Main Idea

I’ve been thinking about my final semester project essentially since I was accepted onto the course, so I have a fairly fleshed-out idea in my head of what it will entail. In short, I’m going to be sculpting the Dungeons and Dragons character that I’ve invented and established. She’s a grandmotherly necromancer woman who spends her time babying her skeleton familiars and occasionally grave-robbing corpses for additional trinkets to add to her collection. Her idyllic cottage in the woods seems seems welcoming and non-threatening until you look a little closer, where you’ll notice nods to her darker hobbies.

I plan to sculpt two characters: the necromancer herself and a partially-decayed skeleton companion. The woman will be standing near her minion and interacting with him in an affectionate way, perhaps patching a wound or sewing up his clothing. As characters are the focus, I will only be making a small vignette of the environment (her front door and a portion of her doorstep with a patch of ground). This will allow me to focus on creating every element of both characters in a highly detailed, fairly realistic style, with particular care taken towards complex garment and accessory sculpting. In terms of time management, I’m trying to make this project as modular as possible (i.e. have ‘wishlist’ items like additional pieces of the environment, more jewelry and bits on her outfit, etc.) so that there are no issues if I need to drop extra elements.

I’ve been generally taking bullet-point notes for myself whenever I thought of new ideas for this project, which I’ve pasted below to document its evolution.

Necromancer

• Figure (necromancer character) standing near the doorway of a semi-stylized stone-and-moss cottage, with loads of flowers and plants
• Can design + sculpt woman in her entirety, including pose, hair, clothing, etc.
• Pose ideas: woman tending to injured undead minion, putting some sort of band-aid situation on a bony knee or reaching up to a forehead or sitting with its head in her lap
• Pair of stays-esque vest, over a billowy sleeved partially off-the-shoulder top, with pleated? wide leg pants (OR harem pants with intricate designs, cutouts, lacing?) and a split overskirt (or gathered up), maybe with some jewelry/filigree pieces like arm cuffs and belts, maybe pieces she took from graves
• Skeleton familiar has matching opposite pieces so it’s clear she stole stuff from him (maybe she has the left pauldron and he has the right one in a set)
• Belt covered in tools (for necromancy and healing, probably filigreed) and eclectic trinkets stolen from graves; loads of different eras, genres, levels of wear/patina/cleanliness
• E.g. some jewelry that looks very Viking but also arm cuffs that are really Grecian and some pirate-coin belt trimming
• Fairly simple rustic clothing so I can get some good woven textures in there and play with minor tears, fraying, and dirt on her clothes; sunbleached and worn areas/highlights
• Loads of fabric details: layers of skirts, quilting, embroidery, SMOCKING
• Alignment: chaotic neutral necromancy-specialization wizard

Skeleton

• Male (for practice with male anatomy) with some musculature/clothing?
• Skeleton familiar wearing Viking-style rags with a more pristine tunic top on top that she clearly gave him recently. Maybe a little embroidered floral design on it?
• Embroidered skull/bones with flowers, clearly hand-done with errors

Environment

• Door and maybe windows ajar, allowed a partial glimpse into the building?
• Cottage is surrounded by small garden in a forest glade, super chill, maybe some light rays and dust
• Lots of slightly creepy elements that aren’t immediately noticeable to indicate the necromancer side of things
• House with some tree kind of encapsulating it, giving a skeletal vibe
• Possible style: piecemeal or otherwise representative of a real DnD terrain, with seamlines or other indicators; tilt-shift on a wooden tabletop with blurry viewers in the background?
• Instead of a full scene, simply a floating chunk of land with part of a house visible (front door, doorstep, window, etc.)
• Skeletal hands planted in a windowbox surrounded by flowers
• Workbench with mud-covered gold pieces that her charges were buried with
• Just a vignette of the house: part of a front door/window/step that fades into nothing (or fades away with loose bricks)

Bibliography

Christian, B., 2021. Skaab Wrangler – MTG Innistrad. [image] Available at: https://www.artstation.com/artwork/eaAQPD [Accessed 1 April 2022].