Taking a little break from the horses, I've been working on another of my Skyrim figures recently - Aeryn. I had her 90% finished a few months ago but I was never happy with her head, so I ordered up a replacement to customise a few weeks ago.
As this post is going to be pretty huge, here's a quick preview of her final form so you at least have something to look forward to...XD
While I haven't played through much of the game as one, the Khajiit race in Skyrim is one of my favourites, so it was inevitable that I should eventually get round to making one in 1/6th scale.
Another post I've been meaning to share for months, this one introduces another of my motley cast of Skyrim characters. He's one of my favourites to play with, and I've had great fun coming up with his backstory and personality as I've gone along.
I'm still working on her first photostory (my muse has disappeared again, typical) but for now, here's a bit of a costume update.
When you last saw her, Skara was kitted out in a very basic shirt 'n' trousers combo which, while fine for escaping a burning town and whatnot it just wasn't suitable for everyday adventuring. Her kit needed some work too, so...
First to be tweaked was the costume. I use a lot of custom mods on my copy of Skyrim for the PC and by far, my favourite is -this armour- set I got from the Skyrim Nexus. I didn't want to copy it completely, just get the feel of it so I tweaked things rather a lot.
Here she is in game... (oh and I have a tumblr for all my screenshots now too, -here-)
First to be made was the leather breastplate. In hindsight, I should have made it a bit differently but hey-ho, I'm pleased with how it turned out nonetheless!
I used some tooling leather I had lying about and using a picture of some celtic knotwork I found online, began to carve it out. As often happens when a sudden bout of creative inspiration occurs, I found myself entirely without leatherworking tools so I was forced to improvise. In place of a punch, I had a mini screwdriver and my 'mallet' consisted of a bottle of water. Oh and did I mention that I was doing this not at my desk or in a specific working area but right in front of the PC with my parents trying to watch a film in the room almost directly below? Yeeeah, they weren't particularly impressed with the noise I was making but once I'd dampened the leather I couldn't just stop so they had to put up with it! :P
I'd never really carved leather before and aside from the tremendous noise I ended up producing alongside it, I really enjoyed it. The runes on the back piece say 'shadow' in Dovah script - an apt phrase to apply to a sneakthief archer I thought - and the symbols alongside relate to Skyrim's Thieves Guild.
I didn't have anything to treat the leather with once it was finished so after I had finished carving it I dampened it down and formed it to Skara's body so it would hold its shape once it dried, then I used a combination of acrylic washes and hand cream to keep the leather supple.
Oh and the hat is just fine leather from a charity shop purse (£1, bargain!) with some fur fabric. I had a little scrap of rabbit fur I was going to use instead as it looked nicer but I couldn't get it to sit properly. I've trimmed the fur since the picture too.
Next up was the maille. I'd attempted to make my own using tiny jump rings but gave up after only a row and a half as it was incredibly fiddly so I had to use my backup plan - metal mesh from an old purse. (another charity shop find) One one side it has flat metal pieces but the other side can double as chainmaille if you squint a bit.
Either way, it was only a couple of pounds for the bag so I thought I'd better give it a go. The 'rings' are a little too big and I have another purse of the same material in a smaller size that would look better, only they're in a much more gold/bronze colour which isn't really what I wanted so I'll just have to put up with it for now until I can find some smaller stuff.
I made her a nice cosy looking overtunic out of some £1 shop socks the other day and oooft, I HATE sewing sleeves! I sewed one inside out at least twice and messed up the other once but now that they're done I can't say I'm too disappointed although now that I look at photos I realise I made it woefully too short. Bugger.
Oh well, she probably took them off someone else anyway so we can just say that it wasn't her size...
At some point in her story (which I will commence writing again once this is posted!) she will make her way to the small village of Falkreath which is one of my favourite places in the game. All the guards carry shields with the individual Hold's sigils so I thought it might be nice to make her one too as I tend to use a shield with her and a sword. I made it from balsa wood, with superglue/bicarb for the metal parts. The sigil I drew from a reference picture and ended up having to repaint it several times as it was so fiddly!
She got a sword too, though it's only temporary as I made it in a couple of hours from a wooden coffee stirrer and I'm not confident it'll last long, haha!
