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Fixing the left arm

Posted by goregt On July - 13 - 2007

Working on the left arm

I think the theme for my latest tutorials is going to be about fixing mistakes.  I did not do a very good job with the armature at the beginning of this sculpture and I am now paying for it.  Basically the clay is too heavy for the shoulder and arm to support all of the weight.  I’m now having issues where the shoulder is splitting in half because of the weight of the arm and the fiddle.

Right now the only way that I see to resolve this issue is to bake the shoulder and arm as one piece and attach it to the Fiddler’s torso at a later time.  Most likely I’ll still have a weight issue at the point I attach the arm at so my workaround for that will be to partially bake the entire area where the shoulder attaches to (I’ll cover that in more detail later on)


* This sculpture is created with Super Sculpey.

fixing the arm Using a sharp cutting took I basically removed the arm.
   
fixing the arm I decided to change the textures a bit on this piece.  I’m thinking about having this sculpture cast in bronze at a later date so I’m trying to come up with a more artistic look for the skin texture.  The texture I have here gives me a feeling a movement as if the muscles were twitching and flexing while the Fiddler plays the fiddle.
   
fixing the arm Smoothing out the textures with rubbing alcohol.
   
fixing the arm The goal here is to only bake part of the sculpture instead of the entire arm.  That way the clay covered by the aluminum foil is still soft and will be easy to attach to the Fiddler’s torso.  Well, I cooked it too long and it didn’t work.  No biggie, I can still add the arm to the torso, it will just take a little more work.
   
fixing the arm A picture of me attempting to partially bake the arm.

Next lesson – Adding hair to the elbow

Previous lesson – Fixing the forearm

Back to the series home

3 Responses to “Fixing the left arm”

  1. Madeline says:

    Is it ever possible to coat a sculpture (super sculpy) with a substance which will make it appear as though it were actually a piece that was cast in metal – for example pewter or copper. It so what products would you advise?

  2. pat says:

    Try wrapping the tin foin and wire armature with paper floral tape and you will have a smooth “inner skin” to sculpt over and the foil problem in the sculpture in the arm tutorial will not happen again . see google maryann reitma and martha boers. they have a tutorial under “workshops” on the armture process that you need.and they are very sucessful sculpting team for 10 years. you will like theyre site.
    patricia

  3. patricia says:

    the begining of a really good website because you share the mistakes as we all are making the same ones . the tutorials are informative and I see some of the mistakes that I have made, If I know how to “Fix anything” I willgladly post it.-to help out a fellow artists
    patricia

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Nothing special, just a self-taught sculptor having fun with my art and showing all of you the tips and tricks I use to create my own artwork

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