continued dancing around the room trying to shake the creature off. Finally, the halfling nodded his head.
"That's one big centipede," Stipple said.
Another small sculpt this week. I started out with some leftover green stuff from my ViP #5 miniature, Cthulhubot, and shaped out the body on the flat cap of a stick of lip balm. I added the head at the same time, and cut in the pincers. Later, I removed the centipede and laid down a mix of leftoever brown and green putty. I textured it with a sharp knife, then pushed the centipede into place. When it looked OK, I rolled out very thin ropes of putty, tamped them down the sides, and carefully cut in the legs, pushing in the ends to make them stand out a bit. Finally, I added the eyes, texturing them in a crosshatch pattern.
This piece was an exercise in how much I can do at once -- I tried to add detail to an in-progress piece, to move on a little beyond what I might normally do. It usually pays to go slowly, since there's some danger of fouling things up by handling them or slipping with a tool. Still, it pays to be able to work more quickly, and I think using still-uncured putty lets details blend into one another a little. This could work to my advantage on a larger, more cohesive piece.
Back to week 30 (2 Feb - 8 Feb 2003)