The making of the pig-face orcs that never were

Orcs WIP

I made several attempts to summarize some thoughts on orcs miniatures to go along with some pics of the WIP orcs, but each attempt digressed into such a rambling mess of ideas I have on the business of making of miniatures as a whole that I again opted to let the pics do the talking for me.

Here are the bare conversions:

I used brown stuff/green stuff mix to help them keep their shape a a bit. I learned to use a wire armature under any extension of green stuff, no matter how small. Drill a hole in the face and stick in some wire. Just sticking on a blob on the face and forcing it into submission works, but with a wire it's easier.

I had open pics of the old illustrations for reference while I was sculpting. I always use reference. You'll notice that pig-face is a bit of a misnomer, actually the snout is fairly different than a pig. The first figures I did were more piglike despite the reference I was using but eventually, on the leader type and brown-skinned solid gold line orc I started doing them a little more like the illustrations.

Priming my conversions is usually one of the most satisfying moments of a project. Before priming the different-colored parts make the whole appear jumbled unless you concentrate, whereas after I usually get what looks like a unified whole. It's a bit of a moment of truth too, so whatever the result, good or bad, you get the satisfaction of dispelling the mystery and or anticipation.