Sculptor Makes Human Skeleton Out of Metal Wire and Clay
This guy showed off incredible sculpting skills when he deiced to sculpt a human skeleton out of metal wires and clay. After working on the armature to create a base frame, they added a layer of green-colored clay to begin the sculpting. They then added more highlights and details to the sculpture using their advanced sculpting tools, colored the artwork, and finished their work.
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Transcript
00:00Hi, my name is Alex, and in this episode of Magic Missile Minis, I'm going to be showing
00:05you guys how to sculpt a skeleton miniature for Dungeons and Dragons.
00:10Alrighty, so first things first, you're going to want to make your armature, and you're
00:14actually going to make the armature the same way you normally would for any other miniature.
00:20Cutting out your piece of wire, folding it in half, and then going ahead to twist out
00:24a torso and start making some legs.
00:27If you're interested for a little bit more depth in how I do these, you can check out
00:30the video in the card, which is my overview of how to sculpt miniatures.
00:34So once I have given him his arms, I can pose him up and I can put him on one of my little
00:41bottles that I have that I use as sculpting handles.
00:45Before I add any green stuff, I make sure that I file down the armature to make sure
00:49that the green stuff will actually stick onto it.
00:52And then I add on a layer of green stuff, making sure to keep it as thin as possible
00:56since we are going to be sculpting a skeleton after all, which don't tend to be particularly
01:01bulky.
01:02Since I want this guy to be holding a spear, I add a little bit more green stuff and add
01:06a wire onto his left hand.
01:09So with the armature finished, we can finally start actually doing some sculpting.
01:13And the first tip that I will give for anybody wanting to sculpt a skeleton or anything really
01:18is to look up reference.
01:19This will help instrumentally in making sure that you know what bones need to be where.
01:24With my reference up, I can start sculpting the basic shape for the chest as well as the
01:28pelvis.
01:29And one thing I would suggest if you're sculpting a skeleton is don't get too caught up in adding
01:34every single little detail.
01:36Like here you can see me sculpting in the pelvis.
01:38I'm doing a fairly rough shape and that's honestly going to serve for what it needs
01:43to be.
01:44So don't get too caught up in adding every last detail, especially for a miniature like
01:49this where you're probably going to want to have a handful of these skeletons that you're
01:53going to be using in an encounter or something along those lines.
01:57So once you have the basic shape for the chest and pelvis, you can start adding a little
02:02bit more green stuff onto the limbs.
02:04And what I'm focusing on as I'm sculpting the femur bone is making it kind of concave
02:09with the center being fairly thin in comparison to the ends, which actually kind of have this
02:14rounded off shape that connect to the pelvis as well as the lower leg.
02:19And once you're sculpting the bones that are in the shin, I don't actually know what those
02:22are called.
02:24You mainly want to try to get that detail of the fact that there are two bones there.
02:30Once I've got the legs finished, I then go back to the chest that we had made and start
02:35adding the ribs.
02:36These are actually not that difficult to do.
02:39They're simply indentations into the chest that we had just made.
02:43One thing that you might have to play around with is making sure that you don't move the
02:48entire chest around too much as you're adding these indentations because it can be pushed
02:52around as you're adding all of the ribs.
02:55It is also important to keep in mind that you're going to want to add a detail for the
03:00sternum and the ribs as well.
03:02But I shouldn't have to tell you that because you should be using reference and so you should
03:06see it.
03:07Have I told you guys to use reference enough yet?
03:10Once I finish the torso, I add some more green stuff onto the arms, mimicking the same process
03:15that I did for the legs.
03:17After that, we can move on to work on the skull.
03:20And a cool little trick that you can do to create a good sculpting handle for small details
03:24like this is you can actually take the blade out of your craft knife and then stick some
03:29wires in there and then start sculpting on that rather than trying to do it on a separate
03:35piece of wire or whatever.
03:38And I found that to be really, really helpful for this kind of stuff.
03:41But as you're sculpting this guy, your main focus is going to be sculpting in the eye
03:45eye sockets as well as the temples.
03:48But the rest of the details we're going to go back in and add after it's set.
03:52I then want to start working on the spear, so I quickly chop off the extra wire that
03:57I've added and cover that with a thin layer of green stuff as well, adding a little bit
04:03of texture to that, some lines in it to make it look more like wood.
04:07I then go back to the skeleton and add the spine, which I'm adding now that everything
04:12on the miniature has set.
04:13And so I add a long piece of green stuff running along the spine and start sculpting
04:17in all of the different and start adding all of the little details for that, keeping in
04:22mind that I want to have the sections corresponding to the ribs that I've made before and add
04:30little bits jutting out from the parts where there aren't any ribs down towards his lower
04:34back.
04:35I then also want to make this guy a shield, so I sculpt that onto a separate miniature
04:41base and add all of the details like the wooden texture of the planks and stuff like
04:46that.
