As most of you will know, I'm a massive nerd when it comes to fantasy/sci-fi.
I live and breathe all things geeky, but until a couple of years ago I couldn't fully consider myself a 'nerd' as I'd never experienced the utter joy that is the definitive role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons. I still haven't managed to actually play yet, though I plan to DM for my friends at some point once I've got a session planned out, but in the meantime, I get my fix from the incomparable Critical Role; a weekly stream where 'a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play D&D'
I live and breathe all things geeky, but until a couple of years ago I couldn't fully consider myself a 'nerd' as I'd never experienced the utter joy that is the definitive role-playing game of Dungeons and Dragons. I still haven't managed to actually play yet, though I plan to DM for my friends at some point once I've got a session planned out, but in the meantime, I get my fix from the incomparable Critical Role; a weekly stream where 'a bunch of nerdy-ass voice actors sit around and play D&D'
I've been watching them for a good few years now, and with well over 500 hours worth of incredibly compelling storylines and emotive performances from the cast, it wasn't difficult to get swept up in the adventures of the heroic band of colourful characters - Vox Machina, and now, with their latest campaign, the motley crew known as The Mighty Nein.
I don't normally like making figures of other people's characters as they know them far better than I ever could, but I loved the new group so much I couldn't resist! So far I only have two (one of which doesn't quite count) but I fully intend to recreate the whole group! (and no, it isn't a typo, there really aren't actually nine of them, there's a huge in-joke related to nein/nine so it was inevitable that they ended up with that as part of their name)
The first of the Nein I decided to create was Nott, The Brave; a young goblin with a predilection for kleptomania and a love of all things alcoholic and/or shiny.
Sam Riegel is by far one of my favourite players, and Nott quickly became one of my favourite characters too, due mostly to moments like this. XD
I sculpted her face on a ceramic tile for ease of access, and she went through several rather...interesting phases!
I call this her 'Roswell' period. 😂👽
Faces really aren't my strongpoint to sculpt, and I always end up making them horribly asymmetrical, something which I find endlessly frustrating. I myself have a really wonky face, so there's probably an element of self portraiture in there somewhere!)
It took me a while to decide on an expression - originally I wanted something kind of neutral, like the serious eyebrows of the official artwork suggest, but as Nott's character is so often the cause of hilarity, I thought a more mischievous grin would be a far better idea. On the whole I think it turned out well, if you ignore her lips, eyes and just about everything else. XD
I wanted her ears to be poseable, so I sculpted them separately on wire, with the intention of creating mini ball-joints I could manipulate later.
After I'd started painting, I really wasn't feeling those sculpted ears, so I scrapped them completely and made simple painted leather ones instead. These look far more natural and organic and are far less likely to get damaged if I happen to drop her. They aren't poseable, but to be honest, I don't really think they need to be now.
Her hair is somewhat surprising - acrylic yarn! As it's technically a plastic, once brushed out it can be straightened and smoothed using hair straighteners/hot iron, creating really soft and easily styled hair fibre! I didn't have any to hand in the right colour so I bought a whole ball of green wool for £2 just to use on her hair. My mum knits though, so I found a home for the rest of it! 🤣
I made up some wefts using Mozekyto's excellent tutorial, and glued them onto the head directly rather than making a wig cap.
I really loved working with it, and I think this is something I'll be using on other dolls in the future.
As she's a goblin, none of the usual doll bodies I'd use were really suitable, so I had to improvise. I considered making her entirely from scratch, but after a quick rummage in my stash, found a Monster High 'Claude Wolf' I'd got cheap from a charity shop.
He was even taller than the average figure, but he had some really rather excellent clawed hands and feet and quite skinny limbs, so I decided that he'd be the perfect guinea pig for some rather drastic plastic surgery. In fairness I only bought him for his potential as a body donor, so he really had no hope of being left alone!
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| 'halp' |
Poor old Claude got beheaded and partially dismembered - I chopped his legs in half, shortened the thigh and seriously reduced the length of the shins. The pieces were reattached with epoxy, glue and some wooden dowels to pin each side together securely. In hindsight I wish I'd shortened the arms as well, as she ended up a little disproportionate. I covered all the joins with milliput and gave her some incredibly unflattering boobs too. They'd be covered up permanently so they only needed to be roughly the right shape but I still felt bad for giving her lumpy tits. XD
Afterwards I primed everywhere that skin could possibly show and painted everything with Citadel's 'Death World Forest' green paint, along with some dark flesh toned pastels for a bit of contrast. I added some blobs of Mod Podge to the nails to help bulk them out as I've found you can use a few layers of it to build up subtle texture in models. I sealed everything multiple times with matte varnish as I couldn't risk the paintwork chipping.
As I wouldn't be using the original neck peg I chopped it off and made a new one from a wooden dowel and a milliput ball at the top.
Her clothes were somewhat cobbled together as I didn't have nearly enough of the particular fabric I thought I had so it's not exactly ideal but never mind, it's close enough! She wears bandages across her face, ears and hands, but I couldn't find a fabric fine enough that wouldn't fray, so I improvised and used medical micropore tape, which, once stuck to her body, I glued in place. I omitted the ones on her face for purely aesthetic reasons but I might put some temporary ones on in future.
One of Nott's more distinctive features is the half mask she wears to disguise herself, as goblins are generally not well received in her world. It's supposed to be half of a porcelain doll's face, and it gave me no end of troubles.
I ended up making two - one out of fimo, and the other, rather more inventively, from latex on some stretchy material from an old pair of tights. I wanted it to mould to her face which it does, but it just doesn't look quite right, so I think I'll be making a third version at some point.
There are plenty of things I wish I'd done differently with Nott, but overall I'm really pleased with her, and she's great fun to play with.