(on a strangely related side note, it sits in the above picture on the blade of a German WW1 bayonet that we found recently in my grandpa's garage. This is odd in many ways but mostly because he wasn't around in the First World War and even in the second he served in India on the trains so we have literally no idea how he came by it and neither does he!)
I'll be taking her and Inky down to Dumfries with me this weekend for a week's holiday so I'll be taking lots of photos, weather permitting!
It's taken a while but Skara, (in her current costume at least) is finished!
Aside from the base body, everything you see here I made from scratch myself.
I based the top on the Miner's Clothes from Skyrim, but I used a lot of artistic licence, likewise with the weapons and things. I had an old top made from cheesecloth that I'd cut up for craft fabric ages go which was perfect for this. I'm usually useless when it comes to sewing but I somehow managed to make it look reasonably good. The fraycheck I used on the edges stained them a bit but I like to think it adds to the well worn and weathered look. Once the shirt was all sewn up and had the edges sealed I soaked it in a bowl of strong tea and water to make sure it didn't look too new and bright white.
I stuck some copic markers up the arms so it would dry to shape but alas, one cap must have been open a little bit as it left a mark on one shoulder. :/ I didn't bother trying to get it out as I thought it would just pass as some accumulated dirt or something. XD I painted some of the tea around the bottom of the shirt and the ends of the sleeves as they were the places most likely to pick up wear and tear.
The leather I used for the belt had a really horrible finish to begin with; far too shiny and new looking so I took a bit of sandpaper to it which made it look a lot more worn. The pouch on her belt is made from the fingertip of an old leather glove and opens and closes using a little toggle I made from carved styrene to emulate bone or ivory.
Her dagger is based on the iron and steel ones in game but I simplified the design a lot. When I get back to college in a month or so I'm hoping to use the lasercutter so I can make a few of the really fancy swords with carved out details but for now, simple is best.
The blade and guard are made from 1 or 2mm styrene (I can't remember which, sorry!) and the grip is just wrapped with thread and covered in a layer of superglue to hold it all together. The scabbard for it was cobbled together pretty quickly so I'll probably remake it at some point.
Her bow is a little small but I didn't have a long enough section of wood to make a proper longbow. As it was, I used a wooden coffee stirrer instead! I soaked it in very hot water until it was pliable, cut notches in the ends and strung it with tooth-floss. It sounds like a very bizarre choice but it looks and feels like sinew and does actually work!
(and yes, I did test it out. :P)
She used to be an adventurer you know...until, well... XD
It was sanded and stained with Games Workshop washes and finished off with some matte varnish.
Now no archer worth her salt could go without arrows so I made her a few!
The heads are all individually cut out of styrene (again, another thing I'd like to make with the lasercutter is some more realistic arrowheads.) and the flights were all hand glued and fletched with thread. (which was incredibly fiddly as I kept gluing bits of feather to myself rather than the arrows!)
I thought I had a better range of feathers than I actually had, hence why they're all different sizes and shapes and colours. In my headcanon for Skara, she starts off in Skyrim as a bit of a scavenger so I like to imagine that she's picked up these arrows from all over the place, hence the variety.
The quiver is all leather, stitched together with thread. I struggled to find good photographs of all the associated straps and how they attached to it so I improvised a little.
Her pendant has a real glass gem in the middle, the rest is Fimo clay painted silver and glossed with varnish with a couple of seed beads alongside.
Given that she was wearing Miner's clothes, I thought she might benefit from having a pickaxe on hand...unfortunately I didn't bother looking up a reference picture to work from because I thought I remembered what they looked like...which I clearly didn't as I forgot that one side of the axe was wider at one end...oh well. XD
The handle is a scrap of dowelling I had lying around with some chips whittled off, the blade is styrene and the bit round the top is of all things, leather!
Painted up you can't tell though. It's probably way too small as well but never mind, if nothing else it can be a useful prop to have in the background at some point.
