Sculpting for Dummies (me) --image intensive--

[Ancient]

I've been wanting to take the space and form class here at Ringling since I first applied. but unfortunatly Freshman get the last pick of classes and it was already full. I want to take the class to learn how to sculpt machettes, the little statues animators use for refference. So, I'm just gonna teach myself! And away I go!!!

Step one, draw a character map of your subject. In this case I'm just going to keep it simple and make an athletic male character, just to practice. He's about 16" tall, I need to work big since I'm a noob at this. The feet seem a little small here, but thats just distortion from the camera, they are perfect I tell you!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/Sculpture1.jpg
Step 2-15 or so: Using the dimensions from the character map, I'm starting to build the armature for the sculpture (thats the skeleton underneath). Its pretty tricky, especially since the head and arms will be removable. In this picture, I've finished twisting the wires for the most part (my fingertips are killing me)And I'm waiting for the apoxy putty (the black stuff) to harden. Frankly the putty is the worst part of this, to coin a Gorrillaz lyric it "smells like old ass with skunk meat". Plus it takes about a day to set fully despite its 5-15 minutes claim.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/Sculpture2.jpg
step 16-120567ish nnndone...with the armature
And you can see just how big a mess I've made my place in the proccess. The small brass tubes on the shoulders and neck of the armature are where it can be separated. The feet are bolted and then apoxied to the "floor" and the whole thing is attached to a pipe from the lower back area for added stability. That may seem a little excesive, but really nothing sucks more than working on wobbly clay XP. This whole thing took about 3 days, thanks to the putty's slow drying prowess. That and my own noobish ineptitude.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/Sculpture3.jpg
And a nice purdy shot after I've cleaned everything up and gotten everything ready to start applying Super Sculpy (the clay) which I will start first thing tommorrow. You can see all the tools and stuff ready to go, as well as multiple boxs of Sculpy, and dont forget the anatomy bible! ALL PRAISE THE MIGHTY ANATOMY BIBLE!
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/Sculpture4.jpg

[Alielle]

Ah yes, maquette sculpture. That brings back memories of calloused, punctured hands and stinky epoxy fumes.

The armature looks great. Hope you have fun with it.

[Jehosaphaty]

nice book in the background: anatomy for the artist. ive got one as well. and its looking goody.

[Ancient]

Sculpting update:
Oh the fun! Its trial and error at its zaniest! First off I had too strong a light bulb in my home made clay-heater-oven-box-thingy. So instead of warming the clay to be more pliable, it simply baked it solid. Sculpey only requires a temp of about 275F before it begins to set perminently. And since the clay was piping hot when I grabbed it, my thumb on my right hand got nicely scaulded. Its not too bad, but it certainly doesnt feel like rubbing clay around at the moment. Luckely I only had a couple bits of clay in the warmer at the time, so I only wasted about 3 bucks worth. Still, it ticked me off.
Whats worse, I think the sculpy I bought is rather old. Its extremly hard to start working it out of the box. Its so bad that I had to resort to tenderizing it with a hammer before I could even role it into smaller balls to put in the warmer. Luckely though, once I got the right bulb for the warmer, it works well to keep them pliable for use after that.
I'd have a picture, but there isnt much to show. I only got just a little bit of clay on after all that before I decided to give my singed fingertips a break. Hopefully tommorrow they will have healed a bit.

[Ancient]

Sorry to dig up such an old post, but I didnt feel like re-explaining all all that previous stuff again.

Anyway! I've finally gotten back to sculpting on my dude again, and its coming along nicely. I had actually gotten a good amount of sculpy on the maquette back in December, but I had given up for a bit 'cause it wasnt working well. The sculpy from the school bookstore is hard as a rock. I've since scoped a few art stores around town and found that everyone elses sculpy is quite soft (as it should be). I have no idea why the bookstore has stail sculpy since the stuff is supposed to last forever.
Anyway, instead of paying 9 bucks a pound for sculpy, this time I went with a cheaper modeling clay that runs $15 for 5 pounds. Then I ripped all the old Sculpy off, beat it with a hammer, and stuffed it back into its little box. Then started applying the new stuff, and its working well...

This is after about 4 hours of simply blocking in the basic shapes of the figure. I've got a good portion of the torso, and legs, with a smidge on the arms and no hands yet. This is twice as much clay in half as much time as what I got on the armature when I was working with the stail sculpy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010018.jpg

A shot from the back from the same time-frame. You can see the support pipe goes directly into his lower back to keep him nice and sturdy while I apply clay.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010019.jpg

This is a bit further along after I put a few more hours into it just tonight. I consentrated mostly on the upper body and arms this time. He seems very happy to have hands. I changed the position of his right arm to give him a less symetrical look, and since I seem to have a better grasp of the musculature of a flexed arm than a loose one.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010023.jpg

Same thing again from a different angle. Unfortunatly it blurred a bit, but a sharp details dont matter much in this phase. Its most important to find the large shapes and curves of the pose. Thats where having the high contrast lighting comes in handy.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010022.jpg

Thats it for now, and don't worry, I'm still working on that Savage Wolf pic too.