I want to do more of these little animations in the future, but unfortunately my mini tripod snapped on holiday so they'll need to wait until I've got another one. :(
After Nott, I fully intended to start work on Caleb, but then...this happened.
Matthew Mercer is a voice acting god, no mistake, (Kenku don't have their own language and can only communicate through mimicry) and I think I speak for all Critters when I say that Kiri immediately carved out a place in all our hearts. I knew that despite her being only an NPC (non player character) and likely only a temporary member of the team, I had to make her in 1/6th scale.
Due to Kenku anatomy I knew this would be one doll I'd have to make entirely from scratch rather than adapt an existing figure, but I relished the challenge. I was feeling pretty crappy this week due to one thing or another, and creating Kiri proved to be a really useful distraction.
As articulation is super important to me, making the beak hinged was of prime importance, and as a result, sculpting the head probably took the longest time out of the whole build. I made the skull on a wire and tinfoil core, then built it up with some patterned glass beads I bought recently for the eyes.
I originally planned on her to have blue eyes as she's supposed to be a child and juvenile corvids usually have blue eyes which change as they reach adulthood, as illustrated here by this lovely young crow I once photographed in the garden -
...but she's explicitly described as having yellow ones, so they were repainted later on.
Before I baked this part I stabbed all the way through with a wooden skewer where I wanted the hinge to be. I then gave it a good blast with the heatgun to cure it just enough so I wouldn't accidentally smoosh the clay while I worked on the lower jaw. I made this by first sculpting the beak part and marrying it up with the rest of the jaw, cutting bits away with my scalpel as I went and always making sure the edges lined up and that opening it wouldn't put too much pressure on the dowel in the middle which would serve as the hinge.
Once I was happy with the fit I gently applied a few pieces of masking tape to the top jaw so the unbaked clay wouldn't stick to it, set the bottom one in place and finally inserted the skewer. I wanted to bake the whole thing with it in situ so there'd be a nice snug fit and no warping of the clay. Almost as soon as it came out of the oven, I moved the jaw a few times to ensure nothing had become attached, and all was well. Once everything had cooled, I dismantled everything and sanded down any rough edges I'd missed before adding some final detailing in milliput, and covering up the entry points for the skewer.
While it had been baking, I made her some limbs from wire and pipecleaners. I found some very fine, dense pipecleaners in my stash, and thought they'd be perfect with a little work. I mixed up some liquid latex and black acrylic and once the hands were bent into shape, painted it on, allowing the latex to soak into the fibres and form a leathery looking 'skin' which also helped give the hands some shape.
I did this well past the elbow joint, but no further, as the upper arm was going to be covered in fur fabric and wouldn't be seen. Before the latex cured I added in some bits of real feathers to give a nice transition between the skin and future fur fabric. As latex can be quite sticky, even after curing, I brushed on some talc, which dulled the colour but stopped any residual tackiness from occurring.
The feet were made from thick copper wire that I glued and twisted together, then covered roughly with hot glue, again to form a kind of skin. I wanted the toes to retain some flexibility, but not as much as the hands, as they'd be weight-bearing more than anything else.
I promise you'll look better soon Kiri! 🤣
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| 'whyyyyyyyy?' |
Before I added the fur/feathers, I padded out her body and limbs with wadding to give it a better shape and to stop any rough wires from poking through.
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| It's not visible here but I also made her a tongue from painted leather. |
I still had some black fur fabric from when I made Inky that kind of resembled emu feathers, so that was particularly handy. It's absolutely horrible to work with though, as it sheds like nobody's business and looks and feels super cheap and nasty, but in this instance it worked out pretty well. Trimming it is incredibly rewarding, but you end up with bits of it EVERYWHERE afterwards which isn't quite so much fun. (especially when they end up in your lunch. 😩)
I made a pattern out of tissue and masking tape, then handstitched everything together. All the fur on her head however was glued - most of it still on the backing, but everything at the front was trimmed off and applied like hair wefts direct onto the skull so I could carefully blend in the textures.
I didn't have any suitable real feathers to use for her tail, (I was far too impatient to wait for some to come from ebay) so whilst listening to a super cheesy YouTube documentary on Bigfoot, (serial killer/cults/history/mystery documentaries are my usual go-to background noise when crafting for some reason, lol) I made her some out of black craft foam; scoring the shafts with a pointed wooden tool and snipping the vanes with scissors. I brushed on some metallic blue eyeshadow and sealed them afterwards to give it a hint of that iridescence you often see on black feathers. Obviously I couldn't do that for the rest of her plumage but I thought it was a nice subtle touch and helped make her tail (which I hot-glued onto her tailbone) look less like craft foam.
I'm not hugely happy with her eyes as they aren't even and makes her look massively derpy so I may repaint them in the future. Everything else I am super duper pleased with, and she's an absolute joy to photograph. I honestly think she's my favourite of all the art dolls I've made, and considering how complicated she was to create, she really only took a couple of days to put together as for once, everything just seemed to fall into place without any issues.
She wasn't described as wearing any clothes, but I thought she'd look super cute in a poncho. XD
Kiri may be small but she can more than handle herself in a fight!
...especially when armed!
She's an absolute joy to photograph and I cannot wait to do some stopmotion with her soon!
It's hungry work being an adventurer!
Honestly, I love her so much it's unreal.
(I definitely need to redo her eyes though, she looks a little freaky tbh XD)
So yeah, that's it for now; I think Caleb and Frumpkin will be next on my list, so we'll see how that goes. I originally wanted to get proper 1/6th scale headsculpts for them all, like with my Skyrim inspired figures, but seeing as these two are completely custom sculpted, I think I'll end up doing the same for the rest for continuity's sake. I'm really not confident in my abilities to sculpt convincing faces but well, it'll be good practice if nothing else I suppose!
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