Inky got herself a tack set too! Seeing as I had already strayed from making exact replicas of Skyrim stuff, I saw no harm in making her stuff a little more unique. (Given the kind of world Skyrim is set in, I find it highly unlikely that everyone would have had exactly the same kind of weaponry and whatnot. :P)
I have never liked the default Skyrim tack, especially the bridle with the little spikes and things so she got a simple snaffle bridle minus the noseband and throatlatch instead. Normally I make working buckles for everything but these ones are just for show as the whole bridle just lifts off. I had left a hole going through her mouth so I could use an actual mouthpiece for the bit - it only goes in a cm or two but with a little sticky wax, it stays in place quite nicely and looks far more realistic than if I just stuck it to her face temporarily. The detail at the browband is just thread.
Her saddle is a lot closer to the original game tack, though I added a few touches of my own.
The bedroll is made of thick felt and I made the saddlebags from scratch out of fine glove leather. The fur covering should have been a little longer but I only realised this by the time I'd glued it together!
I took them out for a couple of photoshoots this week so stay tuned for a big picture filled post!
I wish I could say I've been overwhelmed with work and things but alas, not exactly. Our work at college is still at the 'research' stage so I have yet to make anything modelly and with regards to my home life, I'm afraid to say that Skyrim has taken over. ;D
(with music like this are you surprised?)
For those not familiar with it, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is one of the best games I've ever had the pleasure of playing and I would highly recommend it to anyone. It is set in a vast open world and you have more or less complete freedom to play as you like, from the look of your character to the weapons you wield and who you side with. Plus, there are dragons and hairy cobs, what more do you want? ;)
Here's the trailer if you need further convincing...
Anyway, because of its awesomeness, I have logged over 300 hours playtime (yes, I AM that sad) and have built up quite a backstory and personality for my main character, Skara the Breton thief/archer.
I wanted to immortalise her in 1/6th scale with the intention of doing some photostories and snazzy photoshoots out in the countryside so I bought a suitable figure on ebay and started making her clothes and things. (but that's for another post I think)
ANYWAY, the crux of this post is that in addition to her armour and weapons and whatnot, there is one very crucial element that was missing.
Her horse. (awful screenshots are awful, sorry!)
Say hello Inky!
You can't actually give them names in-game unfortunately but to me, this lovely big fat cob will forever be a mare called Inky and I wanted Skara's 1/6th equivalent to have her too.
Regular readers will know that I sometimes make poseable fantasy creatures from wire, sculpey and fur fabric but as I'd never before attempted to make a real animal, I thought it was about time I gave it a try so here's how I did it!
To start with, I drew out the basic outline of what I wanted to make. Using images from the internet, I was able to scale her to roughly the right size. Normally I'd have printed out things but as our printer died a death a few months back, I have no access to one at home so I just had to improvise.
Once I'd got the basic proportions right (ignore the awfulness that is that drawing - it was just to give the idea!) I started sculpting the head. I used scrunched up tinfoil to create the core, then wrapped it in florist's tape and sewed the eyes on.
The sculpey was layered on afterwards and built up until it started looking horselike. I wanted it to look realistic and yet stylised as Skyrim's horses have a really homely look to them that I like.
I made a hole through the corners of the mouth before baking which enables me to give her an actual mouthpiece. This will be very useful when it comes to making tack for her as I won't have to worry about using sticky wax or the like. I'm particularly pleased with the nose as well.
The lack of ears was intentional as I really wanted to try something I'd been pondering over for a while - ball jointed ears!
Once baked, I hollowed out two small earholes just small enough that the bottom of a plastic drink stirrer (the ones with the ball at the ends) could pop into.
To my delight, they not only fitted perfectly but had a good degree of movement to them as well.
The plastic rods were cut down and sanded til nearly flat, then glued to leather ears which would then be glued to shape once the rest of the horse was assembled. These were later covered with black felt to hide the posts.
^ Grumpy Inky is grumpy. :P
Now that the head was completed, the feet were next. I needed to make these quite big and flat to support the weight of the doll as well as to balance out the head visually. Luckily for me, most big fat cobs have enormous feet anyway so it wasn't too hard to get away with. In hindsight I should really have weighed them down a bit more but hey-ho.
I started out by drawing the footprint, copying it and, using the superglue/bicarb method, attached my wire to them before building up the hooves in Sculpey.
I didn't give her shoes because they don't appear to have them in the game and besides, they don't really have many paved roads in Skyrim and any fast work is done by riverbanks or on dirt tracks so I think she'll be fine without them. :P
So far, so good!
