Greetings! This log will contain all non-evil dwarf related commercial sculpts of mine.

First out, a few of the storage vessels etc. I'm sculpting for Zealot Miniatures to be cast for dungeon detail kits. They'll pick and choose suitable sculpts at their leisure. Night Goblin for scale. From left to right: Giant seashell plate with seeds, dirt or suchlike plus skull; pot; square glass flask; rope bundle; eel trap cage; ceramic plates pile; crude twig pot:




Reference picture below, upon which most sculpts of this order will be roughly based. Blue stars are finished slots, red stars are not to be sculpted since they're already present in Zealot Miniatures' range:



Comments and critiscism are as welcome as ever!

1/4 of sculpts done:



Roughly 1/3 of sculpts done, including oil lamps and law code stele based on Hammurabi's 4000 year old one (so no copyright issues there!):



Various small stuff done, including scrying ball, ammonite, sharp crystal and a footless statuette based on Venus of Willendorf:



About half of the clutter pieces are finished now, including an ornate cauldron based upon one panel of the Celtic silver importware Gundestrup cauldron unearthed in that land-that-ought-to-be-a-conquered-province, Denmark:





Skull time:



This is why amphorae have pointy bases. Sticking them in sand is an ancient storage solution, particularly onboard ships:



And a churn:

First of two double-faced runestones completed, based on this and this runestone. Included, a simple globe so you can map out your fantasy world. Also, there's a drinking cup with the very Roman motifs of war and love, because nothing screams "ancient" like gutsy 2D scenes.



And a barrel goblin:

Finished Dungeon Clutter Sculpts for Zealot Miniatures

It's done, or rather, the first wave is finished. It's possible Zealot might want some more pieces later on, such as sacks, household altar and the like. They told me they were content with the current amount so I stopped when this bunch was completed this evening.

Here is the basis reference picture as it stands, blue stars for sculpted bits:



Last batch of the lot:



Close-ups, including thin landmasses and islands added to the globe as per Zealot Miniatures' request. These will be easy to scrape away:



Impaled Goblin, based on Assyrian reliefs:



Demonic portal:



And all the gang together, 3 months' worth of sculpting:











Next up, Elf Archer of ancient times!

Elf Archer of Ancient Times



Lower body scalemail finished.

@Dan: Didn't know folks were waiting for me.

Thank you kindly! Zealot will take it's pick, and any excess overflow, if any, will be returned to me. Then I'll decide whether to cast any overflow bitz myself as one or more proper clutter kits, or just sprinkle them about in future miniature kits as extras. The Daemonic portals and Goblins will get cast soon no matter what, though, regardless of who gets to cast them.

@Eternal Flitter: Thank you! I hope you find inspiration here and in others' sculpting work as well. Sculpting takes time, but it's quite rewarding, and really rewarding when you can cast and spread your work to others' collections.

Work goes forward step by step on the monopose archer. All grey stuff areas are unfinished basis:

The undetailed basis for the Elf's back package is finished, and some work has gone into making the sculpt more mould-friendly with less sharp undercuts. However, when sculpting the head I've struck upon a problem, as amateurs are wont to do. With my poor eye-measurement, I simply cannot tell for myself, so I'd appreciate if you could help me out here:

Is the helmeted head too large?

Please keep in mind that if the body seems too thin in comparison, I can either bulk out the torso and limbs some before making their details, or allow those body parts' details to do the bulking-out. (The helmet's details would be done in a more delicate fashion, so as to not enlargen the headgear very much.) Is the head and body fine as is? Need the body be bulked out some? Or should the head be redone from scratch?

Advice is needed.

Thank you! A friend of mine said the same and pointed out a few things that make it clear that the best is to flay the current head off and sculpt a smaller one.

No worries, tricky areas like same-sizing hands or getting heads right can often take some attempts. On the animated dwarf statue, I had to redo one optional hand two times to get it right on the third attempt, and this elf head went surprisingly fast so it shouldn't be much of a hassle to do again. Plus the discard can be chucked in as a trophy somewhere in my private collection.

Yep, this one will get mastercast-cloned, and then a production mould of 3-5 monopose clones will be created to churn away. Eventually me and my brother plan to have me sculpt a kneeling variant, a reloading variant or two (one of which could be female) and even a command group, but that's slow and long term plans, and by then the first monopose will have been up for sale for a couple of years at least. A monopose spearman kit with loose speararm would come first, and that one could either get sculpted by autumn, or way into next year depending on priorities after the elf archer,

@Henrypmiller: Sure thing! That would be most appreciated. If someone could get the word out to Beasts of War lots will have been gained.

Taking all feedback from various sites and friends together, roughly half says yay and the other half nay. I hope the below resculpt will make everyone say yay.

Is the size right now?

@Klexe: It could well be, but it's too late. See below for details.

@Henrypmiller: Good to hear! As for ears, these pictures are work in progress. Everything is done in small steps, layer by layer. Regarding the bow, I agree with all your points after a careful look (although a relatively small bow can still work for Elves, as they have done in GW's High Elf range). However, see below for details on why I won't, or rather can't, remake it. At least I managed to lower the head a bit to simulate taking aim following the taking of the below picture.

I guess the somewhat odd archery stance can be viewed as a flair of Elven arrogance and high confidence in their archery skills. "Lesser races shoot with such constipated rigidity. Filthy peasants! No style at all." Or something like that. Paid for with muscle aches.


Unusual Goblins

Impaling based on this ancient Assyrian relief.




Ancient Idols

Including primeval idol based on Venus of Willendorf and stele based on the Law Code of Hammurabi one.




Wizard's Study

Including cat and globe. Land masses are thin and easy to scrape away.




Dungeon Clutter
Zealot Miniatures has released the first dungeon clutter kits. If these prove popular, there will be more incoming.

Break out the spending wallet!


Diamond Scalemail Tutorial
As per request, here's a quick tutorial for how to do time-consuming diamond scalemail:




Elf Archer Sculpt
Current state of the archer. Details are getting started, but the bow is shorter than intended (still acceptable in my eyes, though, particularly compared to GW High Elf bows), the left elbow is slightly too low in comparison to shoulder, and the right drawing arm is likewise too low while the head is too straight up, when compared to these excellent archer models. It is too late to change any of these things, partly because of sheer time consumption involved, but particularly since there are large risks involved with any such surgery at this point.

My repeated measurements and eye-estimations nevertheless produced a bow that is shorter than intended. As a composite bow, it'd still carry a punch. Given the pinned needle skeleton of the sculpt, there's too huge a risk of messing things up and introducing inherent instability into the sculpt by removing or replacing the bow, or for that matter, by extending it. Or by cutting away the left arm and attempting a higher resculpt or lowering the head any more (after taking the below photograph, I did that as much as I dare to do). The overall end result isn't perfect by a long shot, but shouldn't be too shabby.

As such, it'll all have to do, though me and my brother have talked through plans to make a handful of large and very ornate Elven longbows held by hands as a separate weapon kit for those wishing longer bows and more bling.



Despite these amateur flaws, I hope you like where this monopose archer regiment of clones is going so far.

Thanks, that weighs in toward doing the longbows. Work will start on them this afternoon.

As for finished. It's a long way to Tipperary:



Lots of details left to do. Plus feet.