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Wednesday, December 19, 2018

DEATH SNAILS!

Some time ago I got a wild hair and decided to sculpt a snail with a miniature human skull for a shell.  Why?  Who knows.  That's never been a question I've been good at answering.

Anyhow, here's an early shot of the sculpt in progress:

Death Snail in Progress

I decided it would be easiest to split these guys into multiple parts to mold.  This gives me a chance to mix and match different shell skulls.  Here's the body without the shell before it was molded:
Finished Death Snail Sculpt

The molds for the body and shell were simple box molds:
Death Snail Parts Ready to Mold


Once the rubber was cast and working, it was time to start making copies:
Angry Death Snails

The eye stalks were sculpted separately:
Death Snails

Then I set those up for molding as well:
Antenna Stalks with Vents and Sprues

I pull them before the resin is fully cured, so each pair of antennae have a different pose:
Death Snails Cast

Originally I made one sculpt for the skull/shell:
Raw Cast Skulls

The first handful of skulls had to be trimmed by hand to fit onto the snail bodies.  Here they are in primer:
Skulls and Snails

The snail bodies were hydrodipped using a variety of different shades of brown, tan, black, and green in order to give them really great finishes, many of them turned out looking like burl woodgrain:
Dipped Snails


Light Dipped Snail

But the main goal was variety:
More Color Variants


20181208_002934

Eventually I got around to re-sculpting the skulls before re-molding them and casting them in a variety of different materials:
20181219_145727

Mostly, they were painted white:
Skulls in Primer

Then weathered:
IMG_20181215_141734

Finally, my Death Snail army was assembled:
20181219_115840

If you'd like to get your own fleet of Death Snails, I'm listing these guys in my etsy shop at thorssoli.etsy.com.  They sell fairly quick though, so don't hesitate.

Stay tuned for additional updates on this particularly silly project.  One way or another, there will be more:

Death Snail German Helmet Closeup

EDIT: for a limited time, use the discount code "BLOGGER" at checkout for 10% off your entire order.  https://www.etsy.com/shop/thorssoli?coupon=BLOGGER

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