Step 1

"This is how they start," John said. "I started with the main bulk of the figure to get a feel for the way the robes sort of flow in the wind, the shape and motion for the fig."

He uses "green stuff," a two-part epoxy type of putty for sculpting. That's why the finished sculpts are called "greens."

Step 2

"Now we see the first layer of all the cloth of his inner robe," John said. At this point, he mixed the green stuff with brown stuff epoxy. "It's my own mix that I prefer," he said.

"You can see here where the pre-planning comes in. When you work from a sketch, you know where you're going. For instance you can see an indentation for his belt, where his belt was pulled tight against his body in the sketch. When that's all cured, then you put the belt in." This is much easier than deciding later to add a belt, at which point he would have to go back and cut out notches for it.

While step 1 went pretty fast, John said, for step 2, "To do the front and back, that may have been two or three sessions." Each session lasts between an hour to an hour and a half—however long it takes the putty to dry.

Step 3

"I did a lot between numbers two and three!" John said. He added the first layer of outer robes all the way around the back, as well as the arms and the sleeves.

He uses a bit of copper wire to give some structure to the arms: "Something to push against when shaping the putty, to give the putty some resistance," he said. "There's just a little nub there for the head. It's much smaller than the head's going to be, but, like a skull, it provides a support structure for the head."

He explained that the wire support is necessary for the molding process, "when they're put under about a ton of pressure at 320 degrees for about a hour. That's why we use epoxy, because plastic, wood, paper—that wouldn't survive the process."

You can see here that the belt is now on.

Step 4

Now we can see the first layer of the face. "I actually changed it a couple of times," John said. "His mouth is one of three mouths he's had, and his nose is one of two noses. The eyes are just empty sockets at the moment."

You can also see the beginning of the underlying structure of the hair. "A lot of people have set techniques for sculpting faces," John said, "but for me it just depends on the situation."

Step 5

Here, John's added a piece of brass rod to serve as the magister's staff. "You've got the sleeves for his outer robe now, and his right hand," he said.

In between stages of this figure, John's been working on a number of others as well. "I've got seven going at one time," he said. "Usually it's not that large of a workload at once, but this is a big job."

Step 6

The face has much more drama at this stage. "The eyes helped a lot," John said. He also added eyebrows and started his outermost robe around his neck.

"See on his right side, where it's sort of flipping out into the air? One thing you can do with putty is pull out a piece like that and let it cure, so you can build on it. You get nice shapes like that without a lot of effort."

He pointed out that the left hand was "the first one of about four. He gets full-length fingers eventually."

Step 7

Now the figure is almost done. We see the fingers on left hand are now extended, and the hair is added.

At this point John also sculpted the final layer of the outermost robe, where it flips out into the air.

Step 8

Ready for the final touches! To finish the miniature, John put more detail on the staff, added locks of hair "to make it look more like the art," and did some cleaning up.

For the entire production, the figure has been standing on a wine bottle cork covered in putty, to give John something to hold onto while sculpting. When it is final, however, it will have a special base.