A quick coat of paint and some temporary hair made me so happy - she looked much better than I'd ever imagined she would!
Next, I painted her feet (which turned out a little too dark so I may revisit them at a later stage) and hot-glued them to the twisted wire legs I constructed in accordance with the paper template. I always attach heads and feet in this way, wire to wire as I feel it is a stronger way to attach them than having the clay parts sculpted directly onto the wire. It also means that if something were to go horribly wrong, I could remove them without destroying the entire piece.
The armature was made up of multiple strands of wire (liberated from my grandpa's garage so no, I don't know the gauge or type) twisted together.
I went through rather a lot of glue sticks in my glue-gun for the parts I wanted to stay rigid but I think it paid off.
Next to go on was the wadding. I layered it and then wound thread around it to keep everything together and to build up muscle mass. This next picture does make her look like a mule but I assure you, it's just dodgy perspective! XD
I sewed some wooden craft sticks to her back as I wanted to strengthen it, given that she'd be expected to carry a rider, tack and an assortment of kit in the future. I'm not sure if it made much of a difference but it certainly feels more substantial than it would have been if I hadn't done it. I also hot-glued in a weight inside the hindquarters to counteract the weight of the head so that she wouldn't fall flat on her face. XD
With each layer of wadding, she began to look more like a horse...
...until finally it was time to add the furrrrrrrr!
Now I don't claim to be an expert in pattern-making because I most certainly am not and Inky ended up with plenty of patches where I had to add extra bits in but hopefully it's not too noticeable.
Anyway, I made up some basic patterns using some old felt I had knocking about (I think my mum used it to make me a Robin Hood costume when I was about five so it's been here for donkey's years) and gave it a go.
Unlike my other dolls, I went for el cheapo fur fabric instead of the more expensive and higher quality stuff. This was partly because I was skint and would rather pay the £6 a metre for this rather than the £25 a metre I'd need for something else...and also the fact that it was the only long pile fur fabric the right colour in the shop. XD I know I could have ordered some online but I'm lazy that way and besides, I was going to trim half of it off anyway so it didn't really matter.
With the first layer on, Inky closely resembled a Musk Oxen rather than a cob...
...but with some trimming...
...she turned back into a horse!
Her mane and tail are mohair - the mane was sewn to the neck after one side of fabric was on and the other half hid the seams nicely. The tail on the other hand....god, what a nightmare!
I'm used to hairing Julips which are 1/12th scale and more often than not, have to trim the shanks down to scale - with this however, I needed as much length on the hair as possible! Unfortunately for me, the hair just wasn't co-operating and after faffing about with glue for days I ended up resorting to the glue-gun again. As a result the tail isn't nearly as full or long as I would have liked but at least it's not all falling apart again. It is based on a dock (which I unfortunately made too low, argh!) so I can adjust it if needed. It was at this stage that I realised how massive a neck I'd given her but by then it was too late to change so I'm afraid she's just stuck with a super cresty neck now...
I painted her eyes and gave her a beard - a strip of the fur fabric glued to the underside of her head.
I then coated her head in PVA glue (being careful to cover up the eyes, fur and mohair) and doused her in black flock so that the head wouldn't look out of place with the fur. It's a little lumpy in places but as it's just held on with PVA I can easily take it off and redo if it starts to annoy me. I flocked the outside of her ears too but because the insides were felt glued to the leather they didn't need doing.
I also gave her a little star because although they don't appear to have them in the game, the forelock obscures that part of her head so to my mind, she may well have one, we just can't see it. :P
With a really basic halter made from shoelaces, Skara (with temporary Barbie head) has a sit...
...then it was outside for some shinier photos.
Her balance still isn't perfect - she's definitely more stable on unstable ground for some reason - but she can do a fairly decent trot...
...and a rear, with a little help from some shrubbery. XD
She may not be a flashy warmblood type but her jumping's not half bad either...
Here's a photo to show scale with a 1:9 Breyer Traditional and a 1:12 Julip Cob Stallion just in case you were wondering just how big she actually is.
So yeeeeah, I'm pretty pleased with her all things considered and although there are a number of things I wish I'd done differently, I think I'll leave them til my next attempt...whenever that may be. :P
My next task will be to make her some tack and get Skara sorted out so watch this space! ;)
