Giant Monster (Two-headed Dino) WIP

I'm in the process of creating a couple of monster sculpts so I can try Ganesha Games' Mighty Monsters.

I bought the game ages ago but never tried it out due to lack of figures.  As the holidays and a major life transition (hopefully a slow-down) approach, I'm finding myself with more time.

I had planned to finish writing up my 1/600 jet game, Our Space Age Air Force, this weekend but got distracted by a new(ish) sculpting technique.

Anyways, the pic above shows the first of two creatures I'm hoping to finish by week's end.  The two-headed beastie is next to one of my scratchbuilt future tanks, which is about 33mm long.  I'm trying to keep all these little (giant) monsters to around 60mm tall.

The goal was not to try for perfection but instead for rapid prototyping.  The plan was to use readily available and CHEAP materials to knock out maybe 5-6 creatures.  Still, after finish my initial few stages in this first guy's production, I couldn't help myself.  I had to make it more complicated and try to do a proper (but still crude) sculpture.

Next to 60mm humanoid for scale

I start out with twisted aluminum foil for the armature.  I use foil at this scale because it's insanely cheap, strong enough to support itself (but barely), can be cut with normal scissors, and when twisted has a lot of tooth for putty-like materials to grab on to.

Of course my putty of choice is Durham's Rock Hard Water Putty, which I use to make a ~40mm base.  About three spoonfuls of putty makes around 5-7 bases.  The putty cures enough to handle in about two hours; during this time I'll twist up the foil into my monster armatures.

Cyanoacrylate glue fixes the armature to the base.  The foil figure then gets a heavy brushing of Elmer's Wood Glue (Interior water-soluble version) to give it a little more rigidity.

Once the PVA glue dries it's time to bulk out the figure.  I mix Durham's with a few drops of blueing liquid to give a nice green color, just so I can see where I'm working better.  I'll add just enough water, using a spray bottle, to make a chalky, sticky paste about the consistency of icing or peanut butter.

The paste then gets globbed on at a few strategic locations, and then spread around using a slightly wet paintbrush.  This technique allows me to "paint" the flesh on the creature, which is super quick and lends a nice flowing, organic look to the figure.

I add putty like this at least twice, allowing at least an hour, preferably two or more, between layers for curing.  Then I brush the figure with two heavy coats of wood glue with just enough water so it spreads.  I'll wait about an hour for the first coat to dry but wait overnight to ensure the second coat gives me a nice plastic shell.

The miniature still looked very crude after this second coat of wood glue dries, so I decided to coat it with a thin layer of polymer clay.  The polymer clay doesn't stick well to the figure, so I first rub a pre-sculpting "slime" on.  I take some basic Sculpey and mix it with a small pee-sized amount of petroleum jelly.  The resulting slime is incredibly sticky and gets smeared onto the sculpture.

Once the whole figure is covered in slime, I thoroughly wash my hands, then get the "glamor-shot" outer layer of polymer clay ready.  I use a mix of Super-Sculpey and various colors of Premo, in this case yellow.  I simply roll the clay out into paper thin sheets and press it right onto the figure.  The previously applied slime ensures the outer layer stays in place.

Ideally I would finish covering the whole figure before detailing but as you can see in the last picture, I deviated from that good practice and started working on the right leg detail.

I hope to continue on this figure tonight and see how far I get.