My first figure sculpture

[Mat Lambert]

Hi there
Ray, Jamie and Dan - really interesting posts & lots to think about now!

Its good to see others process.

I may be getting ahead of myself but any tips on fur textures and hair/beards would be useful - I am going to need to create a bearskin at somepoint and have made a couple of tests with spare putty at the end of a session but so far they are looking like... well, scratch marks in putty.

cheers Mat

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Mat,
I am doing some texture experiments for a dog.

I'll share some results on here later. Say. sunday arvo, my time.

This is a good thread. Dan Morton has some good stuff too.

Cheers

 

[Ray]

Mat,
I'm no expert at sculpting fur, or even hair for that matter so whatever advice anyone has to offer would be just as interesting to me as you. All I know about sculpting hair is that it really amounts to a series of scratch marks on, the strait or wavy stuff anyway. For finer things like smooth fur it seems that a finer set of scratch marks would be the thing, made say, by lightly dragging the point of a needle over soft putty. Curley stuff and the stuff that stands on end is something else entirely and something beyond my experience to comment on. That said we can hope that Jamie comes through with advice after his experiments, and that the experienced on the subject chime in as well.

Ray

 

[Ryder]

I would like to see an sbs on doing fur or hair. Always looking for new ideas.

 

[Einion]

I may be getting ahead of myself but any tips on fur textures and hair/beards would be useful - I am going to need to create a bearskin at somepoint and have made a couple of tests with spare putty at the end of a session but so far they are looking like... well, scratch marks in putty.

From pF:
Hair advice
Hair
sculpting hair in 1/35th

From CMON:
Sculpting Hair
how to sculpt long strands of hair?

These all have fairly generic advice which can be applied to lots of similar textures. But if you're looking for the best result on bear fur I'd recommend working from photos of bears & bearskins; seeing if you can find sculpted representations of bearskins by professional sculptors would probably be worth it too.

Einion

 

[Mat Lambert]

Einion - Thanks for the links, looks like they will be useful for lots of us.

I have been looking at reference pictures of other modelled figures with bearskins (of course Bill Horan!) and it looks like the texture is made up from lots of tiny threads of putty arranged into position. Can this be?...they must be so small. Does anyone on Pf use this technique?

Jamie - I look forward to seeing images of your tests sometime.

cheers Mat

 

[Einion]

Einion - Thanks for the links, looks like they will be useful for lots of us.

Welcome.

I have been looking at reference pictures of other modelled figures with bearskins (of course Bill Horan!) and it looks like the texture is made up from lots of tiny threads of putty arranged into position. Can this be?...they must be so small.

Bill Horan's bearskins I'm sure are all or mostly done as outlined in many of the links - a layer of putty textured with a pointed tool or tools. You could do hair or fur textures in part with small rolls of putty applied one at a time but generally when it comes to texture like this 'less is more' is the general feeling.

Einion

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Mat,
still working on the fur texture exercise, needed to revisit a few things.

Einion is correct, less is more.

Plus, sculpting can only go so far; after that point, it's down to paint for the next set of results.

cheers

 

[湘雅学子]

First welcome to sculpture world,but the muscle looks a bit angularity.
Suggest you to learn some anatomy knowledge.Because of I am a medical student,I think it is very useful to sculpture.

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Mat,
hope you have continued on this while we havent been looking!

Texture and fur sculpt.
Finnaly made time for it tonight, so will sculpt the bearskin tonight, with some SBS pix, bake, then post wed morning.

sorry for the delay, had some of my own projects to tackle first!

Cheers

 

[1969]

Matt for fur or hair i use a mixture of duro and magicsculpt at a ratio of 50-50, you can replace the MS with milliput if you dont have MS. place a lump of the putty to the area you need it and smooth out to shape then leave to harden for about 30 minutes.
Give the putty a light coat of vasaline then using a blunt scalpel blade `and i mean blunt as in rub the blade edge on a stone` you can press in the detail work into the putty to create the effect of fur or hair. Make the larger strands first then refine them with smaller lines and lift some of the strands to create wavier hair or fur.

Hope this helps and look forward to seeing more of your figure.

Steve

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Finally!!!

Hope this helps, I will do it as a SBS, with a summary.

with the head, I drilled a pair of holes, inserted a loop of wire, then formed a cylinder around it. This one I made is way too narrow, but I wanted to get it done. Although not photographed, I did score a series of cross hatch lines in the cylinder before curing the putty, so there was some texture for the next layer to 'grab'

I smoothed the crown of the cylinder off, and baked it. (Use what ever method for curing is appropriate for the putty you use.)

