Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Creepy, creepy...

Every so often I get the itch to try and sculpt a figure. So much so that, a few years ago, I bought a few blocks of Super Sculpey clay and a few sculpting tools. Well, that itch went away and all the supplies have been living in a drawer for the last few years.

Until last weekend.

For some reason I started looking at maquette sculptures of animated characters. I found a few cheap ones on Amazon.com that looked really good and I may still pick them up. But, that's what started it. I started wondering what my own characters might look like in a 3D sculpted form. So, I looked around online and found a bunch of great sculptors who had some informative tutorials.

Out came the blocks of clay and the tools.

Monika has some experience with stuff like this so she gave me tips on how to build the armature skeleton underneath. Then I filled the whole wire skeleton out with tin foil and covered it in a layer of clay. After baking that layer to harden it up I started working on the face.

It's been both a lot of fun and a lot of frustration. But, at times, I can look at my first attempt at sculpting and think, "that doesn't look too bad."

Of course, there are those other times when it just doesn't feel like it's working out right and I want to throw it against the wall.

But, for now, I'll keep working on it and see how it turns out. It's not any one character right now. Just me trying to do a basic person and see how the clay and tools work.

But, looking at his face in close up in these photos all I can think of is one thing.

Creepy, creepy!

5 comments:

Jeff Lafferty said...

Awesome man! Looks great so far. The OCD action figures you were talking about are becoming a reality!
Jeff

rob! said...

Wow, nice job--I can see your style showing up in the sculpture's face.

My one effort at sculpting was in Mark Pennington's Life Drawing class, and I WILL NEVER DO IT AGAIN.

Sean Tiffany said...

I was thinking about Pennington's class and the sculpting he had us do on the little model. I never got to do that! I somehow dodged that bullet so maybe that's why I still want to try it.

And Jeff, that is the plan...OilCan Drive maquettes...someday...

Craig Zablo said...

He looks like one of the characters from Cirque du Soleil

http://www.lasplash.com/uploads/1/la_nouba_by_cirque_du_soleil_-_the_titan_002.jpg

http://www.ivybigbee.com/images/Cirque%20du%20Soleil/LaNouba/Striding%20Titan.jpg

Sean Tiffany said...

Craig...yikes! That is one scary looking man. Luckily, my little guy has a changed a bit since the photos yesterday. Today, if I have time, he may even get some ears!