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How-to Tuesday: Gap Filling (Hair)

How-to Tuesday: Gap Filling (Hair)

I assembled the new Gorax last night (it’s an awesome model) and there’s an annoying gap between the head’s hair and the big metal collar. I thought this would be a fantastic opportunity to show you some basic gap-filling. Unfortunately, my camera decided to loose half the pictures I took while working on the hair, so you’ll have to suffice with mostly text today. Sorry.

The problem with a gap in something textured like hair is that it’s very unnatural. It’s incredibly noticeable, and can ruin an entire model, no matter how nicely it’s painted. It must be fixed! Luckily, hair is one of those crazy, never symmetrical things that’s fairly easy to sculpt in small amounts.  For reference, this is the tool I used to sculpt the hair:

I have no idea what it's called or where I got it. I think it's a dental pick of some kind.

Start with a small blob of greenstuff placed over the gap.  Don’t worry about using too much or not enough, you can always add more or cut some away.

The BlooOOOoooOOooooob!

Push the majority of the blob into the gap, filling it in.  I pulled some of the putty up to the jaw line to help fill in there too.  You also want to pull the putty up onto the top piece (the head) so it has a chance to blend into the existing hair.  Once you have the putty spread around, use the edge of the tool to pull the putty in the same direction as the hair you’re emulating; in the direction the hair is flowing.  In the Gorax’s case, I pulled the putty down, away from the crown of his head.

Here’s the result:

Finished Hair

The other side works the same way:

Other side of the head

The back of the model needed just a little help.  There was a small void in the hair that would have been pretty obvious.  A small bit of putty filled the void, and I was able to sculpt a small strand of hair over it.  This helped tie the head to the rest of the body, blending it into the model.

The seam on the back

And that’s gap-filling hair.  It’s useful for Circle models, who tend to be hairy, as well as any sort of cavalry.  I’ll be showing some painting techniques as I work on the Gorax, so we’ll see how effective this hair is once some paint lands on the model.

View Comments (5)
  • Good tutorial and pics. I recently assembled a Gorax too, can’t remember what I did with the gap…probably didn’t fill it like this. I’ll post finished pics when I remember to take them…

      

  • I really like this tutorial as well, not that most of my Cryx have any hair, but its very useful to show folks how easy doing this kind of thing can be. I wonder, could you do the same thing without the dental tool? Say with a toothpick and a flat stiring stick from Starbucks?

      

    • Sorry if that came out wrong, not trying to criticise, just wondering out loud how it could be done with other easy to find tools/objects.

        

    • I would assume so, but you have to make sure the wooden tool is wet first because otherwise greenstuff sticks to wooden tools really well. I bought some wooden sculpting tools a while back thinking that they would be better, but now I wish I had bought metal ones 🙁

        

    • I think you might be able to use those, but as whitestar said, be wary of sticky GS.

      You could easily use the back of a hobby knife blade, super thin plasticard, etc. You just need to be able to pull the GS with a thin edge, so you can create those strands of hair.

        

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