UMS "Agram" : Learning to Sculpt - the Tomb Guard project < Articles < Hobby

Learning to Sculpt - the Tomb Guard project

Sebastian Søgård, 14th October 2024

For a while I’ve been wanting to learn how to sculpt miniatures from scratch, based on armatures I make myself. I consider this a very useful skill to have in the hobby as it opens up endless new possibilities for custom characters, conversions and army projects. My theory is that if I can sculpt a whole mini, I can certainly convert or sculpt parts on a mini in the future. I was recommended Greenstuff and Milliput, which are products I’ve familiarised myself with in smaller detail sculpting on previous projects. By now I have a good grip on their working time, consistency, and pliability, so I think it’s time to tackle a full sculpt. After watching a few tutorials by Tom Mason, particularly the one about making armatures, I felt ready.

My expectations are low, as I know this is hard, and requires endless hours of practice. But if I can manage something that looks good enough to make me want to paint and play with it, I’m happy.

This was a project for the summer, and a goal I set myself for August. Since I was planning to travel during this period, I made myself a travel kit with “all” the necessary equipment.

The kit contains Milliput, Greenstuff, Green Putty (a filler), superglue, hobby-knife, steel wire, pliers to cut the steel wire, a piece of cork to insert the steel wire into while working on the model, two silicone sculpting tools, two metallic sculpting tools and an old brush (to apply the green putty).

After making the armature, and getting the pose I wanted (this is a difficult, but obviously very important step), I started by covering the whole body in a thin layer of greenstuff. I also sculpted chest muscles, although this was only for practice, as I knew I would cover all of this later with clothing/armour.

Working on this project, I mostly sat outside on the ground, by a table, or wherever I found a good spot when I had a little downtime. With me I always had a cup of water, some Nivea hand cream and my little kit. Since sculpting is a slow process, requiring patience and at least a few hours of curing time in between each session, I found this to be a great activity in combination with a slow summer holiday - something to do in between the daily activities.

I actually had no plan where I was going with this, or what kind of miniature I wanted to end up with. I’m not sure how smart this is, and wouldn’t necessarily recommend it, but for me, being my first try and all, it worked. I started from the inside, building out, and with each session, adding another layer of clothes or skin. The cape I just tried out since I happened to have an extra thin sheet of greenstuff after finishing a session, and I kept it as I like to paint capes. It’s perhaps more realistic than most miniature capes, but lacks the clear folds of a GW mini for example, and will therefore be harder to paint. But I don’t worry about that now. Painting is not a part of my sculpting concerns.

I eventually decided on armour for my mini, instead of clothes or muscles. Mostly because it seemed the easiest of the three. Armour is harder, stiffer, and less organic than clothes, and doesn’t require any advanced anatomical knowledge like muscles and skin. To make it simple, I made a thin sheet of Greenstuff and rolled my hobby knife handle over it—both to make it as thin as possible, and to imprint the pattern of my hobby knife onto the Greenstuff. Then I used that same knife to cut out small triangles from the thin sheet, which I glued to different parts of the armour. Different sizes of triangles were used depending on where they went on the body—big ones for the chest pieces, smaller ones for the shins.

When I came back from my vacation, I went through my little box of bits, and found a few I liked that fit the style of what I had sculpted. This was basically for the parts of the mini that I didn’t have the skill or time to sculpt. As I had been told that hands and faces were the hardest, I delayed sculpting these until the end. But I never got around to it, and would probably have ended up ruining what was turning out to be a body I was quite happy with. So after finding hands and a face that fitted, I glued them on, covered some gaps with more greenstuff and had this:

I was happy at this point, but felt it could still be improved. I removed a few details from his head piece that I felt overcomplicated it, and glued these same parts to his chest instead, covering up some details there I had sculpted that I wasn’t quite happy with. I also added a handle to the lantern in his hand and a skeleton head as his belt buckle. Then I sanded a few details to smooth them out, and finally covered most of it (except the armour with the pattern I had made using my hobby knife handle) in green putty, to cover up any unevenness, gaps or other flaws in the sculpting.

