Fisherman Bust

[bucsfan21]

Francesca, Good job on the "Old Bill" bust. Look forward to seeing it painted for Atlanta Show next February.

Happy Trails, Terry Martin and the Atlanta Gang

 

[Anders Heintz]

Great job on the bust! So neat and clean with great expression and feel!

 

[kidney stone kid]

wow! Great work, Francesca! At first, I was tempted to go and throw "Captains Courageous" in the dvd player, but, I couldn't find it. Then, I had an urge for fish, but, alas, All I had were some Mrs Paul's fish sticks. May go try to land some lake perch this weekend....



ps- I can't believe Pete called you "dude"

 

[Pete_H]

Jimmy,
"Dude" is a state of mind. Haven't you ever seen "the Big Lebowski"?

 

[Franco]

Dear Francesca,

Well done on your sculpting - it looks great - love to seethis painted up.

Keep posting the step by step as you paint it - will be great to follow 'Old Bill's' progress.

Thank you & Ciao
Franco

 

[Roc]

Francesca, you do beautiful work, extreemly well detailed.
I caint wait to see it painted.

Keep up the good .

Ciao.

Roc.

 

[Hyades]

WOW! Absolutely fantastic sculpting job! Would you happen to have some pictures of the sculpting process for this piece? And how did you make the pipe?

I'd love to get into sculpting (I've plenty of ideas running around my head) and your bust is really quite an inspiration! Thanks for the photos and I, like everyone else, looks forward to seeing your progress!

Hyades
aka Nancy

 

[fsdesimone]

Pete: I'm not sure. I know I started it back in December and had everything but the hat completed by February. In terms of actual hours, it really wasn't that many, but I was working on several figures simultaneously so it's hard to tell. I should keep a logbook or something just for my own curiousity.

Terry: At the rate I go, having it painted by Atlanta is the most realistic time frame!

Nancy: The pipe was a piece of copper wire that was bent around two different sized rods to get a smooth "S"-type curve. Then I just built up with putty til it looked right. It took a lot of sanding and carving to get it to look uniform from all angles. I think there was probably an easier way to do it with templates (actually some of the others who use them for helmets should chime in because I've never done it myself).

I will look for what in-progress pictures I have. I don't think there are many though.

Thanks again everybody!

Francesca

 

[fsdesimone]

Okay, here's what I found that I have. I don't know how helpful it will be to anyone, but here goes.

I did the ribbing on the turtleneck when the putty had partially set. If you wait until that point to start scribing, the two edges of the putty along the knifecut will depress as well, the way real material would pull from such stitching. Not sure I'm explaining that too well, so I hope that makes sense. You could achieve the same effect by sanding, but this was easier.

After that had dried, I rolled out putty like a scarf and draped it around the neck. I worked most of the folds in at that point since the material was supposed to be thick anyway.

 

[fsdesimone]

Then it seems I didn't take a picture again until it was pretty far along:

The area in the blue box was where I had just put way too many folds and material for this kind of coat. I eventually removed it and I think it made a big difference. I also widened that sleeve since it was too vertical.

 

[Pete_H]

Makes perfect sense, dude!

 

[fsdesimone]

Here's where I began work on the hat.

First I tried it with the brim down:

Then with it up:

This one is actually more "slouchy" than I eventually settled on. Gary, maybe you like this one better? I thought it was a little too Gilligan personally.

I made the hat in basically the same manner others have outlined before - I used a circular template to cut out a piece of thinly rolled putty (in this case it was MS... I had run out of Duro unfortunately; it's way better suited for such an item since it's got some flex to it). Then I cut a smaller circle out of the center so that it could fit around the peak I was building for the top of the hat. You can get the idea better in this photo I think:

I smeared vaseline along the crown of his head so that the brims wouldn't stick and I could remove them to try different variations.

When I finally settled on the one I liked, I used the circular templates as guides to make the concentric stitching impressions. I wish I could have come up with something that looked like 3D stitching, but alas...

The brim was the hardest part of the entire thing. I must have made about 5 of them while experimenting. And I even broke the final one in the back when I knocked the figure over.

 

[Lepman]

Francesca a real masterpiece. Will this piece be commercially available? Being from a seafaring family and province, this figure is a must have. Just beautiful.

 

[fsdesimone]

I finished off the rest of the hat by glueing the brim, sanding the seam and puttying over it.

You can see I had also given him a moustache experimentally. It made him look younger and more reflective, so I shaved it off. I wanted him to look mean.

You can also see the beginning work on the pipe in these pictures.

 

[fsdesimone]

And that's all I've got in terms of pictures, so if something isn't clear, just ask I guess.

I think my favorite thing about the entire figure are the buttons. I was very pleased with how they turned out. They were also done with circular templates. Something neat that I realized was that if you pressed a template circle into the putty just enough to make an impression but didn't cut it out, and then pressed a larger diamter circle over that same area, you could form a lip like most real buttons have. I then used a slightly larger template circle to cut the whole thing out and when it had dried, I sanded it to the size of the second circle. It worked pretty well and the hardest thing was making sure it was all centered around the same point.

Francesca

 

[yeo_64]

EXCELLENT SBS,Francesca !! Thanks also for the reply to my question on how you got such a smooth texture for your sculpts. Must try it out soon ! Looking forward to the finished bust.Cheers !
Kenneth :lol:

 

[ALEGOMEN]

Hello.. I understand that you sculpt this figure.....what kind of clay do you used?' I like very much the details in the shape of the clothes and the face.
looks very well finished,, I mean that to acomplish the neat to erase the fingers out of the clay,, how do you do this?? some people use a brush and thiner to pass it trhrow the clay,, I suggest you to use Latex to cover some parts, and you can applied this witha brush then you can use an airbrush to paint the face and everything this will give you a very nice finished work, Like this looks awsome
congratulations you are very good, well maybe you know already about the airbrush etc,, is only an opinion to you, regards and keep in tune! Alejandro

 

[Hyades]

Hi Francesca,

Thanks for the "in-progress" photos and explanations - they're all very helpful and fun to look at! Keep posting them as you go, please!!

Thanks again.
Hyades
aka Nancy

 

[JP PRAJOUX]

You did really something beautiful with the magic sculp on the coat (and on the buttons ).
A simple question that may sound silly. Wich paste is the hardener and wich one is the resin in magic sculp (grey= hardener and "brown"= resin ?), am I right ?
Thanks for sharing...
Jean-Philippe

 

[fsdesimone]

Originally posted by JP PRAJOUX@Jul 16 2004, 02:52 AM
A simple question that may sound silly. Wich paste is the hardener and wich one is the resin in magic sculp (grey= hardener and "brown"= resin ?), am I right ?

No, the other way around: the resin is "grey" and the hardener is a "brownish green". I believe it's now labelled on the new containers they use (it definitely wasn't on the old ones).

They actually put out Magic Sculp in white now. It's nice to have the figure all one color, as opposed to the mottled mess I always get with the regular version, but the consistency is slightly different... less sticky.