04:47And while I'm doing that, I also make the spearhead that I'm going to add to the spear
04:52later on.
04:53Now that the green set has set on the skull, I go back there and start adding the final
04:58details, primarily adding the nose for the skull as well as the upper and lower jaw.
05:05And one thing to note that I actually decided not to do is I don't actually give him any
05:09teeth.
05:10That's something that I feel like you could add, but it's a fairly fine detail that honestly
05:15won't be missed, especially again, like I mentioned before, if you're trying to make
05:20like five of these guys, that's a very small detail that'll take a lot of time that you
05:24can just omit and it doesn't detract from the miniature in any way.
05:29Once those details have set, I take it off the craft knife that we were using as a sculpting
05:32handle and cut away at the wires that are now attached to the skull.
05:39And then I add a little bit of green stuff onto the model and I can attach the skull
05:44to the miniature itself.
05:46Also being sure to do a little bit of sculpting on the back of the neck to make that go into
05:51the rest of the spine a little bit more seamlessly.
05:56I also almost forgot to actually add the collarbone, so I quickly do that and technically you should
06:01probably do this before you add the skull, it'd be a lot easier, but I add the collarbone
06:06and then I go back and I also add the shoulder blades as the kind of final details of the
06:13main body of the skeleton.
06:16I then go back and cut out the shield that we had made and actually add a little bit
06:20more green stuff onto the other side to make a couple of the details and then while that
06:25still hasn't set yet, attach that onto the arm.
06:29And then I go back to our base and I take off the spearhead as well, attaching that
06:35onto the spear itself.
06:38And then to finish off the miniature, we can add the feet and the hands and this is actually
06:42a fairly difficult part and I would suggest using a combination of your flat sculpting
06:48tool to get the basic shape of each of the bones for the hand, but also using either
06:54a craft knife or a needle because to really sell the look, you do need to kind of make
06:59the same concave shape that we've added for some of the other bones, but obviously on
07:04a much smaller scale.
07:06I also add a little bit of cloth onto this spear to kind of mask where the arms kind
07:13of fused in with the spear shaft.
07:16Adding these wraps on different parts of the miniature can be a really great way to cover
07:20your mistakes or to add definition and separation between two details that might be mistaken
07:25for one another.
07:27With the spear and hands done, I now quickly go and add the feet of the miniature following
07:32a fairly similar process, but the feet themselves are a lot easier to do since they're generally
07:38in less complicated shapes than hands are.
07:41And with that detail added, our miniature is finished and here you can see a little
07:45turnaround of the finished miniature once I've added a base and here is the miniature
07:50with a layer of primer.
07:53And then I go ahead and give this guy a quick paint job.
07:56For this skeleton, it's not particularly complicated.
07:59I go over him with a base layer of a off-white, generally having to do two coats of thinned
08:06down paint to get full coverage since white is obviously a difficult color to get coverage
08:11on.
08:12And then go over the shield and the shaft of the spear with a brown.
08:16I also add a slightly brighter white onto the wrapping that we had put over the shield
08:22and then a little bit of metallic paint going over the spear head.
08:26Again, I'm keeping this fairly simple because the whole idea for these guys is you're probably
08:31going to want a handful of them and so you're not going to want to take a ton of time to
08:35paint each individual mini.
08:37With that in mind, I do some quick dry brushing over all of the wood and then go over that
08:42with some Agrax Earthshade, a dark brown wash for those of you who aren't familiar with
08:47it.
08:48And I go over almost all of the miniature with this Agrax Earthshade to get the dark
08:52shadows into all of the details and create a good bit of contrast.
08:56It also helps with the skeleton itself because it kind of makes that kind of dirty, grungy
09:01feel since it is like an undead creature.
09:03It's not like a pristine skeleton.
09:06However, as you can see me doing here, I actually add a black wash onto the metal parts.
09:12And then I go over the skeleton himself and add a quick dry brush to bring out some of
09:17those highlights and make it not quite so dark.
09:21And to finish the mini off, I do a little bit of dry brushing to bring back those highlights
09:25after the wash.
09:28I hope you guys found this video helpful.
09:30I noticed that a lot of you were requesting this project, which makes a lot of sense.
09:35Skeletons can seem very daunting to make, especially at this scale.
09:38Since skeletons are so skinny and there's all these tiny little bits to them, it can
09:41be difficult to kind of figure out how to approach this kind of a project.
09:45So I hope this gave you guys some helpful insight.
09:48But anyways, thank you guys so much for watching this video.
09:51If you enjoyed it, please leave a like, leave a comment if you have any questions, hit the
09:56bell, subscribe, all the good YouTube stuff.
09:59It really helps for a growing channel.
10:01But with all that out of the way, thank you guys so much for watching this video again,
10:05and I look forward to seeing you guys in the next one.