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Building out the individual components of the fiddle

Now it is time to start building out the different components of the fiddle. I plan to give my fiddle a little flavor so do not expect it to look like a traditional fiddle. Instead, my goal is to tweak the design a bit using my own unique style. There is nothing wrong with a traditional looking fiddle and I’m not going to radically change anything but I wanted to create something that just didn’t look like something you see in our environment.

The polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	Ok, if you read the last lesson you are already aware that the fiddle was baked at the end of the lesson. After each baking I have to add Vaseline to the sculpture so that the new clay will stick. I’m not going to show this step again since I’ve already covered it in several lessons. I do not want the top of my fiddle to be flat so I have added a rounded surface to it. Nothing extreme but it does give it a little shape.
	In this step I cutout my template, or picture of the fiddle that I am using, and have placed it on top of my clay fiddle. I am going to punch holes through the template into the clay to outline where the individual parts of the fiddle go (neck, bridge, etc)
	And here is what my fiddle looks like once the template has been removed.
	I start out by carving out the F-hole in the fiddle.
	Next, I start adding a little clay here and there to the individual parts. In this picture I have started adding clay to the bridge.
	As I stated at the beginning, I’ve added a few of my own embellishments to the fiddle. I want a unique design so I am shooting for something that was a little off the norm. I also baked the sculpture again after I finished sculpting the body. The next step will be to add the neck to the fiddle.

Next lesson - Cutting out the fiddle neck

Previous lesson Bulking the Fiddle

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Filling out the base of the fiddle

So the goal of this lesson is to complete the frame for the body of my fiddle. I’m not going to be working on any of the details yet since I want to first build out a good base. Once my base is complete, I will again bake the sculpture and then start working on the details in the future lessons.

It is going to take several lessons to finish the fiddle so I’ll try to break them up to where they make sense.

Hopefully the third try is the charm for this lesson. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	The two fiddle halves have been baked and now it is time to add a thin layer of Vaseline to the clay. I apply the Vaseline to the sides of the clay that will be facing towards the center of the sculpture. The Vaseline helps the new clay stick to the baked clay.Wipe off the excess clay with a napkin (doesn’t take much Vaseline to get the job done)
	Next I add a thin layer of clay to the base of the fiddle. I usually add a very thin layer at first to give the new clay something to stick to.
	A picture of my two fiddle halves with a thin layer of clay applied to them.
	Now I bulk out the clay to my desired thickness.
	I add the two baked pieces to the new center piece. I then smooth out the edges, with 91% rubbing Alcohol, and then bake again at 275 degrees for 15 minutes.

Next lesson - Fiddle Components

Previous lesson New fiddle

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Sculpting a new fiddle

Well, it is that time again where we need to get back to sculpting the fiddle. I started working on the fiddle and it was coming along ok but I just felt that I was going to have to put a lot of time into it to get it the way I want it to look.

I’m very comfortable sculpting things from life, like the human body and animals, but inanimate objects always present themselves as a challenge. The key to sculpting things like a fiddle is to make sure that the shape is symmetrical on all sides. Instead of spending a lot of time trying to get just the basic shape down, I decided to take the pumpkin carving template approach to my design.

The first step was to search the internet for a picture of a fiddle that I could use as my template. Once I located a picture I saved it to my computer and resized the image to the size that i need for my sculpture

Hopefully the third try is the charm for this lesson. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	The first step is to roll out a sheet of clay with my pasta machine. The picture shows the template I found on the web, my last pass at a fiddle (very rough at this stage but was starting to take shape) and my sheet of polymer clay.
	The next step is a lot like carving pumpkins from templates. Lay the template on the sheet of polymer clay and with a sharp tool punch holes to outline the design of the fiddle.Little shameless plug of my pumpkin carving template site from the link above
	The picture is a little blurry but basically this is what the design of the fiddle looks like once we punch holes from the template into the clay. Keep in mind that I am only focusing on the body of the fiddle at this stage.
	The lesson learned from my last attempt at a fiddle is that you need to halves to create the body correctly. Basically you will have a bottom and top and some type of spacer in between the two pieces (to get the thickness of the fiddle down right). This will make a little more sense in a future lesson. So I repeat the previous steps and create a second fiddle.
	Here are the pics of my two fiddles punched out in the clay
	Using a sharp tool I cut out my fiddles.
	The dotted lines have been cut and now it is time to remove the excess clay.
	My two fiddle halves are now ready to go in the oven at 275 degrees for 15 minutes. I’ll let them cool for at least and hour or two before I move onto the next step. I want to bake the fiddles at this stage so that is can easily work on the future steps.

