Celowin's Corner: Milestones are Important

Yes, I know My Sculpting Skills are Bad

A few months ago, an alcoholic friend celebrated five years of being clean. I knew him when he was at his worst, and while we don't see each other all that often, I've tried to be supportive of him with his struggles against his demons.

As part of that, I modified and painted a mini for him. Playing off the idea of "clean" I took Privateer Press' "Blighted Bather" model and did some modifications. I filed off all the blight, to turn her into just a slightly-angular-looking human. Originally she was holding a beer stein, which really didn't seem appropriate, so I drilled through it and had her holding a banner instead. I made a base texture using a GreenStuffWorld rolling pin.

Unfortunately, I was a little rushed to get it done (story of a lot of my painting, lately), and didn't take a good photo. The best I have is this:

Isn't the Rubber-Shredder Adorable?

The banner reads "5 Years Clean" and the base says "August 2019."

Around the time I painted it, another friend told me that he would be celebrating 15 years of being sober in October. I figured that was even more worthy of celebration.

I had the idea for the modification almost immediately, but then I kind of went into a painting funk. By the time I got around to working on it, once again, I didn't have a lot of time to get things done. Or maybe that is just an excuse I'm telling myself.

For this, I started with another Privateer Press model, an alternative sculpt for Ashlynn D'Elyse. I bought some plastic bottles meant for doll houses (because, you know, teaching young children that a house needs beer is good parenting) and used my extremely limited sculpting skills to put a cartoon-y face on the bottle.

She originally had her left foot on some stone stairs, but I wanted her stepping on the bottle, so I removed them. Unfortunately, in doing so I ended up cutting off her left foot. I sculpted a replacement, but it is *really* shoddy. Fortunately, that isn't a focal point of the model. I then had to add some cork to raise her up enough to make the pose natural.

I think the model originally had an energy-backpack or something, but somewhere along the line I misplaced the part. I filled in the divot with some more putty. Again, it doesn't look very good if you look closely, but it is good enough to pass from a distance.

There are some other problems with the model; there are some pretty huge glue blobs, if nothing else. However, I actually am really proud of how far I managed to take my highlights on the flag and cloak. They show up well from a distance, which is something that I always struggle with.