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Description
Plus, since I've taken this long making it and work has to stop for a while, an overall report.

Work on this head re-sculpt was always going far more slowly than the first time around . I just might have taken less time building the model of Dunebug's torso, which I'd had to develop partly on the fly and make a lot of sculpting corrections to. I also had to rediscover a lot about building the first one that I'd forgotten, was taking my time to get better results... and since this was just to make an improved version of something I already had I didn't feel in such a rush!
Then recently, while cleaning Sculpey off of an X-Acto I used as a sculpting tool, I slashed my thumb. The wound is superficial and a very clean cut, but until it heals it will still be a hardened and disrupted area in skin I favor when I'm shaping and smoothing out surfaces. It could be a while before the scarring is gone, so I figured I'd tack together what I had and upload a view of it.

I tried a few photo batches trying different things to get better lighting, but apparently that day the cosmos wanted my camera to make it look like a ghost in some hoary netherworld.

As planned, Bugsy's head is more carefully shaped now and his eyes have been changed so he looks younger. In the process, I realized I had to make his nose plate seem skinnier.
That big crest on his forehead bows on the top like in all my sketches. I filed fired Sculpey with precision files that had angled profiles, to put six clean and even louvres inside it... a technique I wish I'd thought of before I'd built up walls around the four chunky barlike ones inside the original head.
The overall impression is a lot closer to the "gangly dorky teenager" look I loved in 'Bug's original head sketch . It's important to try and keep that look, because it conveys a lot about him.
As I've mentioned in my posts before, on this head the thin tips of those 'horns' will endure a lot more abuse and be easier to repair because I managed to fold sewing pins into the clay before firing. (They're made of pretty good steel. I've once filed another to a flat strip to make a realistic, tough and rigid rapier blade for a 26mm miniature. And while I was cutting the head off one so it would fit properly inside a horn, its resistance cracked the thin-jawed wire cutters I was using,)
The chin cup, which only connects to everything else along a thin band and once broke off while I was building the first head, is now reinforced with a loop of thin aluminum wire that has the ends embedded in the rest of the head.

Remaining:
The little crest plates on either side of his main crest were what I was about to do when I got cut, so they aren't there.
I still need to do little shape and surface adjustments... and now, patch a few potholes! The Baby Belle wax I used to tack pieces onto the sides of the head (since they shouldn't be permanently affixed yet) is very soft and sticky when warm, but was hard and had a powerful grip when I pulled them off again. A few tiny chunks of Sculpey from poorly-bonded layers ripped off with it.
I need to add a partial neck, if only so folks can see just how the head sets on it.
This head developed a weird issue that I just can't explain. Though the ball of Sculpey and tin foil I began my work with was built and decently centered around the top of a dowel, somehow that dowel is now offset 3/16" towards the right of the head. That doesn't sound like much, but the whole head is only an inch wide and that hole will occasionally be used to connect the head to a torso where the hole is aligned right. Since that hole is how I keep the head isolated from surfaces in the oven, curing the old one's fill-in so I can properly drill a replacement could get 'interesting.'
Then the whole shebang needs to be properly attached together and painted, in an order that's less awkward.
Questions? Comments?  Disinterest? Curses and epithets concerning my lineage, hometown or personal beliefs? Don't leave me in the dark here: let me know in the comments.

Dunebug belongs to me.  Transformers is (c) Hasbro and (c) Takara

Description
Plus, since I've taken this long making it and work has to stop for a while, an overall report.

Work on this head re-sculpt was always going far more slowly than the first time around . I just might have taken less time building the model of Dunebug's torso, which I'd had to develop partly on the fly and make a lot of sculpting corrections to. I also had to rediscover a lot about building the first one that I'd forgotten, was taking my time to get better results... and since this was just to make an improved version of something I already had I didn't feel in such a rush!
Then recently, while cleaning Sculpey off of an X-Acto I used as a sculpting tool, I slashed my thumb. The wound is superficial and a very clean cut, but until it heals it will still be a hardened and disrupted area in skin I favor when I'm shaping and smoothing out surfaces. It could be a while before the scarring is gone, so I figured I'd tack together what I had and upload a view of it.

I tried a few photo batches trying different things to get better lighting, but apparently that day the cosmos wanted my camera to make it look like a ghost in some hoary netherworld.

As planned, Bugsy's head is more carefully shaped now and his eyes have been changed so he looks younger. In the process, I realized I had to make his nose plate seem skinnier.
That big crest on his forehead bows on the top like in all my sketches. I filed fired Sculpey with precision files that had angled profiles, to put six clean and even louvres inside it... a technique I wish I'd thought of before I'd built up walls around the four chunky barlike ones inside the original head.
The overall impression is a lot closer to the "gangly dorky teenager" look I loved in 'Bug's original head sketch . It's important to try and keep that look, because it conveys a lot about him.
As I've mentioned in my posts before, on this head the thin tips of those 'horns' will endure a lot more abuse and be easier to repair because I managed to fold sewing pins into the clay before firing. (They're made of pretty good steel. I've once filed another to a flat strip to make a realistic, tough and rigid rapier blade for a 26mm miniature. And while I was cutting the head off one so it would fit properly inside a horn, its resistance cracked the thin-jawed wire cutters I was using,)
The chin cup, which only connects to everything else along a thin band and once broke off while I was building the first head, is now reinforced with a loop of thin aluminum wire that has the ends embedded in the rest of the head.

Remaining:
The little crest plates on either side of his main crest were what I was about to do when I got cut, so they aren't there.
I still need to do little shape and surface adjustments... and now, patch a few potholes! The Baby Belle wax I used to tack pieces onto the sides of the head (since they shouldn't be permanently affixed yet) is very soft and sticky when warm, but was hard and had a powerful grip when I pulled them off again. A few tiny chunks of Sculpey from poorly-bonded layers ripped off with it.
I need to add a partial neck, if only so folks can see just how the head sets on it.
This head developed a weird issue that I just can't explain. Though the ball of Sculpey and tin foil I began my work with was built and decently centered around the top of a dowel, somehow that dowel is now offset 3/16" towards the right of the head. That doesn't sound like much, but the whole head is only an inch wide and that hole will occasionally be used to connect the head to a torso where the hole is aligned right. Since that hole is how I keep the head isolated from surfaces in the oven, curing the old one's fill-in so I can properly drill a replacement could get 'interesting.'
Then the whole shebang needs to be properly attached together and painted, in an order that's less awkward.
Questions? Comments?  Disinterest? Curses and epithets concerning my lineage, hometown or personal beliefs? Don't leave me in the dark here: let me know in the comments.

Dunebug belongs to me.  Transformers is (c) Hasbro and (c) Takara