Next lesson - Bulking the Fiddle

Previous lesson Torso skin details

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Finding your artistic roots. Always be true to yourself as an artist.

Out of all the lessons I will be putting together I believe this is the most important lesson of all. First of all your artwork should be an expression of yourself, your interest and your beliefs. Art should be more than just something that is pretty to look at, otherwise what is the point. I think a lot of us over time try to create art that we think will sell or please others. I myself have been guilty of this and in the long run I always felt a disconnect from my art that was solely created for commercial or monetary gains. Now, there is nothing wrong with profiting from your art but if your whole motivation for the creation of your art is the all mighty dollar then I think you have missed the point. The goal here is to get rich creating art you love, not art you hate or could care less about ;-).

It takes me a long to time create my sculptures (minimum of 100 hours) and I have a very limited amount of time during the week to work on personal projects. If I am going to give up my free time creating something then I believe it should be for something that I am interested in. Otherwise, if I don’t enjoy the process I might as well go find another hobby or something else to do that I am interested in. That being said, I also believe think it is important that I put a little of my own self into each sculpture that I create. So, if I step back and evaluate myself, there are key interest that I have and believe should be added to my artwork.

1. I like artwork that is very dynamic. I enjoy looking at sculptures that appear to have captured their subject matter in mid-action. Dynamic sculptures make draw me into the life of the person or object that was sculpted. With each new piece my goal is to get you to think about the sculpture. I want to artistically force you to ask yourself how about the sculpture (what are they thinking, how did they get here, and what will they do next). Now keep in mind that not all my pieces, especially my most recent ones, show a lot of movement. Sometimes just a little head tilt or facial expression on a sculpture can give you the sense that the image was quickly captured in mid-movement (like with a photograph)

2. I love textures. For some reason bumps, ridges and grooves are just interesting to me, I don’t know why they are I just know that I like them. I think when it comes to sculpting; textures create an illusion that the artwork was difficult or required a greater amount of skill to create. In reality this isn’t always true and I have already put together a couple tutorials that show a few detailing tricks..

3. Muscles, muscles and more muscles - back when I was a little younger I use to participate in competitive bodybuilding shows and have actually won several titles. I have a vested interest in muscular physiques because building muscles is a large part of my past. When I look at a muscular physique I see a lot more than just physical beauty and strength, I also see hard work, determination, discipline and sacrifice. Not all of my artwork is about very muscular physiques but a large portion of it is. You see for me it is who I am and what I am personally interested in. I’m realistic and I know there are a lot of people who will hate my art because of the way I create my sculpted physiques but the point I’m trying to make is that I really don’t care if they hate it. You can’t please everyone and going out and creating art specifically for others, unless you’re being commissioned to do so, is very damaging to the soul. What is the point of spending hundreds of hours creating something if you feel detached from it in the end?

4. I love challenges - Challenges are very important and you should always push yourself to strive for greatness with each new piece. When I pick out a new piece to work on I always pick something that I think I am going to have a hard time with. Am I nervous when I start a new piece? Of course I am, especially when putting together tutorials during the sculpting process. There is always a chance my artwork is going to end up looking like crap and some people may feel that I wasted their time. However that being said, no matter how my new pieces turn out, I am 100 percent confident that I will be a better sculpture by the end of the process then when I began it.

Keep in mind that these are my interest and are the reasoning/justification on why my sculpture will end looking like whatever it ends up looking like. I know this doesn’t make a lot of sense now but I promise that it will be all clear to you once you see the final sculpture. I hope that the future tutorials will help you with the technical challenges that can come about from sculpting but in the end whatever you end up sculpting should be true to who you are.

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Adding a skin texture chest and abdominal muscles

The final step in the torso detail stage is to add a skin texture to the sculpture. I love textures and I think the skin effect really does enhance the sculpture. I’ve already covered a tutorial on one way that you you can sculpt skin details in polymer clay but this lesson is going to use a different approach. Keep in mind that this type of detailing will probably not look good with all sculptures but should create a nice look for this particular piece. If I decide to paint this piece, I will probably create a bronze finish and the skin details should look good with the paint.

