We were midway through constructing epic Keggy, and contemplating scrapping the whole thing as … frankly the beer keg was a bit ridiculously big
What do you mean the beer keg is too large?! Child, are you Mad?! There is no such thing as a beer keg that is too large – just too empty. My Brewmasters will be proud to carry that keg into battle! Now finish the sculpt!
Our first problem is that when I try to fit the hands, I find that his arms are set to hold a narrow Krielstone. I’m going to need to widen them
Noting the way his arms slope inwards, and the width of the pewter at the elbow, I figure it’ll be easiest to cut along the line between the bicep and the forearm, bend it out, and rebuild the muscles in the gap.
So out with the jeweller’s saw and cut towards the elbow
And carefully bend them outwards to give forearms that are wider set and roughly parallel
As this will greatly weaken the elbow, I need a little pinning, so I run a rod through each forearm as shown and deep into the upper arm and body
On both sides
Use flush cutters to cut it flush with the forearm and a needlefile to file it flat. (I later use greenstuff to smooth out the remains of the pin)
Next we need to line up the keg so we can figure positions for hands, forearms, etc. Remember the name of the game is dry fitting, NOT glue first ask questions later. So a hole in his back (Et Tu Autumnstone)
A pin into the keg (Glued in as solidly as possibly – remember that’s just a green-stuff skin over Al Foil)
Dry fit and make sure we’re happy
Now it’s time to fix those elbows. Force some green-stuff into the gap. Keep cramming it in so it will encase the copper wire. Then just smooth out in line with the existing musculature. You don’t need any special sculpting skills for this bit – as the lines are already there for you to follow.
I’ve lately been using colour shapers for sculpting at the recommendation of peach and spud. I’m finding the grey chisel and cup point the most useful, and it’s really revolutionised my sculpting. They’re prohibitively expensive, but even for just gap filling, I’d get a grey taper and chisel. They are magic.
And just like that, we’ve got a working set of arms again.
I don’t have a photo that didn’t come out blurry for the next step. I dry fitted the keg onto his back again, and used poster-tac hold his hands in position on the keg. Remember that in this pose, the thumbs point backwards. I then took the keg off his back, and drilled through the cut wrist into the barrel. I drilled into the bearer’s wrist and ran a pin through the palm of his hand, his hand, and into the forearm. I left the pins long
Theoretically these pins should now match the holes in the sides of the barrel
And after an insane bit of jiggling into position, it turns out they do. I had originally planned to have the bearer and the keg separate until after I’d painted both of them, then pin them together at the end. With three pins to maneuver into position, this was never going to happen, so out comes the superglue, and the keg and bearer become one.
And the fit doesn’t look too bad…
At a distance. Up close though,
The hands look awkward, and there are gaps where they meed the barrel – despite my best efforts to glue them flat (and to glue my fingers to the barrel)
To repair the fingers, we need to make them a bit longer with a bit of green-stuff. Luckily, the bearer has the stumpiest fingers in Imoren
We take a few molecules of green-stuff and place it where we need it (really, the amount you use here is ridiculously tiny)
Smooth it into the barrel, and use a mechanical pencil tip to create a fingernail. Repeat for all six fingers and two thumbs
One of the issues I have with this carrier is that it looks unwieldy and unbalanced. I feel he needs to use a sling to support the back of the barrel. I pull out some picture framing wire for rope
And make a sling for the back of the barrel
Drill and pin it into the girdle and belt at the front
It kind of needs a leather sling at the back to support the keg rather than just rope. I had a few goes of sculpting it on the barrel, and put simply it was a world of epic fail.
I ended up making a separate piece and gluing it onto the barrel, then green-stuffing the edges and remains of the sling.