Space Marine Miniature
polycounter lvl 12
For the past few weeks I've been working on this model for a freelance contract. The intention of it is for it to be 3d printed as a miniature between the sizes of 28mm and 38mm and then recast and replicated for use in tabletop gaming.
I have had the pleasure of doing both the concept the modeling. I've been basing it mostly on the Gears of War COG concept art seen here, while also making use of my own style, ideas and designs. There will be variations of the character so as to have a squad of unique soldiers.
I am almost done with the sub-d modeling and ready to take it into zbrush for the organic surfaces and final details pass. I still have to add in a bunch of belts, connectors, rivets and things which I already have modeled, and then I have to finish the boots, shoulder pads and chest. I have been keeping it fairly simple so far because I don't know how the details will transfer to the small print.
Give me all the critique you've got, I want to make it as good as possible.:)
Without further adieu, the images.
I have had the pleasure of doing both the concept the modeling. I've been basing it mostly on the Gears of War COG concept art seen here, while also making use of my own style, ideas and designs. There will be variations of the character so as to have a squad of unique soldiers.
I am almost done with the sub-d modeling and ready to take it into zbrush for the organic surfaces and final details pass. I still have to add in a bunch of belts, connectors, rivets and things which I already have modeled, and then I have to finish the boots, shoulder pads and chest. I have been keeping it fairly simple so far because I don't know how the details will transfer to the small print.
Give me all the critique you've got, I want to make it as good as possible.:)
Without further adieu, the images.
Replies
I agree with the comment on the head. I think he could use some gear on the arms and hands as well! I'm sure it's in the works
aesir: I don't actually remember how many heads tall it is, I started with an old base body and then built on it. I am sure I agonized about it at the time, but yeah, I don't remember. The hands and head are also separately kit bashed so they might be off.
Jon Rush: Thanks for the heads up about the head size (no pun intended). I forget whether I up-sized it or not, you be the judge. I think I did.
Definitely the arms will get more love because they will be the most interchangeable pieces on the physical models. I am just going to quickly do the variations in Zbrush. I might add some more models too. I'm looking for some stuff to break symmetry and that should work.
Small nightly update. Pouches are hidden because I remade the belt and modeled a bunch of modular pieces; not all of which are on the model yet.
Also, for a 28mm figure, a lot of your details are way too fine and shallow. You really have to be a lot bolder than you would for a game model. Does your client have much experience of this process? If so, I'd be checking in with them very frequently.
Stuff like the eyes and mouth should have a nice deep line to really show through and pick up the paint, more so if you're going to undercoat, paint then varnish.
On a 35mm figure, try not to model anything less than 1/4 maybe a 1/5 if a mm in size, stuff like the detail on the belt buckle, the caddy of bullets and the straps on his gloves may not show through once a layer of basecoat has been added.
Try get hold of some images of GW models of the same scale, and put one side by side for comparison of detail - you'll get a good idea of what kind of scale you can get away with.
Have a look at the GW Catachan Jungle Fighter models for example, they're fairly close to what you've got, look at the detail on the face, and how pronounced it is.
Also , don't know if you're going for realistic proportions, but if you're aiming at GW, see how chunky or 'chibi' things are - which looks odd when life-size, but looks good when it's 35mm.
What cheese said is spot on, from my own experience of making miniatures at the same scale your talking, many of the small details wont be captured at all, especially around your belt. Reiterating what johnny said about really punching lines in the model for things like mouths and facial features is a key otherwise they wont pick up undercoats and paints too well, making the miniature featureless.
Exxageration beyond what you would normally consider feasible and possibly further than what you would consider looking cool will surprise you when your holding the print in your hand.
Remember when your sculpting your looking at this thing on a monitor blown up 7 - 10 times its intended size. take a render and scale it to 28 - 38mm and see what features are standing out and what just cant be seen at all ( although this is a rough and not true representation ) its a fairly good gauge of what will come through and what wont. If you cant see it on your tiny render then trust me, it wont come through well enough to hold paint!
Good luck man!
I'm definitely going to be doing some work on enhancing the small details.