Put aside for the next step

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Then I started to texture a fresh layer of putty (Too thin a core, but a thin skin of putty)

I used a variety of tools, sharp scalpel, blunt scalpel, dental pick, what worked for me is a pin in an old scalpel handle. So what ever tools you that will work for you, use it.

I moved the pin in a downwards motion, using short strokes. Sometimes from top to bottom, other times from bottom to top.

I did make an effort that at the top of the crown and the base of the brim that the threads did look like the had a hair look to them.

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Ok, a bit about the chinstrap;
This was a fast and fumbly sculpt, so the chinstrap is still something that will have to be sculpted.

My reference showed a chain style parade ground fancy chinstrap, while a leather one may be easier.

Just a thin worm of putty, flattened with a rolling pin type gadget, then I trimmed it a scalpel.

Did some intervals with a sculpting tool, and made tiny hollows in the middle of each division with a tip of the pin, to imply a link effect.

Sculpting can only go so far, painting will take it to the next step.

It didnt photograph well, so I added a quick layer of primer so it would show up better.

Not the most fantastic fur result, hope it helps with yours though.

Summary
in hindsight, I would do hair first, then chin strap, then the bearskin, in that order.

Working from the inside out, particularly when doing overlapping layers, is something I had overlooked, I'll pass it on to you.

hope this helps,

cheers

PS; One thing that could be done is to lay your hands on either Artists modelling clay (called Plasticine here in Oz) or kids type clay, and use that for your own experiments. Looking at my effort, some of it doesn't really have bearskin texture, this came about from inconsistent technique.
I'd do a short strokes from top to bottom, now I've had some think space. Well, thats one error you wont have to make!

 

[Mat Lambert]

Thanks Steve for the tips
Thanks Jamie for your SBS - you spent a lot of time exploring my problem for me, very kind.

There hasnt been much time to sculpt recently (or catch up on pF!) but hope to have some more work in progress to show after the weekend!

I may also be able to sneak a quick look at the National Army Museum, London on Friday around a work trip which may offer useful reference.

cheers Mat

 

[Jamie Stokes]

Cheers Mat,
I think Steve's suggestion is actually better then mine.

I'd encourage practice on a scrap piece first, as the face/ head are the focus of any figure

I don't think I was clear earlier, the reason for the U bolt in the head was to support the putty core; similar to the wire frame used under a figure.

Unless you wish to alert the house with a cry of anguish when "with just one more teeny little push....." the bearskin is accidentally dislodged

Been there, done that, still got the dent in the wall from slinging the offending tool across the man cave!

cheers

PS; Ray I think is correct. Hair like this does have a taper, which is best received with a wedge shape like a blunted scalpel blade. As for fur texture in smaller scales, there comes a time when, like zooming out visually, details fade. Good observations Ray. Cheers

 

[Ray]

Jamie,
I know that I said in my post that I don't know much about sculpting fur so this may be a small bit hypocritical, or read that way. However, were I to attempt something like a bear skin hat I'd likely be more inclined towards a wedge shaped tool, or even a knife edge just as I do with straight human hair. In the case of your bear skin hat drawing the blade down away from the crown would likely result in a more realistic appearance as the real deal lays this way.

My difficulty is not with the stuff that lays flat and is fairly straight, rather I have not yet attempted to sculpt, thus not discovered a technique for, curly hair, or fur like that of a sheep. I'm also not quite convinced of the need to sculpt smooth close lying fur (Whippet, Greyhound that sort, horse summer coat), it is often much finer than the stuff on our own heads and from a distance pretty much smooth and uniform in appearance, much like it was painted on rather than a grown coat. In fact, I am actually skeptical that the texture of small scale (1/32 and under) human hair always needs sculpting, with the possible exception of curly stuff, but as it seems to be an expectation within the hobby I persist in doing it. A better option, less contrived, I think, would be to only sculpt the mass, or overall shape of the hair leaving texture for painting on.

Two more cents, and probably not worth the copper. Lol


Ray

 

[Mat Lambert]

Hi guys

Re hair - I noticed vBench member Joe Hudson offered the link below on the Deadwood bust thread which has just been posted. Its a SBS of the bust, the scale is much bigger but it shows some wonderfull hair sculpting - really worth taking a look

http://www.absculpture.com/tutorials.htm

cheers
Mat
(and thanks Joe if you catch this)