SCULPTING 101 STEP BY STEP

[garyjd]

Denoued, Thank you.~Gary

 

[garyjd]

Originally posted by bonehead@Feb 24 2006, 12:50 PM
In the 3/4 view pic of your finished coat piece, it seems to be angling away from his body at about 20 degrees or so off of vertical. If you look again at your reference pic, you will see that the one big furrow (fold) that hangs lowest on the coat front hangs straight up and down. It also comes quite close to his body at this point. This dead vertical fold is important to represent the "weight" of the coat. Otherwise it looks like the thing is floating a bit.

Mike

Mike. After not only looking at the photos again but by dry figtting the piece to the figure did I realize how poorly I tac'd the piece in place. I think the followinf pictures will show the piece as I should have placed it to begin with.~Gary

 

[garyjd]

I first glue the piece in place by gluing the piece down with three minute epoxy. Before gluing I like to rough sand the two surfaces being joined to gether so there is more for the epoxy to hold onto.

I then mark out with a fine tip marker the main folds on the piece.

 

[garyjd]

I start by carving away some of the putty to make the fold deeper. It's best to do this with as fresh a blade as possible. A & B putty does not carve as easily as Aves but it is able to be carved.

 

[garyjd]

In addition to carving, I indicate the fold by following the line with a triangular shaped file. This makes the carving a bit easier as I carve down towards the bottom of the channel the file makes.

 

[garyjd]

After carving, filing, and sanding (both rough and smooth) I add additional putty using Aves putty. The following photos will better show the positioning of this part of the jacket than the earlier photos did.

 

[garyjd]

Profile view.

 

[garyjd]

Right back view. This large fold will be further accented later.

 

[garyjd]

The figure overall.

 

[garyjd]

After reading Mike Good's comments, I decided to rework the areas where the arms join the torso at the shoulders. I'm also going to redo the part of the armature for the right arm. The Sculpey on the roughed out left arm will be removed and repositioned. These changes should see the final pose match the photos a little more closely. Mike's comments also reminded me of an article he wrote for Issue number 6 of the May/June 1996 issue of Historical Miniature and Militaria magazine. The article was about the sculpting of Andrea Miniature's 90mm figure of Blackbeard. This article really got me concentrating more on how to engineer a figure more than any other sculpting book/article I had seen to date.

I sanded the area of the right shoulder so it would be angled a bit more to improve the position of the arm. A disk was cut out of sheet styrene and epoxied in place.

 

[garyjd]

A disk was also epoxied in place on the left side.

 

[TorMag]

Gary,

Why the disk? Are you planning on this being molded and cast?

Tor

 

[garyjd]

This back view shows the areas that need to be built up to reposition the arms.

 

[garyjd]

Originally posted by TorMag@Mar 2 2006, 11:53 AM
Gary,

Why the disk? Are you planning on this being molded and cast?

Tor

Hi Tor, There are no plans to cast it. I want to show how I engineer a figure in addition to sculpting. When the arms are joined to the figure the disks will be a big help in insuring a clean fit...I hope. ~Gary

 

[garyjd]

The righ side of the figure after filling in around the disk with Aves putty.

 

[garyjd]

I had to sand away some of what would be the right shoulder blade, as it stuck out quite a bit.

 

[garyjd]

A second sheet of A&B putty (about 80%) and Aves putty (20%) is rolled out for the portion of the jacket edge. It was done in the same manner as the right side. I have decided here to include a picture to show what it looks like. If you use am X-acto handle to roll it out, don't forget to remove the blade first.

 

[garyjd]

When the piece was about 50-70% cured I cut out the shape needed to replicate the left side of the jacket. Since my piece was cured a little more than expected I put small pieces of blu tac underneath the piece because it would not stay in place by itself.


The jacket from the front.

 

[garyjd]

View from the left side.

 

[garyjd]

The back.