Orc Warrior Flat
A scratch built flat bust sculpted and painted in 2008
My second foray into sculpting a demi-ronde flat, this time something a little bigger than the Sparky figure, a bust of an Orc.
I didn’t want to do something cloned from a GW model, or from their lore, I did want to do something recognisably Orcish though.
The head would be the most important bit, and this is what I concentrated on designing prior to making too firm a decision on anything else.
I made a rough sketch on some paper, refining this eventually to a design that I liked and thought would work. This was then traced and reproduced onto a small section of plasticard, with further refinements made with a soft pencil.
Photo #1 shows the face having been sculpted. I used Magic Sculpt for this and made the eyes out of steel ball bearings. This might have been where I went wrong, in that the ball bearings set the scene for having the bust develop from what I initially intended to be a true flat.
Not that I’m unhappy with it being a demi-ronde, just it kind of took me off in a different direction.
So, the face was sculpted first, the incisors of the teeth being the first thing to be made, then the face formed over them, and the tusks being added last in that area.
He does look rather odd without a nose a this stage, but that would soon be rectified.
I added flat sections for what would become the shoulder armour plates and sculpted a foreshortened neck and the chest and shoulder muscles.
The suggestion that he’s not a happy bunny with a forward thrust head and a “rip yer face orf” expression was what I was going for.
Photo #2 shows the nose starting to be formed. I did the nostrils first, and then added the upper bridge of the nose between the eyebrows.
I’ve also added the belts that hold the shoulder straps in place on his left shoulder and across his chest, detailing the edges to look worn and cracked.
Photo #3 shows further additions of putty, the line of the nose now in place and making more sense of that area, and a shorter belt added to the right shoulder. The buckle on the chest is made from soft lead wire substitute and then the end of the belt added from more putty.
Photo #4 leaps forward a lot in the process, the shoulder armour being added, and now the belts begin to make sense, and I added ears and the hair gathered into a topknot.
Worthy of note is the alteration of the line of teeth, adding some that look a little more threatening. Small earrings are added to the bottom of the ears, and a second set of lines added to the forehead above the eyebrows.
I’ve cit away the excess plasticard too, because I wanted to add some extra material to make the master sculpture deeper so that a better mould could be made.
Photo #5 shows one of the early castings of the bust, it needs a little cleaning of the edges, but the detail has transferred well from the master to the cast.
Photo #6 shows the example I painted. Looking back, some of the shadows – especially on the body could have been made darker, and a cast shadow from his right hand shoulder armour onto the skin would have worked well.
The non-metallic metals on the earrings and the topknot rings works OK, as too does the NMM on the metal shoulder guards and belt buckle.
To display the flat, I used a plinth turned on its side and the front supported with a couple of ball bearings ( that repeatedly dropped off at the most inconvenient times I might add ), and a rare occasion where they stayed in place is shown in this photo #7.
In the final picture – photo #8 - I’ve tried to show how thick the demi-ronde is, although I’m not so sure it’s worked that well. At it’s thickest the “flat” is about 7mm, but some areas like the shoulders are only 1mm.
To the purist, it isn’t a flat, but I don’t mind that really, I’m just happy with the finished piece, and even happier that it gained me a Gold Medal at Euro Militaire in 2009.
I’ve sold a fair number of these, and it’s really nice to see one or two that have been painted.
The flat is still available in the Bash Models range, and can be found from seller ask0040 on eBay
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