LI. Tutorial: How to Sculpt a Ruff

In the comments section of my last post I was asked by Logan how I sculpted the ruffled collars on my miniatures. I thought the best way to explain was through an illustrated tutorial. As always, if you wish to see bigger images just click on them.

17th century portrait of a contemporary lady wearing a ruff.

 

HOW TO SCVLPT A RVFF

Ingredients:

I. a miniature you wish to give a ruff to (I didn't have any, so I used a brass rod instead)

II. green stuff

III. superglue

Tools:

I. a hobby knife

II. a pointy sculpting tool

As seen in Figure 1. 

Figure 1

Just a quick note: ruffs were popular from the mid-sixteenth century to the mid-seventeenth century. They were worn by both women and men, as well as children. 
 

Instructions:

I. In order for the collar to stay in place and keep its form better while I'm sculpting, I first made this small ring of green stuff around the "neck" to serve as a sort of foundation. I let it cure completely.  (Figure 2)

Figure 2

 II. Now that the collar had something to grab on to, I dabbed a tiny amount of superglue on it and covered it with a little ball of freshly prepared green stuff. Using my tools I shaped it into a cylinder.  (Figure 3)

Then I waited for about ten minutes  for the green stuff to stop being so very soft.

Figure 3

 III. The next thing I did was grab a knife and roughly define the folds on the top and the bottom of the cylinder, all around. (Figure 4)

Figure 4

 Make sure the bottom ones and the top ones don't stand in the same vertical line. Each bottom one should be right between two top ones. (Figure 5)

Figure 5

 IV. Then on the sides, between each pair of grooves I made in stage III., i poked a round hole with my sculpting tool; see figures 6 and 7. 

Figure 6

Figure 7

 I deepened the vertical grooves to connect with the holes. (Figure 8)

Figure 8

 I did this all around the cylinder. This already looks a lot like the final product. (Figure 9)

Figure 9

 V. Since all this poking significantly deformed the initial cylinder form, I used the flat side of my knife to gently press it back into shape. (Figure 10)

Figure 10

VI. As it was expected, this damaged the look of the folds a little bit. So I picked up my pointy sculpting tool again and redefined all the folds. (Figure 11)

Figure 11

VII. The general shape got deformed again, though not nearly as much as the first time. So I repeated steps V. and VI. once more. Do this as many times it takes for you to be satisfied with the look. And this, figure 12, is it:

Figure 12

*   *   *

As you can see, it's not that difficult. It just takes a lot of  going back and forth towards the end. You can use this technique to make a ruff of any size and diameter (for very big diameters you'll need a bigger underlying support, though). You can also use it to make a tutu ( useful for circus-themed conversions, for example). I like to put ruffs on the Countess' spirits.

Thank you for your attention and I hope you find the tutorial useful. If any of you readers have a more sophisticated technique for sculpting this, I would much appreciate your advice. : )