After a zenithal prime, I had my first sculpted mini. Not perfect by any means. The lantern arm looks broken, the posing of the legs is stiff, and required me to make a strange base for it to look more natural, and in the end, I didn’t sculpt the entire mini. Also the scale is off (this mistake can be traced all the way back to the armature), so it doesn’t really fit in with other 28 or 35mm models. However, as a Tomb Guard (the lore became apparent during the later stages of sculpting), he can basically be any size - a large, living statue, guarding some kind of valuable tomb in D&D or other narrative game. Now I’ll also have more confidence going forward with other projects that require small amounts of sculpting or conversion. So all in all a worthwhile project.

Latest articles

We attended: ModelMania 2025

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	U subotu 25.10.2025. održao se Foto Video Show & ModelMania Zagreb u Kongresnoj dvorani na Zagrebačkom Velesajmu. UMS Agram je nastupio s prezentacijom rada naših raznih programa poput Advent u Agramu, Agram Group Build, Agram Lego Sekcija i Knjižnica i čitaonica UMS "Agram".

	

	  

	  

	  

	Naši volonteri, Kruno i Marko bili su tamo od 10 ujutro i odgovarali na pitanja s čime se bavimo.

	

	Antoni i Lav su bili zaduženi za demonstriranje stolne strateške igre Gaslands!

	  

	  

	

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	Kruno je držao Back to Basics radionice bojanja minijatura!

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  
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Marko Paunović, 5th November 2025

Necropolis Board part 1

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	In October we started with our first board for Necropolis, and with an appropriate theme! – the Eternal Autumn configuration from the Necropolis rulebook. The configuration is such that it only requires 3 trees, which we considered too boring, so instead of one tree, we plan to build a cubic lime kiln and 2 streams.

	  

	The board is inspired by Hawthorne's story Ethan Brand, where several characters talk about the unforgivable sin (next to a lime kiln in the middle of an American pastoral idyll). Aesthetically, we're aiming for early fall with rural motifs, along with gnarled trees (ala Burton's Sleepy Hollow) and a few pumpkins.

	  

	For now, we are very far from any aesthetic choices because we have dealt with the basic structure of the board: the housing is made of pine glued boards for the floor and pine profiles for the sides. After we glued everything with Drvofix, the entire housing was finely sanded. The size of the Styrodur board that fits into the housing is 40cmx40cmx2cm (Necropolis standard is 16"x16").

	  

	The placement of the stream itself was difficult to choose due to the peculiar, angular deployment in Necropolis, so we used token strings to try out a few potential streams that would least interfere with the game. Although we planned to keep our forest streams shallow, we still carved channels with a scalpel and a rotary multitool and coated the beds with diluted texture paste. While the paste dried, we added various sizes of pebbles and created a transition across the stream with larger pebbles.

	  

	The trees are actually real mangroves, so they have natural knots and twists. To add a Sleepy Hollow feel, we hollowed out a few holes in the wood to house the greenstuff faces. We propped up one tree with pieces of pine bark so it wouldn't lean too much and interfere with play.

	  

	The next step is to cover the entire board with a mixture of gypsum and sand and make the stove itself.

	  
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	U listopadu smo započeli s našim prvim boardom za Necropolis, i to s primjerenom tematikom! – Eternal Autumn konfiguracijom iz Necropolis rulebooka. Konfiguracija je takva da nalaže samo 3 stabla, što smo smatrali predosadnim te umjesto jednog stabla kanimo izraditi kockastu vapnenu peć i 2 potoka.

	  

	Board je inspiriran Hawthorneovom pričom Ethan Brand, gdje nekoliko likova priča o neoprostivom grijehu (pored vapnare usred američke pastoralne idile). Estetski ciljamo na ranu jesen s ruralnim motivima, uz kvrgava stabla (ala Burtonov Sleepy Hollow) i nekoliko bundeva.