Time to finish up the front portion of the torso. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	The sculpting tool I’m using here is a simple metal tool with a bunch of thin wires coming out of the end of it. I bought the tool at my local Hobby Lobby (tool was included with a doll sculpting kit). I think I spent around $15 to $25 for the sculpting kit which included around 5 tools. It is not my favorite tool but it quickly gets the results that I am looking for. You should try to create a pattern in the way that you scrape the lines. The lines should flow from one muscle to another and create interesting shapes.
	Ok, the torso is all scraped up now (at least the front part of it).
	Using a stiff brush and 91% Alcohol I lightly tap the brush into the clay. The goal here is to blend the individual lines, created by the scraping technique from above, into one another.
	A final shot of the sculpture in black and white (hopefully should be easier to view this way)

Next lesson - New fiddle

Previous lesson Finalizing the torso details

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Detailing the chest and abdominal muscles

In the last lesson we bulked and defined the chest and abdominal muscles. Now it is time to start adding some detail to our sculpture. I am going to split this lesson into two separate tutorials. For the first lesson I will demonstrate how to create muscle cuts and striations in the clay and the second lesson will give examples on how I create a textured look for the skin on my sculptures.

It is important that you don’t jump to this stage too quickly. You should focus on building a good foundation using the information from the previous lessons before jumping into this tutorial. However, once the foundation is complete, I have to say that this is really one of my favorite steps in the sculpting process because it starts to change the way the art looks. Remember at the beginning of this tutorial when I said at first my art may look like a third grader created? Well this lesson moves us up a few grades in the experience level ;-).

All right, here we go with the detailing of the torso. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	I’ve already done the right side of the sculpture (your left on the screen) and will show you how I accomplished the details on the the left side of the sculpture. Step one is to carve around the individual abdominal muscles.
	Next I carve lines in the clay where I want the chest striations to go. This is a very detailed and muscular physique so I plan to add a lot of muscle detail to it.
	Using a stiff brush and 91% Alcohol I blend and sculpt the abdominal muscles. This takes some time because I’m really sculpting now with my paint brush. I will constantly dip the brush in the Alcohol to help me blend and sculpt the clay. Ok a moment of confession here. I’m actually using 70% Alcohol because I ran out of the good stuff. 70% works but not as well as the 91%. It takes a lot more strokes to get the look I want and I highly suggest using the 91% Alcohol (I just need to remember to add it to my grocery list).
	Here is another shot of the abs after I have spent some time blending and sculpting the clay with my brush.
	Now onto the chest. Same as with the abs, I use a brush and Alcohol to blend and smooth out the individual chest striations.

Next lesson - Torso skin details

Previous lesson Filling out the Torso

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A few simple tips and tricks to help you evaluate your artwork

I’m a firm believer that when sculpting you should from time to time step back and take a different look at your art. If you stare at the same thing for too long of a period of time, it can become easy to overlook minor and sometimes major mistakes within your artwork. There are several different tools or methods that I use to evaluate my art when I am sculpting.

1. Use a mirror - I’ve already discussed this one in great detail in a previous lesson. If you have missed it you can read about it here.

2. Turn the sculpture upside down - look at the sculpture from a different angle. A lot of symmetry mistakes will become noticeable when you evaluate your art from a different point of view.

3. Step back and look at the sculpture from different angles - I like to step back about three to six feet from my sculptures and look at them from different angles (sit low looking up at the sculpture, stand high looking down on the sculpture, look at the sculpture from the right and left, etc). I’ll sculpt a little and step back and fix any issues that may pop up. I constantly do this while I sculpt.

4. Use a camera - Take pictures of you artwork and evaluate what your art looks like from a picture. I highly recommend a digital camera in this case so that you can quickly and inexpensively evaluate your art. Sometimes a piece will look good to me from the naked eye but when I look at a picture of it, I sometimes find things that need changing. I don’t always necessarily find flaws but I may find something that I just do not like about the sculpture.

5. Take a break - If you have been putting a lot of time into the same piece then I recommend that you either stop sculpting for a day or tow or work on something else (I prefer to work on a different piece). It usually takes me over 100 hours to complete a piece so by the time I finish something I’m usually spent. Sculpting more than one piece at a time usually helps me keep my ideas fresh. The key is to avoid overextending yourself. Right now I am sculpting three different pieces and have ideas for several more. Three is my limit if I want to complete any of these pieces. I’ll just right down my ideas for future projects for the time being and will begin to work on them as I complete my current pieces.

Tying it all together

In conclusion I do not think it is important to use just one of these techniques, I think it is important to use just about all of them. You may not always be able to turn a sculpture upside down but there is no reason why you can’t look at it in a mirror. In my office, where I do 99.9% of my sculpting, I keep a mirror on my desk, a small chair to look at the sculpture from different angles, a digital camera by my side and one or two other sculptures at hands length.

Lately I have become more religious about using just about all of these techniques. It really is heart breaking to spend 100’s of hours finishing a piece, hold it up to a mirror or step back and realize that the face is fatter on one side or the eyes are crooked (been there, done that). As an artist I am always pushing myself to become better at my craft and these are really simple tips that I believe are helping me become a better sculptor.

