Working on a legless griffon

Introduction

I bought a griffon for very cheap on eBay. The catch: he's missing a front leg. There were other stuff as well which I did not notice on the pictures, but it was well worth the investment.

Preparation

I forgot to take pictures beforehand, so here is the griffon having already underwent some work.

First of all, the miniature was assembled using some sort of thick glue (perhaps silicone?). You can see on the front leg the enormous gap between the pieces. The glue was also slathered liberally across the mini, covering large portions of the neck, belly and front leg.

I first tried to break apart the mini by hand, but the legs bent rather than the glue breaking. I left it to soak in alcohol, to no avail. Finally, I took my cutters and hobby knife and worked off as much glue as I could without damaging anything. I took off the tail and both wings in the process.

But the elephant in the room is the empty space where the front right leg would go. So let's address that.

Creating a green stuff leg

Note that each step is taken around 24 hours after the previous one, so that the putty hardens into plastic.

First create some cylinders to be the forearm and fingers. For the second step, use the hobby knife to create incisions at the end of the fingers and model talons unto them. (I forgot to take a picture here, but I did this again, below.) At this step I also did incisions across the forearm and the fingers to start creating texture. 

Assemble the leg by using another clump of green stuff to act as the palm. I did not want to deform it too much when sticking the fingers in, so I attached them gently and used superglue to tighten the bond.

Second step: strenghten the fingers by using more green stuff to smooth the transitions. Also create a backwards finger.

After hardening, create an incision and a talon, as above.

Assembly

Attach the wings the same as the tail, using green stuff and superglue.

Second step of green stuffing to smooth the transition.

Attach the leg using a clump of green stuff.

Peg leg griffon! Yarrrr!!!

Add another layer of green stuff.

Work it with the sculpting tools - much like rot to create fur-like texture.

The last thing to solve was to create texture on the leg itself. I did not want to spend hours on sculpting scales and whatnot, so I took a shortcut. Stiple GW Liquid Green Stuff on it:

And another layer, as it contracted significantly after drying:

Mount on base

Done with the modeling part. I drilled a hole in the base for the left foot, which has a peg; and I attached the right foot (which doesn't have a peg, and is quite irregular) using silicone glue.