My Client and I aren't very experienced in printing or casting so it will be a learning experience as we go along. Thanks for the reply.
@JohnnySix: Thanks for the tips about the detail. I hadn't actually considered how the detail would be lost after painting. I have got GW models with me to get an idea of the scale but I still feel like most of the time they aren't pushing as much detail as they could, even after paint.
I am trying to go for more realistic proportions than GW to separate our models from the pack and because I generally do not like the proportions of the GW model though I understand why they do it. I will probably end up editing the proportions on my guy as well, but I would rather start with a correct base to work from.
@Hazardous: Well, you made it look easy, at least. Thanks for looking and commenting, if you have any other protips, feel free to let me know!
Based on the small version of the render I think I am reasonably happy with the detail that transfers over right now. The reason why I have the small details and stuff in there is because there is a possibility for them to be printed in a limited series at a much larger multi-inch size.
We are going to do some test prints and I will definitely get a good idea of what has to change based on that. Right now I am not too worried about how the stuff will transfer but it's definitely in my mind and I already started to make some substitute pieces with more overstated and larger detail.
There is also the possibility of tweaking the prints or casts by hand once they are physical. I can go at them with a knife and sculpting tools and get instant feedback on the amount of detail.
Small update. These updates must be like the "find what's different" puzzles trying to figure out what changed.
Basically, imaging where the mold line will be. Will it be possible to pull the part straight out of the mold cleanly? Plastics are cast in steel molds, so there's absolutely no room for bending the mold to get a part out. You have to be very careful in constructing your model in such a way as it can be cast and then removed from the mold.
The shoulder pads, for example, are fine if they're going to be seperate pieces. If they're going to be part of the arm, you'd need to fill in the underside so the bottom is completely flat.
I hope this makes sense.
One of the reasons why the heads are sculpted large is to allow the sculptor and later the painter to give the model some sort of expression.
Notice her eyes; I "jeweled" her eyes to make it more interesting and bring out the idea of how magical she is. Sculpt by the awesome Werner Klocke.
http://home.comcast.net/~acknar/movl_elf_3.jpg
Another figure:
http://home.comcast.net/~acknar/movl_card_1.jpg
The expression of his face was important to me. Had his head been smaller it would have been near impossible to define.
http://home.comcast.net/~acknar/movl_card_3.jpg
On this model, her face and head had to be resculpted completely. There just wasn't enough detail after taking a dremel to her to get any definition.
http://home.comcast.net/~acknar/movl_nunb_3.jpg
Now the closest I've seen to what you want to do, is either the Games Workshop Lord of the Rings miniature's game (supposedly true 25s) and Anima Tactics (a squad/team based mini's game, "thin" heroic 32s, though closer to thin 34s). Even so, they took liberties as to the scale of the hands and face. Faces and hands are made larger so that painters can paint them. Heads in particular are larger so you can see the expression of the figure. That's what separates a figure from a model.
If you make it too small (or realistic) you make it near impossible to:
1) Paint.
2) Give the faces any form of expression without them looking goofy.
3) Cast well.
Small details can be very difficult to cast. You lose a lot of detail in the casting process. Although this depends on what process you'll be using after the initial cast. I've seen a lot of details lost after the initial cast. I've also seen bubbles form and all sorts of nightmarish anomalies do to not venting the mold correctly due to certain details.
Anima Tactics (none of this painted by me, I'm not this good... yet)
http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/shopimages/products/normal/CS3006.jpg
http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/shopimages/products/normal/f1004.jpg
http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/shopimages/products/normal/CS1003.jpg
http://www.coolminiornot.com/store/shopimages/products/normal/CS2011.jpg
Even in those, if you've ever seen the models up close, facial expression is near absent. Most of the faces actually lack a lot of features. The scultptors tried really hard to reduce the scale of the faces. Some of the best painters I know have trouble painting the faces on those figures to have some sort of expression. We're looking at eyes that are less than a millimetre in diameter.
