Supedb work either way!
But tell me - You model in 3d and then output(!?) to wax/clay???
So is the picard action figure we see here 3d or is it clay?
I’m confused… take that as a compliment!
Cheerz
Dd
That is so frigen funny, I love it! Looks exactly like him. 
Hey Scott!
That Picard rocks! Love the sculpt, especially the fleshy feel of that rib cage. You can really feel the skin stretching along that underlying tissue.
Just curious about your rigging process. How complex of a rig do you usually make when you repose your character? Do you go into weight painting and corrective blendshapes?
Cheer from Canada
-P
Hey everyone,
Sorry for the delay I have been out of state for the holiday : )
The figure in the second photos is an actual wax which was articulated from an output of the original figure. I believe a lot of the original sculpt was lost in the process of articulating in clay… Next time round I may build the articulations in 3D and output the parts. We did this before and it worked extremely well but it was a FAR simpler figure than this.
Im glad you guys dig this : ) I have some more physical sculptures output from ZTools to upload as soon as the man in command says OK 
Mr.Monster: Thanks man! This guy went through several artists after me so i cant take credit for much beyond the initial figure sculpture which was mostly lost in the articulation. I have an output of the creature maquette pictured above I just need to get shots of him so I can post here : ) The really neat thing is that we can go from output to clay and continue the sculpting process. This allows an artist to create a base form duplicate it x times in clay and experiment with endless wardrobe, armor, or skin texture variations on it. fun stuff!
Koncept: I usually rig level 2 or 3 in Maya since it seems I loose the least in detail and form when I approach it this way. Others on my team swear by rigging level 1 or using a ZSphere figure to pose from the get go.
dzip: The figure pictured it in wax. It was created from an output of my original sculpt, cut apart and articulated. This was a test of concept and I think in the next iteration we will simply make all the articulations in 3D. I love clay tho, dont get me wrong. The likeness is not mine but sculpted at Gentle Giant before I arrived. We have celebrety heads laying around everywhere here : P
elfufu: Thanks man! As for the dude in the first pic its some urchin who showed up here and just wont leave…
Scott, you say the picard is made of wax, what kind of wax is that, it would have to be very hard to hold up to posing, why make it in wax instead of resin or something like that? is this carved with a crc machine or layered up like 3d litho machines?
Hi Spaceboy,
The wax is a special blend created at Gentle Giant. It is similar to most carving waxes in that it holds fine details very nicely and may be polished to a machined surface.
The reason we use wax is that you can have more freedom when creating an articulated figure. If it were made from plastic then carved away and drilled to create the moving parts it would be harder if you needed to add on to the figure and smooth back down. By building up in wax the piece can be taken to a high finish, molded and then reproduced in plastic. This wax is very hard and must be worked with steel tools and an electric waxer.
The machine that prints it is an Invision printer which extrudes mm layers of build materials one layer at a time. These are molded in silicone and reporduced in wax to be further sculpted.
I hope that answers your question : )
Scott
Hi Scott,
The process you describe is interesting. A different approach could be to take the 3d model into a CAD program and section it into seperate parts using ‘advanced cut’ tools and then have the various pegs and holes needed for assembly booleaned in. These separate parts could then be exported as stl’s and printed.
The resulting printed parts would be incredibly accurate, and need little in the way of final finishing.
This would also give you more control over the look of the final model.
Then again it looks pretty good how you did it here 
Beautiful model, I like the mechanicl/organic contrast.
hey SS810,
what program do you use for booleans? We usually only get good results from SLToolkit but I have tried maya (hopeless) and 3D Max. I was thinking of giving Modo a try since Lightwave always did fine with Booleans if I recall correctly.
The process you describe is the ideal but the boolean is the bottleneck I am dealing with at the moment.
Thanks!
Scott
PS Do you do work with CNC machines?
Just to add to your question you can buy a wax called “azbro” wich is commercially available and is similar to what scott is speaking about. Most of the recipies are proprietary but this one you can buy and is a good wax: www.azbrowax.com
You will need to invest in a wax pen though… you can get one from foredom for approx. $189.00 or so…
Claudio
Here is an update to the maquette. Still waiting to get photos off the output from this piece, he stands about 6" tall. This is the ZBrush sculpt with armor by sephirothsinic and myself.
Cheers!
Attachments
Hey Scott
Good to see you back… this is rocking work…you sculpted the armor directly on the base mesh or joined it seperately ?
5 stars… will be waiting to see to more updates
Nice work Scott, good to see your still having fun.
Awesome work, 5 stars from me.
Scott this guy is cool,I especially like that you made his body look just like mine.
:lol:
Yeah, lovely work mate The pose is excellent.
Hey scott, do you mean you sculpt the charater few lines above in zbrush, you 3d print it and get a final articulated pupet?
Thanks guys! Im glad you like it!
Monstermaker: Thanks! And thanks for spending all those hours posing for me. I hope I did you justice : )
wckedsunny: A combimnation of both but mostly just seperate elements. i will post more details on that later.
jason, black crane, angelstein: Thanks guys!! I am glad you like it. I am having fun : ) This weekend I will put up an image of the plastic version.
Cheers everyone!
Scott
EDIT sorry i missed you Seb. Yah that figure was output, cast in wax, then articulated but I have also articulated in the computer then outpuut parts that fit back together. The hard part is just getting good solid booleans : )
I never realised the Picard figure was REAL either! That’s superb man. Do you design action figures for a living Scott? This is something that greatly interests me.
hey Angelstein,
Yeah, at Gentle Giant we do action figures, colectable busts, creature and character design for nextgen games as well as modeling for said games and film. Its a pretty diverse company : )
I prettyy much pinch myself every day I go to work since I must be dreaming : )
S