New Druusch

Sculpted by Seth Nash

When Kev approached Seth Nash to do some figures for our ranges, he gave him a brief to work to. No images just text! Kev wrote:
The Druuschaan Drones measure in at about 30mm tall. I want this guy to be 40mm tall, and slightly hunched over so that if standing upright he'd be 45mm tall. With arms attached he'll be about 25-30mm across.
Combat trousers and boots. Bare torso, with riveted armour plates in random places, getting more frequent the closer you get to the shoulders. Veins bulging and popping out all over like Arnie on crack. Grinning skull head, like the Stryker I'm sending you and he'll have the Druuschaan Nanite factory/pod on his back like the drones and Stryker do. Torso pose is to be striding slightly forward right right foot in front and feet about should width apart (quite wide if he's as bulky as I'd like). Stitches, exposed muscle.... all that gribbly stuff.
Separate arms, hopefully with ball and socket joints (I've got ball bearings if you need them) with the join hidden by the armour plates as mentioned above. As the tech is grafted on more on these areas, I'll need them to have more mechanical parts. Tubes in and out of the skin, cooling fins sticking out, armour plates etc etc. Make the arms slightly over scale, I want this guy to look like a gorilla when made up. No hand or forearm on the right arm, just the weapon joined to the flesh below the elbow. One right arm needs to end in a 5 barrelled minigun, the other with a flame thrower. I'd like the left arms separate also. One I'd like to have an open fist, but make it big. The other arm I'd like to end above the elbow and have three mechanical tentacles in place of the lower arm, about 25mm long and flailing about.



Introduction

Seth Nash mainly sculpts in Fimo.

For this reason his images of the WIP of the new Druusch show a very different process to how Kev builds up his figures using a green/brown stuff mix.
When using 'time-setting/chemical reaction' putties you have a limited time to work the putty to form the shapes that you want to see. You build up the figures in layers.
With Fimo the process is very different. You can still build it up in layers but you have lots of working time as Fimo only hardens when baked in the oven. This means that you can rework every detail until you are satisfied with the results rather than remove layers that have hardened if you arent happy with them.
As he is very experienced with Fimo, Seth only bakes his figures a couple of times. He gets the rough shape of an area, then goes and does a different bit of the figure, then goes back and sharpens it up a bit, then goes to do a different bit, then comes back to the area for a final clean up. Something that he can only do because the whole figure is wet

As well as a different sculpting process, Fimo also has to be cast differently.
Greens go into a vulcanised rubber master mould and then the tins are used to make a vulcanised rubber production mould.
Fimo has to be initially cast in a silicon mould where it 'sets/cures' rather than is heated around the figure (It melts in a vulcanised mould which doesnt make for nice-looking figures!!). The tins from this process are then used to make a vulcanised rubber production mould.
Steve Eserin (TFT Industries) did the initial silicon casting for us. Recognised as one of the best mouldmakers in the country even he had a few problems casting this big guy. The problems were due to the size of him.
When the large amount of metal that makes up the body was cooling it pitted and pulled away from the mould. This meant that some detail could be lost if we werent careful at this initial stage. To resolve this, Steve is going to resource and use a different type of white metal for the next batch of masters that has a slower cooling time and less shrinkage which (hopefully) should resolve this.

We had to be careful in choosing masters for the next stage of casting due to this shrinkage problem, a highlighted problem area was the left shoulder strap where it joined the body
Silicon moulds are very fragile and Steve only got 20 spins out of the master mould before it deteriorated. This means that although we have tins, we have no master mould for this figure.
Cost wise, Silicon master moulding works out about double the cost of vulcanised master moulding

Thanks to Steve for his excellent moulding and of course to Seth for making the figure. Seth currently has the original sculpture back to rework and convert it for us.


Stage 1

Seth says:
'anyway here's some shots at the point of downing tools tonight, halfway through working up the muscle groups.
Everything is very sharp and basic at the moment so dont stress :) ......god it's weird doing wip shots for another sculptor, especially when you work around the figure erratically like I do.
the main thing that I want to check with you is that I've got the right ammount of bulk to the figure, oh and if it's crap or not :)
anyway enough from me, expect full muscle tone shots at some point on monday'.




Stage 2

Seth says:
'I've put a rough head on to check the size and position for it, other than that I gave him a robo foot, ( if you're not too keen no stress, I can put his real foot back ). Also put a rough bit of skin tone on his torso so that you can see how it will work out when he's fully skinned.
if he's all cool so far then i wont bug you with shots again until the torso is finished, unless you want them of course :)
to answer a previous question that I nearly forgot about he's a fimo/sculpey mix. I use it for bulkier figures cos its nice to work with in large areas, still moulds fine :)




Stage 3

Seth says:
'right, today you should see him beginning to look half decent today, so i'm over the dread bit of doing wip shots :)
Nothing on him is actually finished yet though, except for the right foot!!
I'm actually really enjoying him, It's fun to do really big hulk style anatomy ......and gribbly bit's, I love gribbly bits :)






Stage 4

seth says:
'o.k. day four :) the torso details have been tightened up a lot, we have most of the shoulder armour in, and robo foot is looking a bit more presentable. the obvious change is in the fact that he has arms!! I started with minigun ( bit obvious) and tentacle whippy thing.
is this pose o.k. for this set of arms? I can change it for the flamethrower and fist combo. Looks like there will be two heads instead of one, cos the head for this pose obviously couldn't be turned straight :( might put a bloody great metal jaw on one if that's cool with you. ( i will try too keep it un-orky looking )
the eyeline jpeg is just there so you get an idea of what he looks like when he's staring at you....well when he has a head anyway :)




Stage 5

Seth says:
'okely-dokely, here he is ready for his first bake....YAY!!
if there's anything that needs changing, now's the time to tell me. Hence the big shots :)
I put the head under-mass thingy on there too so that you can get an idea of how big his head will be.'

Kev says:
'One thing that springs to mind is his right foot. I think it might need the Spat type boot the troopers have. It looks a bit plain compared to the rest of the miniature which is super-detailed.
The minigun needs a magazine. Something long and flat against the barrel like Geezer and the Stryker have maybe? Nothing too awkward though because I don't think it wont fit in. I'm willing to be proved wrong though.
Do you think he might need something around the tops of his trousers? Even if it's just a seam to show where the cloth is folded over and stitched and some empty belt loops, at the moment it looks slightly unfinished.
Oh, and the whip looks a bit thin too :-)
Everything else is hunky dorey.'




Stage 6

Seth says:
'right then here's the shots of him pretty much done, he will require some rivets in the morning and he could do with a slot too :)
the gun is a bit more droopy than it should be cos the blue tac wasn't holding very well :(
In total he's currently six parts, three tentacles, two arms, one torso with head, although that can be separate too if you want :)




Ready to cast

Seth says:
'here's the dissassembled sprued shot.'





The finished figure