Lord of the rings miniatures
http://coolminiornot.com/pics/pics11/img45ff40a3387f5.jpg Note how the eyes are virtually squinting.
http://www.kaple.dk/stuff/cmon/gandalf_total.jpg Again eyes are virtually lost. By the way that won silver at the French GD in 06.
http://julienc.world.free.fr/photos/galadrielle/comp/galadfm1bis.jpg An extremely well done Galadriel that won the Golden Deamon in the LoTR catagory, French GD '07. Notice we still have a large head. Hands are smaller, but still oversized.
Now you might think perhaps rackham or some of the other folks make their stuff closes to scale? But still same deal:
http://coolminiornot.com/pics/img3de1e0c7e09ed.jpg
As to your model
I don't know how 3D printers work. I can tell you that after casting thousands of figures (using rtb rubber and resin) several things pop out.
1) The bullet shells on his thigh cause a recess under them. Rubber will flow into it and either the legs will break when you attempt to remove them from the cast, or the bullets will break. More than likely you'll end up with air bubbles trapped under the bullet shells.
--Fix this by making the bullet shells go straight into the thigh holster thing. They won't look like bullets but more like road bumps (see the image attached below).
2) You have some "pinching" going on in the chest geometry as well as the shoulder where it meets the neck. Pinching occurs when you have a concave surface that goes beyond 90, or when you have two surfaces very close to each other with a deep trench going in between them (like in his lower chest area). The problem with pinching is that over time you'll lose the detail in those locations as the mold begings to break in those spots. If you pictured your model inside out those pinching locations would be like long thin knives or blades. Molds break easily, I mean just after like 5 casts my RTV molds will tear in spots like that. Another problem with pinching areas is that air bubbles love to form around there. The RTV rubber or molding compound rarely gets in there deep enough. See the image for what I mean by that.
3) Individual fingers are risky. Of the few Reapers I've had with individual fingers they almost always have a terrible seamline. I always have to chop all the fingers off and resculpt them with greenstuff. See the nun above, I sculpted both of her hands with greenstuff. The originals broke off easily and were just too fragile, no matter what material you use. This is another reason why hands that aren't holding anything tend to be big and thick. This is because they need strength both at the moulding level and at the casting level, as well as the final product.
4) Some features are nearly impossible to distinguish once you do your final tins at 32mm, and I do hope you go for heroic 32, because at 28, you'll lose even more of your detail. The face will lose a lot of detail. The mouth which may seem nice for video game or normal map work, will be nothing but a bump once you cast in rubber and have made a few copies. The eyes need to be sunk in and slightly larger, otherwise at 28 or 32 they'll be impossible to paint or define. Careful with your nose there too, I noticed it had nostrils which again forms a concave surface and a possible spot that'll collect air bubbles.
5) Don't be afraid to split your cast. Not sure what process you guys plan on doing. The head will have to be a seperate peice. Depending on how you pose it, you might need to break him up even further. If you want to keep the shotgun shells as cylinders, then you'll have to make those into seperate peices on their own sprue. The shoulder pads, perhaps the whole arm should be seperate peices as well. It's win win if you split your model anyways: easier to cast, can be posed however we want, they sell better.
Anyhow, I'm looking forward to seeing how the print and the final casts end up looking.
I should point out that he says they're casting in plastic, which means much less mold degradation AFAIK and generally sharper details but NO leeway whatsoever in terms of undercuts since the mold is made of steel and can't be bent as I mentioned above.
Another caveat : although some printing companies will happily take pieces made of multiple shells and combine them into one piece for you, in my experience most don't. This means you'll almost certainly have to retopologise the mesh at the end, and reproject all your detail into one shell for each castable piece.
There's at least a couple of polycounters that have their own printing company now. I think Sectaurs was one of them. They might be prepared to go the extra mile to help you get your mesh printed.
I did notice that the shell casings would cause a problem in printing, I am going to put a bracket type thing on them so it is more like an open clip than individual shells.
I am definitely thinking I want to go in the 30-40mm range as it still fits in well enough with the size of other games' figures and will be able to capture a lot more detail.
