Sculpting the fiddle – building the design
Ok, you are probably going to see me jump around a bit during these series. I don’t like to focus on only one area while I am sculpting, I like to move around a bit so that everything stays fresh. That being said, I have found for me that it is important to get a good base for the face before I begin to work on other parts of the sculpture. I have found that when I save sculpting the face towards the end I usually end up making mistakes that throw the rest of the sculpture off (for example the head is too big for the body). We have a pretty good start on our face, although it is not finished, so I think it is time to move on to a few more areas.
In this lesson I am going to begin sculpting the fiddle. The goal at this stage is to create a skeleton, or armature, for me to build the rest of the fiddle off of. I’ve never sculpted a fiddle before so I’ll be experimenting from step one. Since I am not familiar with fiddles, I would like to point out that I had to search for images of fiddles on the internet to get an idea of what they really look like (look at the tutorial on How can Google make you a better sculpture for details on how I research images).
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My first pass at this I tried an aluminum foil armature. I started adding the clay but I just could not get the basic shape down. The whole process felt wrong to me so I decided to scrap that method and move on to a different idea.This is a good example on why you shouldn’t be afraid to experiment a little when sculpting. |
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In the next step I rolled out a flat sheet of clay using my pasta machine. I folded the roll of clay in half to give it a bit more thickness. From there, using one of my sculpting tools, I drew a rough outline for the body of my fiddle. |
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Using another one of my sculpting tools I carved/cutout the shape of my fiddle (note: I’m only working on the body of the fiddle at this stage. I will work on the neck a little later on). |
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Once fully cut out I will do a little clean up work and then bake the fiddle in my oven at 250 degrees for 15 minutes. I’m not concerned with fully curing the clay at this stage, my goal is to just get it hard enough so that I can start working on building out the fiddle in the later lessons.Once baked I set aside my fiddle for a least an hour so that it can cool down. |
Next lesson Blocking out the torso
Previous lesson Sculpting eyes
