What is Slug Wizard?
Slug Wizard is an annual open community miniature competition and fundraiser with a focus on the weird and wonderful. The event is open to all and free to enter. It is organized by the talented Bryan Ruhe. The competition generates a selection of wild miniature models and so much more. The competition generally opens mid-year and closes in the fall.
- Check out the details for the competition here
- Competition Instagram page: @slugwizards
Hunters are on the trail…
For its third year the Slug Wizard competition expanded the setting by asking participants to create creatures and characters that might hunt the squishy Slug Wizards.
- Check out all the great entries for Slug Wizard 3 here.
About This Project
I have flown to the ends of the earth, from the Crystal Sea in the North to the great sanctuary tower in the South. Do not be so foolish to think that I do not see you -take care little ones lest you stray too far from under your leaves and rocks and become my prey. – Bertolli Corax, Knight of the Avian Order
This year the theme had me thinking about what animals might be predators to slugs in real-life. I settled on the concept of a crow who was part of an ancient order of bird-knights, which I named the Avian Order.
Some new challenges for me on this year’s entry were the size of the sculpture (my largest greenstuff sculpt to date), and sculpting and painting more realistic materials and textures (patinaed metals, worn leather, bird feathers). Below are some final shots of the competition entry.
Process Work
My design process for these projects usually starts with some loose sketches to quickly work out a few ideas. I was interested in designing a knight’s helmet that could realistically fit on a bird.
For this model the base was constructed first out of rocks and tree bark glued to 4mm styrene sheet. The bird’s body was massed out of aluminum foil and steel wire and then glued to the base in the final pose.
After bulking the body out a bit more with inexpensive hot-glue I skinned the whole bird with a layer of Greenstuff. The wings, tailfeathers and beak were roughed out with wire and glued into place.
This is a view of the model when it was close to the end of the sculpting phase. The wings and tailfeathers were filled in with layers of flattened aluminum soda cans before being covered in Greenstuff. My sculpting process is both additive and subtractive – in between sculpting, when the putty has cured, I will shape the model with coarse sandpaper and utilize a scalpel to get sharp corners and detail.
