Nüwa Journal #1

I hope to document my process here for you guys. Let me know if this is actually interesting :) Note that much of this I am not filming so it's just for you guys!

So first some backstory of the character. To sum it up in my own words, she is a prophet that said something that was politically inconvenient and so is on the run. My line of thought here with her basing is that I wanted her to be out of her element and backed up against a quite literal wall. So a magical forest with a cliff wall should sell that well (I hope).

Another benefit I feel is that a cliff wall gives a "front" viewing angle on the round base which is kind of fun. I've chosen to build it only about 2/3rds high as I want you to still be able to see the back of her as her hair has some really cool mechanical parts in it.

What I have here is just the planning stage. I made a rough cut of what I wanted from some cork board I had, and then traced that with a pen a whole bunch of times. At first I worked really hard to make it almost exact in size but failed at this because it's a larger cork size. In the end I decided I should just "roughly" get it close and will trim it as one piece. My thinking is that I'll drive pins through the whole thing into the base (two small posts).

I'll slide a piece on, add glue to the top and slide the next one on, sandwiching it all together. I'll then trim it to it's final shape once it's all one piece, then seal the sides with PVA glue as well (I'm hoping it'll actually soak in, making the whole thing more rigid).

After that I think I'll actually outline where she'll be and then base first. I really want to get a "feel" for how this forest will look (I've bought dried moss and whatnot to also add to the forest floor). The last thing I want is something I really hate: where the mini doesn't fit the base. Just because she's out of her element doesn't mean she shouldn't really fit into the piece as a whole. Perhaps after seeing the base completed I can decide if she needs mud on her tail or something like that to connect the two.

The plan then is to paint her, post her in as well, and then call it done. No idea when this will be finished but it should prove to be a fun process that I'll learn a lot from. Doing the base first provides me the potential of perhaps making this into a two part video. What are your thoughts on that?

Anyway, next step is to do the whole post/glue/mold the cliff. Then I can actually prime everything. Expect an update once that's done :D