How To Sculpt Fur Pelts Using Green Stuff

hey guys i'm going to show you how i sculpt fur pelts for my space wolves um here's some examples so that's what we're going for um i use green stuff for all this work and i use just a straight one-to-one ratio mix for this particular sculpt i already have it mixed up here you really want to mix it good keep your hands wet while you're mixing it i just have a little jar of water next to me that i dip my fingers into while i'm mixing it and we're going to be using the fur plate mold from green stuff world this thing totally changed my world when it comes to sculpting uh fur i was never happy with what i could come up with by hand here's an example of some fur i did by hand uh that piece in the back and there's just some it's like i can't get it past that point i haven't tried in a while because i'm so used to this fur plate but what we're going to be doing is we're going to use the fur plate as a starting point and i feel like that's what's so useful about this tool and so what's really great about it is if you look closely at it there's a grain to it there there's no part of it's it's not just a um like if you look at this one that's chainmail it's just a pattern and we don't want that we want you know kind of a grain and motion and all that kind of stuff to happen when you're sculpting fur so take this guy for instance you want to pay attention to that grain and remember the spots of the green stuff or of the mold so you can create that motion that goes around so we have the wind blowing this way so the fur is pointing down and it's also going back this way this guy here he's like looking off into the distance but i wanted all that fur to be pointing backwards and just making him look a little bit more stoic so you definitely want to pay attention to that when you're putting the fur on the model with how it's facing so we're going to go ahead and get started and one thing to note when i do the like this we're going to be putting the fur on this guy his hair is already cured um and we're just going to be sculpting around it normally i do the fur first and then like in in for instance with this guy i did the fur i let it cure and then i come back in and i did the hair on top of it so i wasn't smooshing it all around together and stuff like that so i'm gonna take your green stuff and oh for tools i use toothpicks and sometimes i use this sculpting tool for fur because i really like the shape of it i never use an x-acto knife because i feel you can maybe this will work for you but i just don't like putting those sharp edges into it i like more of a softer rounder edge and this i used to go in and sort of pick out and fluff it up and give it more of a more volume and depth there's one more thing that i use um i took a paintbrush um protector and i just took a knife and carved out the inside so it's sharp and i use you're gonna i'm gonna use it on this particular piece but i use this to cut the hole out around where it's going to go around their neck and you'll see where that goes and how that works so we're going to cut off a little piece pull a little piece off and just sort of we're gonna get it in the roundabout shape that we want i want this i want most of it to be on his uh in the back here and maybe a little bit up front so i'm just going to keep that in mind when i'm doing this so i'm actually going to go for a little bit more and you can always redo it if you don't like it you can pop it off the next day or just pull it off when you're working with it i'm going to pick out a place on the i want the all the fur to be going backwards this direction over the top of the model i want that that you know like the wind's blowing his hair back and it's blowing the fur back so find a place on the plate that looks like it's matching that and the really important part with this is you want to put a lot of water on the plate because it'll really stick down in there and you don't want that you really can't put too much water um so we're going to get that wet and we're going to get our fingers nice and wet make our shape and we're just gonna push it down in there and i've want another thing that i like to do is i like to let my green stuff set up for about half an hour before i do this i don't like it super super mushy and i've even waited as long as an hour or even an hour and a half um where it's almost too dry but you can really like force it down in there and get it to look the way you want it to look and then when you're messing with it you don't have to worry too much about marring up the surface so another important thing that i do is once it's to this point i don't touch it with my fingers anymore i will use a toothpick to come in and really lightly pull it out of the sides of the mold i'll work the edges up and you'll see that by doing this it's going to give it volume and if we're making dents in it the toothpick is sort of the shape of fur so we don't really have to worry too much about that um if we were to start pulling at this with our fingers it we're just going to screw it all up you can kind of try to pop it out by moving it but i like to just sort of work it out with a toothpick and if you pull it out of the mold and you don't like the way it looks it's just as simple as mixing it back together and