Patron Commission - Lich (WIP)

Hello everyone!

Update October 6 - #2

Sorry, I lied lol let's make one last WIP. The truth is that I think I am going too crazy with this, and I wanted to share to listen to your feelings about this.

What the hell am I doing? Right now I am blocking out some shapes to see if I can make some sense of them.

The idea behind this was to make some flying skulls around the lich like he was casting a Miasma or some other evil spell, I made this shape to avoid touching the lich leaving enough space for him.

While blocking out the shapes of the skull I remembered that I wanted the book but I did not knew how to put it flying, so I ended up using the miasma to lift the book. 

What are your thoughts? Both the skulls and book will be completely optional to the base.

Update October 6

This is the last WIP, Posed the Lich yesterday and added a few more details to the model. 

I had no idea how hard it would be to pose this character lol. The fact that he has no legs felt it would be easy but, in reality, it was not. All character gesture comes from the upper torso, adding too much dynamic to it felt wrong because of the original concept, and adding too little made it look stiff. So I chose a more neutral pose, tilting his body only a little bit and raising the shoulder of one arm (Impossible to see, because the cloths covered all the bones).

Today I will fix the chains from the arms (they are partially posed) and work on the arm options. Those options, for now, are a Spear staff (with lots of bones), Empty hand, and spell hand. I will use sphere contact points for them, this will increase the angle versatility of the hands and allow many poses.

I wanted to include a book somewhere for this model but I have no idea where.

I also think that a cool base would be awesome for him but, I am not sure what to do here. Right now I have on my mind a stone slab floor, a pentagram carved in the stones (awesome to paint with blood or use some OSL to add a glow to it), and, some candles. I might also add some spirits or flying skulls (this would be a total badass).

Update October 5

I finished head, Shoulder, and Belt for now. I am working on the Gloves and hands. After this, I will sculpt the under clothing on his shoulder and think a bit on his back (I don't like the current cape). I also need to think about more contact points between upper and lower parts, leaving all that to a thin spine might make the model fragile.

Update October 4

Refined the bone structure and increased volume on some bones that I thought might be fragile in the end. Started detailing the Headpiece (it's still in development).

Today I will focus on finishing the head and Neckpiece, moving down as I finish those.

--- End of Update ---

I decided to share what I have blocked out so far. 

To decide the size, I went for a bit bigger than a regular human, the reason for that is because I considered that a Human or Elf would become the Lich, but due to being a skeleton for 32mm I decided to enlarge a bit but not enough, this is to keep the miniature less fragile, also it would look like a boss. The lich is way taller than the human because he is floating, and the skirt (probably the inner skirt, not the outer) will be the contact point with the base.

The requester asked not to add flying chains, I will add chains because they are a kind of mark for them, but they will be affected by gravity (Those Gray tubes will be chains in the future).

I think I got all the basic shapes and proportions to define the volumes. I will now start refining the skeleton and move outwards. 

Pose: I think that a straight standing position is cool for him so I will add a bit of tilt and movement so that it's not really boring.

The Old Knight is there as a size reference. If you have any requests or opinions, please let me know in the comments below.

Best regards,

Ivo