Krampus

Festive Freaks

Let's hope you've been nice this Christmas...

A couple of years ago, I painted up a rather muscular version of Santa to go on my mantle piece at Christmas.  The miniature is Santa Boris from Heresy Miniatures (I urge you to go and buy one of these minis, they are a joy to paint!) and I made a little display for him a 'make your own Christmas ornament' container from a craft store.

Hench Santa!

Even though I was really happy with Santa, I decided that Christmas could get lonely for the big guy and so I decided to make him a friend (nemesis)!  I'd ben wanting to sculpt the Krampus for a while, so making a companion piece to sit on the mantle next to Santa seemed like a good opportunity!

Krampus - the OG Grinch

Krampus, is a popular central European mythical creature often depicted as a half-goat, half-demon monster that is effectively the other side of the coin from St. Nicholas, punishing naughty children by carrying them off in a sack and beating them with a birch tree branch.

He's a real looker

If you look at older images of Krampus, there are some very notable themes.  Normally a dark furred monster with a long tail, horns and tongue.  Although I wanted to make him recognisably Krampus, I was also happy to make some slight adjustments so that he looked a bit more imposing (especially as he would be standing next to beefcake Santa!).

I often wonder whether the Grinch was inspired by the Krampus myth

I started by sketching Krampus as a more muscular sullen creature. I wasn't keen on the licky tongue (it felt a bit too comical) so I left it out of my design

Sculpting Krampus

I didn't capture the whole sculpting process, but I did take a few pictures from the mid-point of the sculpt.  I measured out a rough armature to make Krampus roughly the same height as Santa but hunched over.  I made the armature from aluminium wire and the vast majority of the miniature was just sculpted in plain old Greenstuff.

I think I nailed the pose I wanted pretty early on while I was roughing out the proportions and musculature

Right from the off I was keen to give him a stooped posture as if the sack was really weighing him down!

Instead of a whip-like goat tail, I decided to go with a more reptilian one which would drag along the ground behind him

The hunched posture makes Krampus look a bit world weary which was exactly how I feel a Demon who spends the happiest time of the year punishing naughty children would be!

I kept comparing sizes to make sure the two miniatures went well together

The Yin to Santa's Yang

I decided early on that I wanted Krampus to be wrapped with chains, hooks and blades. I imagine that Krampus would use these on anyone that resisted his festive judgement...

Adding to the posture, I sculpted the face to look old and worn

The crossed chains across Krampus' back imply that he is as much a slave to his fate as a punisher 

The hook hanging from Krampus' belt felt pretty sinister!

I bulked the tail to make it feel heavy and ponderous

I was pleased with the shape and heft of the sack - I wonder how many naughty children are inside...

Finished Krampus

I kept to the established black fur for Krampus although I did give him lighter horns and hooves

I deliberately added some matted snow to his legs and tail to tie him into the base

The rusted silver chains contrasted nicely with his dark fur

Carrying his birch tree branch, Krampus looks ready to punish some little brats!

The duet everyone was asking for is finally complete!

A Dragon Egg!

Something Eggy (and Dragony)

In my last post, I showed off the Book Nook I made for my niece Lizzie - this time I'll be documenting the gift I made for my second Canadian niece Anastasia. 

As Anastasia loves Dragons, I decided to make her a Dragon egg that she can hatch revealing a tiny baby dragon!

Kinder Eggs have improved since I was a kid

The Egg

Making an egg shape from scratch is annoyingly difficult - even more so when it needs to be rugged enough to be handled and cracked open without destroying it!

I decided to use the Worbla / Isopon combination technique that I pioneered during the Imperator Titan build as it allowed me to shape complex compound curves by heat shaping the Worbla over a jig (in this case, a Christmas pudding pot) then reinforcing it with the resin filler.

I really need to invest in some heat proof gloves for working with Worbla as it gets a bit... burny.

I didn't bother documenting these first steps as I've covered it several times in the past - once I'd sanded the entire surface to the rounded shape I was looking for.  Next, I added more surface detail with Worbla - it has a really nice nobbly surface when heated and cooled which was exactly the texture I wanted!

I wanted to make a stylised surface like the dragon eggs seen in Game of Thrones as they quite visually interesting compared to a smooth modern bird egg.

Daenerys 'WHERE ARRR MY DRAGGENZ?!' Targaryen and the pine cone-esque dragon eggs I used for reference!

To make the surface detail, I cut Worbla into scale shapes (with a circular cap for each end), heated them and carefully moulded them to the surface. Worbla is pretty sticky when heated, so it adhered nicely to the porous surface of the resin filler.

The scales were placed in overlapping circles around the surface of the egg using more heat to ensure a good seal

You can see the surface texture in this picture - it's almost like thick animal hide like a Rhino

The egg fully covered with scales

  I intentionally gave the egg a flat hollow bottom in anticipation of future shenanigans. I then carefully cut the egg into two pieces along the scale joins so that it could be easily opened and closed.

