Base of the Arkvenger - the build up

posted by roman, jarhead, kong


Aloa.

The Arkvenger is my actual main project and i do him for the most generous and patient person i know as a comission, my good old RwW. There will be a complete Step by Step article about me struggling and the forthgoing on this model. When the Arky is finished the journey is over and i will collect everything i had done so far on this model and do the big article write up.

Yesterday i did build up his base and want to share my thoughts on it with you.

My main thoughts in his base has been something epic. I want to create something really epic and got inspired for sure by the God of War game series. I was thinking about making a cast of my own foot to create a big statues foot he was standing on, but somehow this would be very discusting and not really easy to do so i was searching the www for another solution and came upon a hard plastic male hand holding a female hand inside, kind of real life sized small hands (i found those on ebay). The plan was still the same, the Arky on top and the hands of this statue bringing epicness into the scene. I had some hard time finding the right socket size and tried several sockets by sockelmacher.de. I finally came up on one more simple but right in the fitting size and measure. So it was time to start.

Everything i thought might be needed was prepared, a good friend and some red wine at my side and i was ready. Next you can find a shot of this preparation.

Most time i start a base on such a clean socket i start with destruction. Destruction brings rebirth and ideas to me so i went to destroy everything. Not really everything, but i took a moment to kill one edge of the socket and cut off a finger of the statues hand. I then checked different placings of the hand at the socket and went for a straight line in the base. The hand was then glued at the wood socket with superglue, knowing that there will be much stuff around to keep it locked inside. Next i went to work around the hand with the use of cork to build up mass where i want it to be. My thoughts were about still making the hand look heavy meanwhile creating a front and an end. I did use a saw to already prepare clear edges on the cork and glued it with superglue in place. I then ripped off some of the material to make a softer curve at the sides. In my eyes this helps to keep the hand look very heavy and also gives me a back side. Here are some photos of this progress:

As you can see in the photo above i was thinking about adding some wood but after making some sketching by holding it in place it did not feel right. I did use a lot of cork and also added most of the cork rubbish which was created by sawing and ripping to the base too. Still using superglue and cork only so far.

Now it was time for hiding the cork again and i used common earth with superglue and additional fine rooting which i did collect from corn at a field a while ago. I first did glue the roots and this has been followed by the earth mix.

After everything was dry i then prepared a load of Milliput and wildly put in place on the sharp edges of the cork whom i planned to be part of the socket. First wildly, then with the use of water and my fingers made it plain, so i won't have too much work by sanding it later on. I know cleaned up my workbench again and finished today's work.

Sleeping was fine indeed. Next morning comes with sunshine, fresh coffee from my happy cup and everything was dried on my base. Now it was sanding time and damn... it is sunday morning, i can't go out on the balcony to make sanding noise, i just moved here, i want make the neighbours angry. So i choose the basement and did start with rough sanding paper and worked my way to finer one. As sanding is still in process i will update the sanded base in the further progress describtion and finish with a good morning photo :)

So far, stay hubbidubbidu!
Best Regards
Roman