I learned a lot when I took the amazing creature sculpting class through anatomytools.com. Of course, most of it was learning that i have so blamed much more to learn… but at least i also got clues on things to explore to improve what i sculpt.

One of those suggestions was to think about the flow of the sculpt. Each part of the sculpt should draw you on to the next – to explore contrapposto – posing, and more.

Michelangelo’s David is considered one of the great examples of contrapposto posing. So i thought I would try for something elegant and refined to practice on.

He had his own idea.

actually i like him a lot. I was thinking about what asian bjd companies call “tender” eyes, so gave him those – and i think he looks like he is in a trance. I like the contrast between his dorky self and the dance he is lost in.

I really don’t like this clay though — way too soft and sticky. and i just splurged and bought a whole bunch of it too. I think i’m going to press some between sheets of paper and see if i can leach some of the stickiness out…

spent last week in sql server training – kind of hard to keep two totally opposing trains of thought in your head at the same time. headaches…..

played a bit more with the snail baby – started thinking about how the shell would look if it were made like ribcage – the spine either running down one side of the curve, or down the middle of the curve – with ribs curving out to make the dome of the shell.

having normal problems getting the things i see in my head out into 3d physical/realworld form….

Can see this etherial, eerie, skull-like vampire Princess of Amarna….. started working on the skull in premier, and the skull just doesn’t feel right. very frustrating…

So I thought I would start another skull, this one out of castilene, and see if it is a materials problem or if my brain has melted and drained out of my ear and i will never be able to sculpt again.

typical sculpting process – got sidetracked wondering what a newborn’s skull looks like, so of course i sculpted that instead of an adult woman’s – started laying a face in with chavant, and got sidetracked thinking about Buddhas. End up with a sort of infant buddha head staring at me ….

trying to figure out what to do with it, and decide a short, tubby baby merman seems reasonable and start to lay out an armature using a coil of aluminum wire. Look down, and there is a solemn snail baby peering up at me.

typical. start out aiming at the bust of an adult female and get sidetracked onto a infant garden demon.

So I’m actually rather liking the way he is looking, but noticing that the folk around me are much less enthused. which gets me thinking about how i see him in my head as opposed to how he actually looks. In my head, i see him moving towards me along a path in the shadows of a silent, overgrown garden — his skin is a pearly grey, warm and soft as a human baby’s — his shell is pale bone – like the skull of a hummingbird.

I know i can’t make him move – but how can I make the rest happen? I’m so much happier sculpting in the chavant – but what in the world do I do with it? and how can i make his shell? and the real question is probably —- do I spend months working on figuring these things out on a sculpt that maybe only i will like? or do i squish him down and start again.

and if he has no arms, do shoulderblades make any sense? does he have the kind of wavy margin to his foot that some snails have, or tiny baby toes? and just how far gone am i to be obsessing over something like this?

sigh.

the whole building the skeleton/laying in the main masses thing made the basic body sculpting incredibly straightforward… I like how the kitten looks.

Unfortunately I really didn’t think enough about it as a sculpture in the round – and the back is boring. I’m going to have to try to think more about that for the next one. I also didn’t connect the armature to the stand so I could swing it up in the air and work on it upside down, and its hard to work on the feet without squishing other bits of the sculpt. (I also need to look at cat feet more – how many toes, and where they are on the front and the back feet)

but i’m totally wimping out trying to figure out how to texture/finish the skin. Sphynx kittens have lovely masses of wrinkles — i don’t know how to lay them in. i’m trying to work up my enthusiasm. Finding myself remembering a book I read to my kids when they were small – Catwings by Ursula LeGuin and thinking about bat-type wings for this guy…..

anyway – here are pics in the round for current status….

and here is the boring backside…

home from work today, so got to do a bit more sculpting..

quickly laid in bone points and my best guess at where the muscles should be (having some problems with the clavicle, and the sternomastoid (where it pulls around the turned neck — and then the group of glands under the jaw that bulk out the neck there…

need more pictures.

and i blew it and didn’t lay in the armature for the paws….. but like how its going so far. just a vanilla cat though…. good practice for me.
body is short (the angle of the photo makes it look even shorter than it really is). hmmm…..

been happily re-reading all the Sharon Lee and Steve Miller Liaden books and my inner Korvel seems to have emerged…

ahem.

anyway —

The teachers of the incredible creature sculpture class – Andrew Cawrse and Mike Murnane, approached sculpture from the viewpoint of creating characters for movies – they emphasized correct anatomy, personality/character, and story.

I came away with a list of things to do to improve my sculpts.

1. Learn anatomy. working with what they showed us – I discovered some really obvious truths that i’d somehow ignored till now. If you get the skeleton right – if the bones are more or less the right shape, and the right sizes and in the right places, you can put the figure into the pose you want, and lay on the muscles (the right muscles, the right size, going the right places) and the figure is far more convincing than when you just wing it.

