Polymer Clay Fan

Changing the design of the horns

The original horns on this sculpture have been bugging me for some reason.  Although I was not finished with sculpting them, I just didn’t love the way I had designed them.  I have been wanting to change the horns around a bit but was not exactly sure what I wanted to do.

So after setting aside the original design for a few weeks I decided to tackle the horns one more time.  I like to make things up on the spot when I sculpt so the first step for me was to smooth out the original design and just start adding clay to the piece.

* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

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Finish blocking off the arm

In the previous lesson we built a solid foundation for the left arm. We are now at the stage where it is time to start adding all the little details. The steps in this lesson will build off of the rolling snakes and sculpting veins tutorials (I recommend visiting those
lessons first). We will not finish the sculpting on the arm in this lesson but
by the end of the page the left arm should look like it is getting close to
completion.

* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

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Finish blocking off the arm

In the previous lessons covering the arm on this sculpture the goal was to get a basic shape for the right arm.  Now it is time to start refining the shapes so that we can begin working on the details for the arm.

A lesson or two back I made a comment that the arm was going to look like a mess for awhile.  This is the lesson where the arm starts really looking like a muscular arm.

* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

1. Just as before I draw in lines to represent the individual muscles of the arm.
2. I start adding a little clay here and there to bulk up the individual muscles.  The key is to make the upper arm flow naturally into the upper forearm.  I heavily rely on images off arms in this position during this stage of the sculpting process.
3. I know the shape looks a little strange right now but in a couple more pictures it will all makes sense. See how I blend the muscles from the upper to the lower arm?
4. Still bulking out the sides, front and back of my arm.  Right now I am only focusing on the upper arm and upper portion of the forearm.
5. Very rough image but the progression is really coming along now.  All I have to do now is smooth and round out the muscles in the arm. Read the rest of this entry »

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Starting to sculpt the forearm

I’m still in the bulking stage and it will probably take another lesson or two before the arm looks like anything worth talking about.  The bulking stage is probably my least favorite stage in the sculpting process because whatever is being “bulked out” just looks like a big blob of goo.  Nothing impressive here but it is important to show these steps before we move onto the detailed sculpting phases.

* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

1. Before I move too far along I think it is best to start adding a little clay to where the elbow and forearm will be.  The first step is to wrap the wire with aluminum foil and from there I will add my clay.
2. Starting to add the clay to the forearm now.  Again, as with the upper arm, look at images on the web to see what muscles look like to get a feel on how to sculpt the forearm.
3. Note: I messed up and added too much aluminum foil to the wire.  It is fixable but required me removing some of the clay and starting the bulking process all over.  I guess one lesson learned is that less is more when bulking out the clay.  You don’t have to add wire to the aluminum foil but it seems to help the clay stick better to the wire (for me at least) and cuts down on the cost of the clay. Read the rest of this entry »

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Starting to sculpt the arm

OK, we have a good start on the face, made pretty good progress on the torso and sculpted the fiddle and a hand.  Now it is time to start making the Fiddler look like an actual fiddler.  I’ve been wanting to attach the fiddle to my sculpture for some time now but in order to do so I need to first build out the arm.

Now I started the beginning stages of the arm some time ago so the torso in some of the images isn’t as far along as it is in some of the more recent tutorials.  The first two images in this tutorial were taken quite awhile back while the rest of the images were taken recently.  I had plans to do the arm earlier in this series but decided it would be best to put it together after the fiddle was completed.

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Attaching the Hand to the Fiddle

Hands are tricky so I like to sculpt them individually when possible and add them to the sculpture as a separate piece. In this tutorial I am going to take the hand from the previous lesson and attach it to my already baked fiddle.

I’m approaching this sculpture as if it was a puzzle adding each section together one piece at a time. What is nice about this step is that I am that much closer to adding the fiddle to my Fiddler. The fiddle really brings out the feel of the piece and I am really looking forward to seeing it all put together.

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Sculpting faces is very time consuming and something that I work on throughout the entire sculpting process.  However, before I begin another area of the sculpture I like to get a good foundation for the face.  I use to save the face for last only to discover that I ended throwing the entire sculpture off when the face was completed.  The problem is that the face would end up too big or two small for my piece.  I just recently started sculpting the face first and I think it has made a huge improvement in my overall work.

My goal is to knock out at least 80% of the face before I begin another area of the sculpture.  I will continue to bounce back to the face during the sculpting process.  Even though the majority of the work is done up front, I still end up finishing up the face around the end of the piece.  However the foundation was already built so the only thing left at the end is perfecting (to the best of my ability) the little details.

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I’m going to put the tutorial for this series together a little differently than the other tutorials.  Since I am doing a series I want to show the entire sculpting process.  I’m aware that some of the tutorials will be a little redundant but I think it takes away from the series if I do not show the entire sculpting process from beginning to end.

So to give you an example of what I am talking about I went into detail on how to sculpt a face in the Fiddler sculpting series.  Instead of reinventing the wheel for this series, I will just show a series of pictures that give step-by-step visual instructions of the sculpting process.  Just read the photos like you would a book from left to right.  I will switch to my regular format if there is anything that I feel needs additional instructions. Read the rest of this entry »

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Sculpting the Fiddler’s Hand

I already have another tutorial about sculpting a hand with polymer clay but the images were taken with my old camera and I felt this was a good opportunity give an older tutorial a fresher look. I’m only going to create a rough hand since I will later attach it to the fiddle. Hands can be a little tricky to sculpt so the key here is to spend as much time as necessary to get the sculpting down correctly.

If sculpting hands come naturally easy to you then a big kudos to you. I myself still find the hands and eyes the most difficult things to sculpt. However, I have improved because I have invested those long hours making sure that I got everything down correctly.

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Detailing the Scroll

In our previous tutorial we started to build out the scroll on the fiddle. The base design for the scroll has been built and now it is is time to detail our fiddle’s scroll. I’m not going to fully complete the scroll by adding the keys yet but I do want to get the scroll where it is 95% complete. After this lesson, the fiddle really should look almost complete minus a few minor add-ons that will come later (keys, strings, etc).

What I like about the tutorials for the fiddle is they give a great example of how you can build a sculpture in stages. Instead of focusing on the entire piece you break it down into little individual projects. It is a lot easier to sculpt when you approach a project this way. The key is to focus on one small area at a time by trying to figure out how to create that one piece. Once figured out you then build it and then move on to the next little project. Repeat these steps several times and before you know it you have a completed piece.

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