[DamonKatu]

Nice clay moddle. I bet it took hard work just to make sure that you get the moddle right. How long did it take to finish it? You probly have other project that make things...dificult...I wounder if she's ok

[Ancient]

Actually this is nowhere near finished, I havent even finish blocking in the muscles yet. After that I'll get into the detail. And if you count the time it took to make the wire armature its been about 15 hours worth of work. But this is my first, so I'm slow.

[Sagasu]

On 2006-01-16 09:59, Ancient wrote:
Actually this is nowhere near finished, I havent even finish blocking in the muscles yet. After that I'll get into the detail.



Detail, bake, mend surface cracks, more detail, then paint?

Looks fun.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2006-01-16 00:01, Ancient wrote:
Sorry to dig up such an old post, but I didnt feel like re-explaining all all that previous stuff again.


You're appending a previously unfinished & on-going work. Don't worry about it. I'm judging this the same way Fan Fictions are judged.

[Zarode]

Oh man that looks so fun. Hard, and long, but fun.

<_< How much did all the stuff cost you so far?

[DamonKatu]

On 2006-01-16 12:14, Sagasu wrote:


On 2006-01-16 09:59, Ancient wrote:
Actually this is nowhere near finished, I havent even finish blocking in the muscles yet. After that I'll get into the detail.



Detail, bake, mend surface cracks, more detail, then paint?

Looks fun.



Deffently http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_smile.gif

[Ancient]

I dont think I'll be baking this one. Its just a practice sculpture. Instead I plan to get it to a good level of detail and then make a mold of it. I found a good how-to DVD on making silicon molds as well. My painting skills are poop, so having the ability to make several molded copies to practice on seems like a good idea.

So far I'd have to say I've busted about $300 dollars or more on this. But thats for all the tools and whatnot as well as the clay and wire.
When I look at it that way, it seems pretty expensive. But the two priciest items; a cordless drill, and a Dremmel tool will last me a long time and come in handy for a number of other things.
If I use the same type of clay on my next one as I am here, it should only cost about 15 bucks to make another.

[HUnewearl_Meira]

On 2006-01-16 21:12, Ancient wrote:
If I use the same type of clay on my next one as I am here, it should only cost about 15 bucks to make another.



Which means that you'll have spent $165 on each, then the third will mean that you'll have spent $115 on each, etc, etc. Depreciation!

[Dek]

Hot damn!

That is awsome Ancient!

Also love the eyes you gave it XD

[Ancient]

I felt pretty charged up after Illustration class today for some reason. So, I came home and got some solid work done on my sculpture! Why oh why, I didnt spend my energy on making a whoopars contest entry...I dont know. But hey, I reeeaally have fun doing this clay stuff ^__^

I got some more work done on the body, but the most noticable thing to be added is his new head. It adds a LOT to sculpture as a whole to finally have a decent head and neck structure. He doesnt have eyes at the moment. I tryed some, but didnt like the way they turned out so I pressed them out with my thumbs, while pretending he was screaming...it was fun http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010025.jpg

Another veiw from the back. You can see I've tweeking the muscles in the arms quite a bit with the help of my good buddy He-man! Action Hero's arent the most terribley proportionally correct figures in the world, but they help figure out basic shapes when just looking at drawings isnt helping.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010026.jpg

And from the other side...I'm making a concerted effort to show the muscles on each arm differently. As one arm is raised and the other relaxed, the muscle structure in them should look different. e.i. when an arm is straightened the Bicept is long and kinda skinny, when the arm is bent, the bicept gets all round and huge.
http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v205/MSD3000/P1010027.jpg

[Forte1224]

I hope he's not naked.

Other than that, AWESOME.

[Ancient]

He's naked in the same way The Tick is. Which is to say, nobody knows....

[Oni140]

Good work so far http://www.pso-world.com/images/phpbb/icons/smiles/icon_biggrin.gif

You have good work with anatomy; I need to get one of those books ._.

I'll enjoy to see more progress; plan on painting it or something?

[EphekZ]

wow that looks awsome dude

[Jehosaphaty]

its looking great. im really enjoying the work in progress aspect to the sculpture. its fun to see how its changed and developed. noice.

[Sharkyland]

Excellent job so far... sounds a LOT of time and effort x.x Sculpting isn't my type of thing... x.x