Cutting the egg in half need me to use just about every cutting tool I own. I probably should have found a way to perforate it in advance of the final layer. If I ever make another one, at least I've learned a valuable lesson!

The Nest

In order to make the egg nice and secure, I wanted it to sit on a base which I could dress as a sort of incubation nest.  As nobody has ever seen a Dragon nest, I felt I could get away with some artistic license - I started with a thick piece of Foamex which I carved into a rocky shape, then added lots of additional rocky shapes with more Foamex until I was happy with the overall look.

I made sure to leave a roughly egg shaped area in the centre to ensure a good fit.  I also created plenty of channels in the rocky surface as I could be adding some LED string lights later on.

The basic rocky base shape carved in Foamex and spray undercoated

Test fitting with the egg

I carefully laid the copper LED string into the rocky channels after painting the base

More test fitting to make sure that the egg fit over the LEDs

LED test - they're very bright at this stage - the light will be diffused once they've been covered

The Baby Dragon

I started by measuring out the size of the egg to ensure that the Dragon would fit inside it.  I then sculpted the basic shape of the dragon over an aluminium wire armature.  I used Super Sculpey as it's very quick to work with and after an initial baking, I had a good solid shape which I could add detail to.

The rough shapes are there even if it does look a bit like a chicken!

I started covering the original sculpt with a 1:2 Greenstuff / Milliput mix, bulking out the musculature and face shapes

At this point I didn't add much in the way of detail besides some scale shapes along the spine to keep everything even

I sculpted the basic face but left the surface detail for later

Building out the ribs and pectoral muscles

This putty mix is pretty tough, so coating the whole model made it much tougher

While bulking out the muscle groups, I also refined the pose of the legs slightly

Now that I'd hardened the whole sculpt, I could start adding detail.  Before I did this, I lightly sanded the entire surface to improve adhesion for adding detail, avoiding the risk of future delamination

I worked details into the surface with more putty, refining the face and starting to add scales

This carried on from the head right down to the tip of the tail.  It took several evenings to complete the detailing stage as you have to wait for the putty to fully cure overnight to avoid squishing detail when handling it!

I decided to sculpt the wings separately so I cut them off, laid them down on some grease proof-paper and made a basic shape using a bat wing as reference

I added some light texture to the surface of the wing membranes

The Wire lengths on the wings were there to make indents - once the putty was part-cured I removed them and folded the wings into shape

I glued the wings back in place once fully cured and put some more putty over the joins for added strength

I added a nice big sail to the dragon's tail for a bit of added interest

I'd sculpted some talons and claws which were set in place while I sculpted the final details

You can see in this image that some of the scales were etched into the surface rather than sculpted as they didn't need to be too defined

The back and neck spines / scales were the most prominent areas so got a lot of attention

The finished baby dragon after around 15 hours of sculpting

I sprayed the whole model white then gave it a really thick coat of red ink

Once the inks were dry, the scales and details really showed up nicely and made for a good base coat

I painted the while dragon in reds and oranges apart from the wing membranes which were purple

Once I'd finished the rest of the dragon, all the claws and spines were painted with gloss black and highlighted with grey before receiving a gloss varnish coat for extra toughness 

What a little cutie!

Finishing up

Once I'd painted the egg and the base, all that was left was for me to seal the baby dragon inside the egg.  I carefully wrapped it in shredded orange tissue paper and... found that the egg didn't quite close properly.  This was a highly irritating issue and I realised that I had accidentally increased the size of the Dragon by adding the sail on its tail.

Luckily I already had a solution.  I had procured some neon orange splash gel from Greenstuff World to fill in the LED channels on the rocky base.  I was a little disappointed when I realised that the stuff wasn't self-levelling, but there wasn't much else I could use as I needed something that wouldn't bleed through and the viscous splash gel is about the consistency of spreadable margarine.

Once I'd covered all of the LEDs (the splash gel is semi-transparent so diffused the lights as mentioned earlier) I used the remaining splash gel to close up the gaps in the egg.  My original plan was to use a thin layer on the inside to tack the egg together.  Now, the membrane was thicker but functionally the same.

I added some nesting material (lichen) and white tufts to the rocks for some extra detail and voila!

The gap in the egg looks 'yolky' but once it's been hatched, the extra splash gel can be removed, allowing the empty egg to be closed up again

The little black drawstring bag has the light control box inside

All lit up, the lava base looks pretty cool!  There is a pulse setting on the lights which looks great!

I was quite pleased with the nest bedding - it hides the connection to the base and looks nice too!

I even included some more lichen bedding so that the Dragon can 'sleep' inside the bottom half of the egg!

And finally, here's a little video of the Dragon Egg with the lights in action!