and doing it again so there it is i think that's pretty good um you can see some places where the toothpick dug in but we're gonna refine this we're remember we're just using the mold as a starting point and so i've got this nice shape and like i said the toothpick pulling it up in that direction it gives it volume so it's important that it's not completely flat i feel like that really adds to it so i'm gonna pick it up just sort of slide it off onto the table flip it over and uh i'm gonna use my little pusher tool and find the spot where his head's going to be and i'm just going to push it in and pull away maybe hold it with the toothpick sorry the camera's a little out of focus because it's it only works when i'm in that sculpting area but you get the idea so now we have a spot where his head can go and we can use that to make it easier to work with so at this point i'm just going to lay it on the back and i like to use spit on the toothpick you can use water so if it's not in the frame it's in my mouth and it's just a matter of working it in there and i probably could cut a bigger hole like maybe even do two concentric circles that are next to each other but i'm just gonna i'm gonna work with this and see what happens and what i'm paying attention to right now the important part is i'm gonna try to make contact in the places around his neck and on his shoulders and that's what i'm going to work for because i don't want to start stabbing at it from the top and marring that texture i'm going to come at it from the bottom and push it up against this neck see how that's pushing in there hopefully you can see that but i'm pushing that in from the back so i'm not touching the top and i'm slowly forming that seal up against the back of his neck and his shoulders and the green stuff push it around here and now i'm gonna start pushing the fur up and i'm gonna it's gonna be a rounded i don't want it to lay over the top of the backpack i want it to be like a collar almost you can and you know if you want it spilling over the back go for it that's cool but like i'm gonna start pushing it down and it's gonna start rolling and creating this really big voluminous kind of like per collar thing [Music] now this will get trickier and trickier the longer you wait with your green stuff if it's fresher it'll stick easier the longer you wait the less stickier it'll be but the easier it'll be to kind of sculpt and get the right shape because you won't be screwing up the form so it's definitely a balance you have to figure out what you like and what works for you um yeah i'm just i'm paying attention to that main shape that i want and looking at it like i'm kind of holding it back and looking at it and saying like am i happy with that it's a little tall um and i'm just gonna keep working with it i like it when it kind of fills or spills down the side here so i'm gonna start pushing that in place [Music] and i'm going to start flattening this out a little bit and i'm paying attention to where the toothpick is pushing into the fur i don't like you can see each individual chunk of fur and that's what i really like about this mold and i don't want to start pushing into those i want to push next to them and it's going to accentuate those and bring them out even further [Music] with this and fold it back in now this is where i'm going to use this metal tool because i'm going to start pushing a little deeper and i want that skinnier edge because i don't like when i look at it from the side i don't like how tall that is so i'm going to start pushing it a little flatter but too much volume is usually better than not enough so we're just going to keep working with it and see what we get and i like to think about the edge while i'm working with this and thinking about how the paint is going to react and where my washes are going to lie and just you know when i look at it am i going to be confused by where the fur ends and where the hair starts or where his backpack is and where the hair starts i want it to be i want it to look really intentional and separated i'm slowly starting to pick out individual fur chunks and i'm kind of just like working it [Music] down [Music] starting to like it a little better it's looking a little bit more natural um i like i definitely like the way it looks from the front oh it just looks like this great big thing but so what i'm i'm unhappy with these marks here they look like marks from a tool and not like fur and so i'm going to try to blend those together a little bit better maybe give it a like use that some of those techniques that we learned with the beard and the hair where you put your tool in motion before it touches the part so you're not making static lines [Music] don't exist in fur and hair and stuff you want motion and movement and fluidity i'm starting to like that a little better it was just a matter of not doing hard indentations and presses but more motion and moving the tool in the direction that i wanted the fur to move into and giving it little curves [Music] and moving those lines how i want them to move further defining these fur chunks i'm really excited to start painting some of these because i haven't this is the i've been sculpting so much that i i haven't painted any of this uh green stuff work that i've been doing um the