	  

	Za sada smo jako daleko od ikakvih estetskih odabira jer smo se nosili s osnovnom građom boarda: kućište je napravljeno od borovih lijepljenih dasaka za podni dio i borovih profila za bočne strane. Nakon što smo sve zalijepili drvofixom, cijelo kućište je fino izbrušeno. Veličina stirodur ploče koja sjeda u kućište je 40cmx40cmx2cm (Necropolis standard je 16“x16“).

	  

	Sami smještaj potoka bilo je teško odabrati zbog osebujnog, kutnog deploymenta u Necropolisu pa smo koristili nizove tokena da isprobamo nekoliko potencijalnih tokova koji bi najmanje ometali igru. Iako planiramo da nam šumski potoci budu plitki, i dalje smo skalpelom i rotirajućim multitoolom izrezbarili kanale i premazali korita razrijeđenom teksturnom pastom. Dok se pasta sušila, ubacili smo razne veličine kamenčića i uspostavili prijelaz preko potoka većim kamenčićima.

	  

	Stabla su zapravo pravo mangrovo drvo, tako da ima prirodne kvrge i zavijutke. Kako bismo dodali sleepy hollow šmek, izdubili smo nekolika rupa u drvu gdje bismo smjestili greenstuff lica. Jedno smo drvo poduprli s komadima borove kore kako ne bi bilo previše nagnuti i ometalo igru.

	  

	Sljedeći korak je prekrivanje cijelog boarda smjesom gipsa i pijeska te izrada same peći.

	  
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Antoni Pastuović, 5th November 2025

WE ATTENDED: AmuletD20 Grand Tournament 2025

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	In early October I had the opportunity to visit my neighbors from the Amuletd20 association. This time it wasn't an artsy Turnip28 event, but a huge tournament in AOS and Conquest games.

	  

	Besides the main event, there were tables playing Kings of War, as well as Warhammer: The Old World, where I came with my Chaos Dwarfs.

	  

	Unfortunately, I think TOW was the least represented with four players, but this little community was wonderful! Players helped each other with the rules and the games were very friendly. In addition to my choirs, there was also an army of High Elves at the event, as well as two armies of Brettons.

	  

	  

	  

	I spent my event fighting the noble knights of Brettonia, and I believe that my dwarves were helped by the atypical mobility obtained from the monsters (Wyverna, Lammasu and Bale Taurus) accompanied by the antithesis of HŽ (Iron Daemon) and a spell that increased the infantry's mobility.

	  

	The Kings of War tables were much more dynamic, with more players, more games, and the waxes themselves were far more diverse. I'm glad that the tables were close so I had the opportunity to hang out with the hosts Luka and Vane.. It was definitely a surprise when our Mario visited us and hung out with us.

	  

	I managed to find enough time to walk around the rest of the event - and it was impressive to see so many players in one place. Amuletd20 really did a phenomenal job for their first event.

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	After the event, we went to the association's premises to socialize a little more. And, if you're curious about what it was like there, come to the next Amulet event yourself, you certainly won't regret it.

	  

	P.S. Many thanks to Luka, Vana and Mita for the invitation and hospitality!
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	Početkom listopada imao sam priliku posjetiti susjede iz udruge Amuletd20. Ovog puta nije bio artsy Turnip28 event, nego ogroman turnir u AOS i Conquest igrama.

	  

	Osim main eventa, bilo je stolova na kojima se igralo i Kings of War, kao i Warhammer: The Old World gdje sam došao sa svojim Chaos Dwarfovima.

	  

	Nažalost, mislim da je TOW bio najslabije zastupljen s četiri igrača, ali je ovaj mali community bio divan! Igrači su si međusobno pomagali s pravilima i partije su bile jako Friendly, Uz moje chorfove, na eventu je bila i jedna vojska High Elfova, kao i dvije vojske Brettonaca.

