Sculpting a Dwarf

I recently sculpted up a prototype dwarf for Old School Miniatures. I figured I'd take sequential pictures as I was working on it in case some folks were curious what the process looks like. 

First step is blocking in the shapes. Notice that the Dwarf's right arm is missing. This is because of the future layering and because it is easier to the do the arm with a green stuff core later. The wire nub was left to keep the proportions of the shoulders The left arm is wire because it will remain unsupported otherwise.

I armatured and sculpted the mattock separately. basically it was a loop of wire and bent to the side. 

next layer, this was building up the face and the shoes. The shoes were sculpted first because the pants will overlap them. The face doesn't have a nose yet because I wanted the nose to be bigger and sculpting it on at this point would result in flatter features. Much of the face's details don't need to be done because they will get covered with beard later. 

This is 2 layers later. The face now has a nose and eyebrows. Left arm got a hand minus a thumb. Again, the thumb is left off at this point to prevent the result of mushed details. The legs got pants and then gaiters (is that what those are called??). 

Again, the pictures skip a step. The arm gained a sleave, the head got ears, and the hand a thumb. Next step is chainmail. Notice that I squished a track around his waist for a future belt and squished the mattock (now with a sculpted haft). 

On the backside we can see the start of a dagger, also pressed into the mail.

The belt is then added as well as the core of the right arm. 

Lower half of the beard and the right hand added. Also the overlap of the belt was added. It's all about those deliberate layers.

Details added to the dagger.

Next, a layer of mustache, belt buckle, and a sleave for the right arm. 

Finishing details on the dagger.

Plopped a helmet on top. Normally a helmet would come down to the eyebrows, but I wanted to emphasize the bushiness of the eyebrows so I had the helmet rise a little high on his head.