Fickle Friday- Evolution of Sculpting Thought Process

Good day, fellow hobbyists.  Today I'd like to share my evolution in sculpting and how it has affected my thought process when going into a new project.  Sit tight, this may be a long one!

When I first began doing sculpting with various epoxy and clay putty, there wasn't much thought put in ahead of time as to how the model should look when finished, or even how I should arrive at the next step to make the process easier.  I figured I'd be able to slap on some more stuff to give the detail the model needed to look the part.  For the most part I was able to succeed, though admittedly the results were somewhat amateurish and obviously slapped together.

Early Blight Drone Attempt

As you can see above, there wasn't much that went into the Blight Drone I had created.  It looks vaguely like the FW model only in shape.  It lacks details and can not be duplicated easily.  Overall I've found this isn't really what I want and have begun anew (though that shall be shown someday in the future).

However, as my sculpting improves, I've noticed a trend in the units I've been making; everything I build I end up needing multiples of.  This can be very frustrating when one gets built and I no longer have a desire to make 2+ more by going through the same process I did previously.  It can be very time consuming to build a model from scratch, and sculpting each one is becoming more time intensive than it is worth.  I dawned on me I needed to find another solution.  The flying Daemon Prince of Nurgle is a perfect example of this.

I fly, I swear it!

The conclusion I've come to is I need to start thinking ahead on how I can sculpt each section with the final product to be resin cast in mind.  Arms, legs, and protruding bits with large undercuts all need to be done as separate pieces and finally fit together to ensure a final product which can be easily put together seamlessly while at the same time allowing for easy reproduction.  Hopefully in the end I'll be able to save money on materials as well.

Above is the rough outline of the Blight Drone body I've been working on for the last 2 days.  It's beginning to take shape and if timing goes as planned I should have, at the very least, a finished body piece ready to recreate.  I'm planning on doing the turbines differently than the Forge World model (more of a barrel shape), which will be easier to cast as one piece.