	  

	  

	  

	Svoj event proveo sam boreći se plemenitim vitezovima Brettonie, a vjerujem da je mojim patuljcima pomogla netipična mobilnost dobivena čudovištima (Wyverna, Lammasu i Bale Taurus) u pratnji antiteze HŽ-a (Iron Daemon) i čarolije koja je pješadiji povećavala mobilnost.

	  

	Na Kings of War stolovima bilo je znatno dinamičnije, više igrača, više partija, a i same vosjke su bile daleko raznolikije. Drago mi je da su stolovi bili blizu pa sam imao priliku družiti se s domaćinima Lukom i Vaneom.. Definitivno iznenađenje je bilo kad nas je naš Mario posjetio i podružio se s nama.

	  

	Uspio sam uhvatiti dovoljno vremena da prošećem i ostatkom eventa - i bilo je impresivno vidjeti toliko igrača na istom mjestu. Amuletd20 je zaista odradio fenomenalan posao za prvi event koji organiziraju.

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	  

	Nakon eventa, otišli smo do prostora udruge podružiti se još malo. A, ako vas zanima kako je tamo bilo, dođite i sami na idući Amuletov event, sigurno nećete požaliti.

	  

	P.S. Veliko hvala Luki, Vani i Miti na pozivu i gostoprimstvu!
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Domagoj Krpan, 30th October 2025

Back to Basics Workshops in Medveščak Library

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	During October and November, we held our Back to Basics miniature painting workshops for the youngest at the Zagreb City Libraries.

	

	

	The first set of three workshops was held in the Youth Department of the Medveščak Library on October 2, 9 and 11, 2025.

	

	

	During the workshops, our youngest participants painted chibi figures from the UMS Agram line and made a castle from upcycled materials.

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	More photos can be found on our social media.

	
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	Tijekom listopada i studenog u Knjižnicama Grada Zagreba smo održali naše Back to Basics radionice bojanja minijatura za najmlađe. 

	

	

	Prvi set od tri radionice održan je u Odjelu za mlade Knjižnice Medveščak 2., 9. i 11.10.2025. 

	

	

	Tijekom radionica naši najmlađi polaznici su bojali chibi figure iz linije UMS Agram te izrađivali dvorac od upcycle materijala.

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	

	Više fotografija potražite na našim socijalnim mrežama!

	
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Krunoslav Belinić, 13th October 2025

Gaslands - Tutorial II

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	In this article I will briefly describe how I painted another set of three cars for Gaslands. Same as last time, I started with a black undercoat.

	

	As I decided to keep the colour of the vehicles matt black, I left it at that and proceeded to paint the windshields. Using much the same method I used for the yellow crew, I applied the chosen paint scheme. Unlike blue windshields with the yellow crew, here I decided to use the yellow/red combo.

	

	I then added chrome.

	

	In the end, I added metallic details such as guns etc.

	

	It was time to add the decals. I first painted all the surfaces with gloss varnish. Then I added the decals and after they set properly, I covered everything with Ultra Matt Varnish..

	

	And thus ended the painting process.

	

	GALLERY OF THE TWO FINISHED CREWS

	

	

	

	

	

	

	
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	U ovom ću  članku opisati kako sam obojao drugi set od tri autića za Gaslands demo partije. Kao i prošli puta, krenuo sam s crnim undercoatom. 

	

	S obzirom da sam odlučio da ovaj crew bude mat crn, farbanje karoserija sam tu prekinuo i počeo sam sa staklima. Slično kao i prošli put, koristio sam sličnu shemu, ali u drugim bojama. Za razliku od plavih refleksija na žutim autima, na crnima sam se odlučio za žuto/crvenu kombinaciju. 

	

	Dodao sam krom.

	

	I na kraju dodao metalne dijelove poput oružja.

	

	Na ovim autima, odlučio sam dodati i naljepnice. Prvo sam na površine s naljepnicama stavio gloss lak. Potom sam postavio naljepnicce i nakon što su se dobro osušile sam te iste površine prekrio mat lakom. 

	

	Time sam završio posao...

	

	GALERIJA ZAVRŠENIH RADOVA!

	

	

	

	

	

	

	
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