Sculpting...Skill, talent, practice or all of them?

[Kisifer]

Hello fellow PF members,

I was reading a post regarding sculpting here in PF and I was wondering...can everyone do it? Can a total amateur sculpt a good figure? Or you need to have some talent in order to start?
Many times I wanted to start sculpting, but I found it extremely difficult (at least for me), then I thought...nah...I don't have the skill or talent to do so.
What is your opinion? What does it take to start sculpting some decent figures?

Xenofon

 

[carl reid]

In my experience everyone has the manual dexterity to sculpt, to use the tools, putties etc.
It's a bit like football or golf for example! We can all kick a ball or hit a golf ball. But to trap a ball, shoot and score in one movement, or to hit a golf ball 250 yards to within 6 inches of the pin are a whole different matter.

Not everyone has the ability or imagination to put a piece together, with all the subtle movements that make a piece live and breath, the tiny things that tell the story, are the things that makes all go WOW!

In my opinion the key ingredients are proportion and animation, the details come later. I've seen many folks sculpt a piece then rush to the detail before these are correct. There isn't a painter on the planet that can repair proportion or animation with the brush!

But that doesn't mean that it can't be an enjoyable, therapeutic experience while you hone your skills. After all it should be about enjoyment. Then who knows where it will lead to!

Carl

 

[Helm]

Somehow I can't see it being enjoyable or theraputic for me

 

[FigureLover]

Although I have never sculpted a figure from scratch, I have done many alterations and conversions and am slowly getting to the point where I will sculpt from scratch pretty soon. This way you start small and build up the nessecary skills. Like painting start basic and work up from there
Ben

 

[ausf]

If you can draw, you can sculpt. Some skill will be natural talent absolutely, but skill can be learned as well.

Sculpting is a bit more scientific than drawing, but if you amass enough information, observation and patience everyone should be able to render a reasonably accurate figure. If you eliminate all the inconsistencies and carefully measure and plan, the final will result should be correct. That's where the patience comes in to work and rework until it is.

It follows the 10,000 hour rule in my opinion. To become really proficient, it takes time to gain experience and build muscle memory, but that doesn't mean you can't produce excellent results along the way.

That said, I've met plenty of people who just don't see details in things or correlate info that way. They can't see resemblances between people, etc. but I don't think you'll find them in a hobby like this.

 

[theBaron]

Practice can make up for, or improve, lesser levels of talent.
I liken our skills to athletic skills. Top professional athletes start with physical talent that is better than what most other people have, but they work very hard to develop those talents and hone the skills.
Or I remember the lesson I learned when I was a kid and had to learn to play a musical instrument. Practice, practice, practice! As the Germans say, "Űbung macht den Meister!
Prost!
Brad

 

[valiant]

Although I have had a "formal" art education and worked as a professional modeller for many years, it was purely by chance that I found I could sculpt to a reasonable level (some may still question that now!!) By converting and modifying commercial figures, it gave me the confidence to attempt my own figures. I would say try it, you'll never know if you dont!
Steve

 

[Ninja_Butler]

I started learning to sculpt minis about a year ago and I think I would have learned x10 faster if I'd known the shortcuts and little tricks that I know now. Sculpting is in my opinion no more or less difficult than drawing so yes I think anyone can learn to sculpt pretty quickly but there's a big difference between the level of realism and detail novices and experts can achieve, it does take time to get good at it.

Start by looking at anatomical reference pictures, it is so much easier to sculpt the human figure when you known what it actually looks like! You *think* you know what the human body looks like until you start browsing reference material and you find yourself thinking "ahh... right, so that's where the ears should go".

When I'm sculpting, I check that various points on the model are correctly sized and correctly distanced from each other, for example, the eyes should be small - tiny really - especially on male figures and the ear holes should normally be lower than the eyes. It might sound like a more complicated way of doing things but when you've got known points on the figure it makes it easier to follow where the next feature is supposed to be, like the eyes are *here* so the mouth must go about.. *here*

When you make an armature (I prefer the two wires & twist together method) take a look at a miniature of the same scale to check that you've got the arms and legs and torso about the right length and make slight bends just to remind you where the elbows and knees are. Spend some time playing around with the pose of the armature, for fantasy miniatures the pose sometimes needs to be exaggerated due to the forced-scale, eg; Games Workshop minis have oversize hands and heads to make them more characterful.

 

[Einion]

I was reading a post regarding sculpting here in PF and I was wondering...can everyone do it? Can a total amateur sculpt a good figure?

Yes and yes.

Of course what is classed as "a good figure" will vary a bit, even those sculpting for the hobby don't produce work of equal quality.

Or you need to have some talent in order to start?

No. I just posted a bit on this in the Interested in sculpting but haven't tried? thread.

Certainly anyone with the manual dexterity to paint to a reasonable standard can learn to sculpt to roughly the same level (possibly higher, sculpting is easier in certain respects than painting).

People will argue back and forth about the need for 'talent' to sculpt well, but that's a different subject really. The basics of forming shapes in the sculpting material are not especially hard, one of the real problems is perceptual - translating what is in the mind's eye or the reference picture into 3D, by being able to see where the shapes are right and where they're wrong.

Einion

 

[old grumbler]

Basic sculpting isn't 'hard' but there's a world of difference between 'modelling' and sculpting. The ability to breathe life into clay is pretty well something that is either there or it isn't and no amount of hard practice will fill that particular void. At most you will be a 'journeyman' which for most suffices. You see so many figures that have outstanding detail, braid, blah blah but resemble tobacco store indians or worse. Many people paint, the majority daub whilst the work that excels and moves is comparatively scarce, again, it's that "X' factor. What makes for example a great violinist from say an average player? practice? well to some degree maybe, 'technically' for sure but the decider is inbuilt talent, natural ability.

 

[Don]

Of course anyone can sculpt and its so easy to do and no experience needed. Just pick up some clay/putty and get down to it. Euro is in a couple of months, could be a best of show if you are lucky.
On the other hand have you ever seen someone with no hands that tried to defuse a bomb with no training?
How about listening to what people say and if your lucky and stick at it and practice a lot you may just make a scuplor. Without training or help of anykind, forget it.

Don

 

[old grumbler]

Somehow I can't see it being enjoyable or theraputic for me

You have to go through 'the pain', the errors, self correcting, over quite a long time but all this is enjoyable, moments when you realize and learn something then the next attempt is better and so on. Now if you just want 'gas and glory' overnight then this isn't going to be enjoyable because you will be wrongly motivated. Set yourself small goals, learn, move on and you will be always learning and improving, be very critical with yourself and keep pushing the envelope, stretch yourself. You will find you have so many resources and talent you never realized you had.

 

[Ortigara]

I attended - with literally zero experience in modifying figures, let alone sculpting one - a two day course with Mariano Numitone and I was amazed at what he was able to bring us to do. I am 100% sure that if you want to go beyond a certain level you must have some natural talent and I am also 100% sure that even in starting talent can make things easier. Yet after the course I am now convinced that with a looooooot of practice (and hopefully with somebody who guides you) it is relatively easy to reach a fairly decent level. You definitely need to know (through someone's guidance or through good references) a lot of information/tricks (say, how long should be the piece of the armature between the shoulder and the elbow or how the leg must bend if weight is on the other leg etc., all matters which to me are virtually misterious), as one of the problems is that we have visual ideas of what the body looks like that do not necessarily correspond to reality.