Happy sculpting,

Gerald

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Filling out the torso

The goal in this lesson is to continue from the previous lesson by building out all the individual shapes that makeup the Fiddlers torso. In this lesson I plan to block out the chest and abdomen areas of the sculpture. The sculpture is still going to be pretty smooth at this stage of the game but this stage is very important for getting the shape of the individual muscles down correctly. All right, now onto the torso.

Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	I have started to add a lot of roundness to the chest (the shoulders are a little underdeveloped but I will focus on those later)
	Working on bulking out the lower abdomen.
	Now I am starting to define the individual abdominal muscles.
	Side view of the sculpture.

Next lesson - Torso skin details

Previous lesson - Blocking out the torso

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How to sculpt veins in Polymer Clay

Sculpting veins is one of those things that is technically pretty easy to do but in reality takes some practice to get it down right. I think that the key to achieving well sculpted veins is to make them look like they are sitting right under the skin. I’ve seen a lot of sculptures where the veins look like they sit on top of the skin and it really takes away from the realism in the sculpture. Also, veins range in sizes and shapes so you want to incorporate this into your design.

The images below will show you the steps that I use to create veins on my sculptures. Remember that practice makes perfect so don’t give up if you do not get it right on the first try.

This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey

	The first step is to rollout little snakes of clay and lay them out in a pattern that you want to use for your veins. Remember that veins are all over the place so don’t sculpt them in straight lines or they will not look right. You don’t have to get the bends in the veins perfectly at this stage because you will do a little more shaping in the next step. The goal is to get the basic design before moving onto the next stage.
	Now that you have your veins mapped out take a sculpting tool (dental tool in this example) and pull the edges of the veins into the base of the clay (the leg in the picture). You will do this on both sides of the veins until the vein is blended into the leg. Keep in mind that veins change in thickness and directions throughout the body. Lookup pictures of vascular arms and legs to get an idea on what your veins should look like.
	Using a brush with 91% Alcohol, smooth out the veins and the area where the clay where the veins were pulled into the leg. If I find that a vein doesn’t look right after smoothing out the clay, I will repeat the previous step until I get the shape and design that I am looking for.
	Ok, as previously noted veins are very simple to execute but take some practice to master. I posted the attached picture in black and white so that you can better see the details. Can you see all the little areas in this sculpture where I have veins running along the body?Adding veins is a simple technique (when mastered) that really adds a whole new level of detail to an existing sculpture.

Happy sculpting,

Gerald

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Blocking out the body

If you have been following this series from the beginning then I think it is pretty obvious that I like to jump around a lot when sculpting. The last lesson was on starting the fiddle and this one is jumping into blocking out the body. The reason why I jump around during the sculpting process is because it keeps everything fresh. I like to go with the flow and I really enjoy the process when I work this way. In the past I have experimented with my sculpting processes and have focused on completing one area before moving onto another but found that the final art really doesn’t work out they way I envisioned it.

All right, now onto the torso. Again, the polymer clay I am using for this particular piece is Super Sculpey.

	The first step is to start blocking out the torso with aluminum foil. You don’t have to do this step but it really cuts down on the clay needed for the sculpture. Keep in mind that you should avoid using too much aluminum foil since it can cause a problem later on when you start working on the detail work. As a general rule I like to make sure that I am adding around a half to a full inch of clay on top of the aluminum foil. This gives me plenty of room to sculpt.
	Starting to add the clay to the aluminum foil. The goal at this stage is to basically just cover the aluminum foil with clay.
	Now I want to work on laying out the design. I roll two tubes or snakes and use them to represent where the upper chest and collar bones will be located. Note: I didn’t extend the torso, with aluminum foil, that far yet but you can do so if you are more comfortable sculpting that way. Right now I’m just trying to think about my design and block the different body parts out as I move along in the process (you will see what I am talking about a in minute)
	Nothing too technical here, I just blend the snakes of clay into my torso and start adding clay underneath to build out the chest.The hardest part so far is just coming up with the design. Other than that all we are doing is adding a few mounds of clay here and there to build out our rough shape.
	I have extended my torso a bit and have started blocking out where I want the abdominal muscles to be placed. It doesn’t have to be perfect at this stage, the goal is to get an idea of the shapes.
	All, right, the abs have been blended into the rest of the clay and I am starting to build out the rest of the shapes. I still need to add more clay to the chest and waist. I pretty much just add clay, step back, look things over and add clay again. It doesn’t look like much yet but in a lesson or two you will really start to see the torso coming together.

Next lesson Filling out the Torso

Previous lesson Starting the fiddle

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