They're Just a Lil Guy! Sculpting Retro Ripper Swarms

You ever have those projects that just have... momentum? This was one of those. I had intended to just kind of work on it intermittently, but it just kept coming together quickly, and that made me excited to continue working on them. How fun!

Here's the final result! I definitely think the scale very slightly off, but that's alright. They're proxies anyway, as long as they look the part it's not a huge deal.

I began with my reference in hand, this time, the 2nd edition Ripper Swarms. They have two mouth mandibles I really liked, and a lamprey-like mouth. Both of these things made me think it would be easier to mold, since that was the goal from the outset. There's no way I'm sitting still for making more than say 9 of these guys. 

I started sculpting with oven bake clay - the first version I didn't like, it kept squishing and deforming as I was working on it. I instead changed tactics - I formed the worm like body, and sculpted the mandibles seperately onto the surface I would eventually bake it on. It did mean the claws have a very flat underside, but I figured it won't be very noticeable. I also sculpted a bunch of little teeth. The intent with all of this was to bake these separately, then glue them all together when they're rigid. This would give me a solid part to then sculpt the back carapace onto, and that worked out really well! Finally, I glued a little Tyranid bit onto the tail, it just felt like it fit the piece.

From there, I made a two-part mold with Blue Stuff onto that original sculpt. I'd been reading some White Dwarf magazine article about how Citadel used to make miniatures before digital processes - I ended up doing something very similar, especially since I had only one copy of the model. You can read it here, Issue 208 page 30!

I struggled with the mold - my first attempts included a sprue, with the intent to pour plaster into the cavity. This simply leaked everywhere, so I ripped off the sprue and re-molded the piece, then used the mold to press-mold more oven-bake clay. This proved way more successful, it's a technique I learned from Miscast miniatures!

So, after pressing all the miniatures, I got to baking! 

Once they were all baked up, I was faced with the sloppy part from earlier: I had been ok with lots of flashing when molding, I figured I would "Just trim it off later". Well, now was later now! So I got going. It wasn't a huge deal but was a little tedious for sure. And it did was a bit of material, but this was cheap oven bake clay, so I didn't really care. If it had been more expensive material I probably would have tried harder to reduce flashing. 

And then the models were all cleaned up, based, and primed! Not much to say about these steps, mostly just cork and kitty litter, super glue and baking soda!

Finally, I got some paint on them. I did them up in my traditional Primeval Behemoth colors (red/bone) and they're ready for the table! 

This was a really fun and fast project, and it felt like there was a lot of learning about sculpting techniques in real life and in the mold making process. Thanks so much for reading!

- Miss Captain Bear