only painting i've done is on marines that i've just put together stock that i'm happy with i just they're not mine you know they're not my style so i'm curious to see what this is all going to look like painted up so pretty pumped about that and i honestly i'll sit here and work this for it's kind of therapeutic um like last night i i sat there with a piece and just talked to the buddy on teamspeak and we sat there and chatted about stuff and i just let my mind wander and my hands just kept going and i was working on a piece for probably two hours just the same the same pelt and at the end i was just like man that probably the best one i've done and i didn't really even think about what i was doing i was just kind of in the zone and feeling the flow [Music] and now i'm i'm really liking it i think it looks cool um it's a little sloppy in here where it meets his neck so i'm gonna try to define some of that maybe go back to the toothpick and if you and don't be afraid to use this as an armature for more sculpt um maybe you like the shape but you're not happy with the texture and so maybe you come back in like you could smooth all of it out or push it down in so you have something to sculpt on top of and you could come back in the next day after it's cured and just put a whole nother layer of it on top i did that with a big pelt i did on the back of a dreadnought i after i did it it was one of the first ones i did and i realized oh i put the the fur is all facing the wrong direction um from the wind that i wanted uh and so i just i left it on there and just did another layer on top and it i think it looks even cooler because it's it's more it's just bigger and badder you know [Music] yeah you don't have to get all this stuff in one shot you can put it on and side you want to do something later and add to it like i'm not really i'm not getting this not getting what i want here and i feel like if i keep working it what i'm what i'm doing is i'm pushing it back further into his neck and i need more volume there and so i'm going to leave that and just put another piece in there blend it in so i'm going to start breaking up this edge a little bit pulling back individual pieces and i do it by pushing in on either side of the fur chunks and like working them back and forth to give them a little bit of motion and that'll help break up that edge and make it really interesting looking whenever you go to paint it and you can uh you can set this aside go have dinner or whatever and come back and in an hour or two and and keep working at it sometimes the fur is better to work once it's i feel like that's the best method with um with these pelts is you let your green stuff set up for half an hour you get it on there and you make you sculpt it into the shape that you want that you're happy with and then you set it aside uh for an hour at least and then come back and then start actually really nitpicking all the individual fur chunks because then it's just easier and more forgiving um you don't have to do that i just feel like that's the [Music] well you could get an assembly line going start your first guy put the pelts on all of them by the time you get to the 10th guy or whatever then you go back to the first one and start tweaking and go down the line but who likes to do that right [Music] doesn't everybody just work on one model at a time [Music] still trying to break up these tool marks over here i don't know where i got this tool i ordered it ages ago it's probably just some really common if you typed in sculpting tool probably pops right up with a kit [Music] but and i find it really helpful when i'm sculpting to always have a point on the model where i can hold it's just like painting really fine details you want to brace your hands together some guys they um they put their elbows on their knees and their palms together and that's how you really do fine details like eyes and stuff where you can then start just doing tiny little motions um and that's what i do when i'm sculpting i'll really find a place to brace you have to be careful so many times i've screwed up a model where i've done like a wolf tooth necklace on the back or something and i'm sculpting this and i'll just smush it all into the back but i haven't done that in a while so surely i've jinxed myself yeah at this point i'm just i'm just nitpicking it you guys got the idea um i'll go i'm probably going to come back in i'm going to mix a little bit more or i don't need to i already have it mixed up but i'm going to push more in and and go back into that corner because i don't like how uh i just don't like the way that looks in there i'm gonna do another piece around his head maybe even come back down on the shoulder and just sort of blend all that in but i'm pretty happy with how it looks from the front i think that looks pretty cool yeah thanks a lot for watching check out my uh instagram i'll put the link below and let me know how you guys like it so all right peace

Channel: Valbjorn

Views: 38,794

Keywords: sculpting, miniatures, valbjorn, greenstuff, milliput, space wolves, astartes, gamesworkshop, forgeworld, kitbash, miniature sculpting, sculpt, wargaming, 40k, warhammer, space marines, sculpting miniatures

Id: FCr644572Dg

Length: 21min 27sec (1287 seconds)

Published: Thu Oct 01 2020