The head and hands right now are just kitbashed and placeholder. I am going to modify them heavily in zbrush. I am going to make both and the arms much more large and bulky. I will keep in mind how they need to be to pick up detail.
I will probably join the fingers with clay when the test prints are done. And also fix any other bad undercuts and pinches that I might miss. I know I have a bunch of sculpy around just waiting to be used.
Yup, I'm planning on having it split into pieces. I'm thinking, Legs, head, arms, torso. Maybe having the torso and legs together. I will be doing variations of the arms and heads for even more variety between members of squads. I know when I was making minis my favorite part was always customizing the models themselves.
CheeseOnToast:
I don't think I will have any problems with this as my client has their own 3d printer which is up to the task. I have considered retopologizing at the end just to make sure everything is solid and undercut free. Might not be so bad, I bought Topogun recently to help out with that stuff.
As for progress, I started concepting weapons and have a few guns that I am going to begin and hopefully finish modeling tonight. Also I found out today I have a bit of leeway on my deadline (even though it was self-imposed) as my client is out of town so I can spend extra time making sure everything works out before the print.
Thanks again guys. You've been a lot of help!
I'm not sure if you guys are actually going into business with this or if it's just for fun.
There are some things you should think about.
-The mini's industry right now in the US at least isn't too healthy. Back a year ago we had a string of publishers have some troubled times (Mongoose, GW, Rackham).
-You want to use a standard size so that the players who don't want to play your game can use them for their own game or for roleplay. I'd stick to heroic 32s instead of 40 which is a strange guage. The next step up from 32 is 54mm (52 is pretty rare). Next up from there is 72mm which is display. 54mm rarely does well. The few games at that scale have bombed (inquisitor comes to mind).
Mutant Chronicles prepainted I believe is 54 as well. I dunno how succesful it is but so far every game store I go to has shelves with this stuff collecting dust.
-In the end you want to stick to 32. I'd pick them up for AT-43, Warhammer 40K, my own games, D20 modern, and so on. Warhammer 40K although proporting to be heroic 28s, in reality has scale crept to heroic 32. One look at the new Terminators gives you a good idea.
-Oh by the way, I'd probably texture up the models you made in 3D make them all cool looking (traditional game art method). So save the model that you have before you make the print model. Then use high quality renders of your models in your rulebooks
Another thing you might want to keep in mind is if you guys are planning to do pre-painted or non. Pre-painted seems to be the new thing now. Unfortunately it's a bit expensive.
sorry to hijack Frump but I simply had to say some words of thanks - Really look forward to seeing what you end up with!
Yup, I'll definitely try to get as much mileage out of all the assets as possible. I don't know if there are any plans for rulebooks immediately. Gotta make the minis first!
At this point I am definitely thinking we should do the standard heroic size and I doubt we will have any pre-painted figures initially.
Hazardous: One post is hardly a hijack, especially since the thanks are very merited, I'm glad it was posted in my thread.
Okay, so here's one of the Guns for this set of infantry. I kept the detail fairly low and simple as I was creating it with working as a mini in mind. I was able to avoid undercuts and things as I went thanks to you guys' help.:)
Other than that I've been doing cleanup on the main character getting rid of undercuts and enlarging details, but there's nothing to show since it's mostly just little unnoticeable tweaks.
Tell me what you think!
So, I haven't updated in a while. All the stuff you guys pointed out gave me a lot of tedious work to do.:poly122:
I got to the sculpting phase though and mostly finished that off. The anatomy is fairly low detail to suit the scale, but I also have what detail there is on layers so I can easily adjust the intensity after seeing how it prints. I went with a big bubble muscle style like a lot of toys and stuff have, I think it will look pretty good when printed. The face is really generic and I still have some things to add like sideburns and eyebrows. The head is also abnormally large because it still looks relatively normal proportion at the small scale and not overblown like the GW heads.
I'm not sure about the wrinkles in the pants, I might take an hour to redo them and actually use some reference this time.
I'm also considering adding some wear to the armour and maybe some insignias or just stuff to make it a bit more asymmetrical.
Anyway, all crits welcome. Tell me what you think.