Polymer Clay Fan

Completed Sculpture

After completing the shoulder details and baking the sculpture I was pretty much done (except for some of the details in the back and painting the sculpture which were not documented for this piece).  For those that have been following this series my apologies, two years is much too long to add the completed tutorials.  My art and sculpting style has changed a lot since then but I still wanted to go back and finish this tutorial for everyone that had been patiently following it.

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The Fiddler

Ever hear Charlie Daniels “The Devil Went Down to Georgia” song? Well if you have a pulse and are over the age of twelve then you probably have. To make a long story short I thought I would do a sculpture based off of that song. Not that it is my favorite song in the world or that I’m Charlie Daniels number one fan (although I do think it is a pretty cool song), I just thought it would make an interesting sculpture.

I’m going to put together a series of tutorials for this sculpture where you can see step by step how the sculpture is created. Now keep in mind that at first the sculpture is not going to look like much but over time, as the series progresses, you should be able to see how I turn a block of clay into a unique piece of art. I think this will be a fun lesson for everyone and a great way to see how a sculpture comes to life. I will add links to the different lessons below so bookmark this site and come back frequently to see the latest lessons. It takes me over 100 hours to complete a sculpture so don’t expect this thing to be completed over night

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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 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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Attaching the scroll to the neck of the fiddle

In the previous tutorial I did a rough sculpt of the scroll (top piece) for the fiddle.  The next step is to add the scroll to the neck of the fiddle.  Once attached I will then begin to work on the details.  The process for adding the scroll to the neck of the fiddle is the same process that was used to add the neck to the body.  The first step is to lightly coat the baked pieces of clay with Vaseline, then take a tissue and wipe the excess off.  Next just add a new thin layer of clay and the scroll should easily attach from there.

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Attaching the neck to the fiddle

Ok, now that we have a pre-baked neck for our fiddle it is time to attach it the body. For this particular sculpture there has been a lot of sculpting then baking and then sculpting again. I’ve already baked various components of the fiddle multiple times through this series and will be baking a few more times before everything is completed. Not all of my sculptures work this way, in actuality most don’t, but for this piece is just seems to be the best approach. Once a piece is baked it is hard and easier to work with. The key is to be able to add more clay to the baked piece so that you can add the details. You will wee exactly what I mean in the next couple of lessons.

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

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Cutting out the neck of the fiddle

If I had to do this all over again I would have handled the neck on the fiddle a little differently. Instead of attaching the neck at the top of the body, I would have attached it more towards the center of the fiddle’s body (part of the neck would have laid on top of the body to give it more support). It is too late to turn back now and I can still work with what I have in front of me. As I have already stated in this sculpting series, you do learn from your mistakes.

The fiddle for this particular project is coming close to completion now. I’m really looking forward to completing the fiddle because it will really change the feel of the sculpture once it is attached to the Fiddler, our subject matter for this series. I still have to build out the arms and work on the details on various other body parts but at this stage in the game I’m comfortable to say that we are past the halfway mark in the sculpting process.

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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.

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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.

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