2. use calipers – make sure that all the parts of the figure are the same size as their counterparts – upper arms are each the same length, etc etc… unless you intentionally MEAN them to be different

3. sculpt every day. even if its only a 5 minute maquette, or working on an armature. draw every day -sculpting is like drawing – similar fine motor controls of your hands

4. create a plan. Andrew said that part of one class with Richard MacDonald included writing your obituary, including everything that you hope to have achieved before you die. Be specific —- don’t say “wrote a book” say first book of photographs published december 2011. Then figure out the plan you need to put into place to achieve those goals. then stick to it!

5. Think about the figure you are sculpting. what does it eat? what eats it? how does it reproduce? how big is it?

6. work on a good armature, work standing up (keeps the energy going)

there was lots more – but i’ll be happy if i can internalize these for now.

I’ve been making maquettes, though not one a day. I keep drawing the same 2 muscle shapes over and over. sigh. drawing is definitely a challenge for me. I’ve been working on creating armatures – interesting, i always thought the wires should follow the bones of the skeleton – but in the class, they said no, the wires might happen to follow the bones, but mostly they have to be inside the sculpt – you can build the bones in place as long as they are supported by the wire.

I ended up doing a few maquettes of cats. (In large part because the cat who adopted us over Christmas kept sitting on my books when I tried to look up animals, chewing on my keyboard when i tried to look up animals on google…. it just was easier to sculpt the blamed cat) which reminded me how much i love the look of Sphynx cats.

so i’ve started a cat. not sure if it will stay all cat – i played with giving it a fish tail (catfish — yeah i know, my humor never matured either) and actually its a kitten – large head, smaller body, larger paws…

at the class – they said one of the first things to do is block in the larger masses. the skull, the pelvis, the ribcage. so that is what I did first.

I discovered that when i sculpted a careful cat skull first – the head almost sculpted itself (couldn’t resist, laid in some rough ears, eyelids, nose and lips). i tried to guess where the ribcage should be – then tried to fiddle with the legs. Discovered that i had used too small of aluminum wire for the legs – and that my guess on the ribcage was too far back. Finally ripped the cat apart, redid the armature with stronger legs, and invested in some books on cat anatomy.

Now i’m reading about scapulas, humerus and clavicle and preparing to lay in the sternomastoid, levator scapulae ventralis and clavotrapezius – and amazing myself that the words are starting to have meaning for me.

Its going to be interesting to see where this goes.

by the way – this creature is a small predator who eats insects, small rodents and tunaflakes. the sculpt is roughly life sized, it is a juvenile, curious and intelligent – it is hunted by larger creatures such as bobcats, coyotes and its still trying to decide if the peacock in the back yard is food or danger. It may have grasping hands and prehensile tail – not sure yet – it lives above ground, preferring trees, computer tables and tops of display cases.

quick pic of the sculpt I started at the incredible creature sculpture class through anatomytools.com – taught by Mike Murnane and Andrew Cawrse. Probably the best 1 week class I’ve ever taken – learned more in that amount of time than i’ve learned in years…
she is still very in progress….

We went to a nursery the other day, to try to find some live plants to replace the more bedraggled ruins in the pots by the front door — and we found a Henry Lauder’s Walkingstick in a pot – I couldn’t resist – I haven’t had a Christmas tree in years, and I fell in love with its twisted branches.

I’m hoping I can plant it and have it to take pictures in for years – but this year anyway – I got some pictures of Birdie in its branches. this year, Christmas is about remembering childhood and magic and making wishes….

I always wanted to be a painter, but I don’t have the fine motor skills to make the kinds of pictures I see in my head.

but using my camera, and playing with photoshop – i can have some fun and come up with some images i enjoy…
these are pretty simple – I just have to learn how to make them more complex … (but i really need to get back to squishing clay!)

What do you fear my lady?

found in a bundle of old pictures in the attic…. Birdie’s trip up the Nile

this year has been all about family and changes. learning about coping and accepting, and finding ways to keep myself from spiraling down —
thank you Forest, for always being there with brilliant and witty (on your part!) conversations to give me a boot in the rear when I needed it most…

And thank you Therese (twigling) for encouraging me to take on a bjd head project that has kept me playing with clay, so at least i’m not totally
blocked for sculpting….

I’ve gotten fascinated by photo manipulation which combines 2 passions – sculpting and photography – and have decided to see if I can come up
with some interesting pics of the things I sculpt….

so here is my first attempt – its not great, but its been a lot of fun to start learning photoshop …. and boy did i learn a lot about why this wasn’t
an especially great photo to start with!