Polymer Clay Fan

I’ve come to realize that most of my personal sculpting projects will probably never get completed.  One example of this is a warrior angel sculpt that I started some time back.  I really like a lot of things about this sculpture and after closely looking at it again I felt that it would be a great addition to my new cigar ashtray.  The side benefit here is that I’m also able to shorten the amount of time that it will take me to complete this project.

The gallery below shows some progress pics of my angel.  I’m sculpting the wings from scratch since the original ones really didn’t work well with my vase.

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I still have some work to do on my Minotaur’s head, body, etc but I wanted to go ahead an attach him to a base to get an overall idea on how the sculpture is going to look.  Adding the base is a pretty easy task with wax since there really is no need for a support system (armature) for it to be able to hold up the sculpture.  Also, another huge advantage for using wax is that I was able to create wax cast from some of my other skull sculptures.  This allowed me to add a few of my already previously sculpted skulls to the base verse having to spend a lot of time sculpting each individual piece.  I have so many projects going on right now shortcuts like the wax cast really help me move the piece along.  I’m also able to sculpt the pieces together in a way in which they look unique, so the sculpture is not “cheapened” by this process. Read the rest of this entry »

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I sculpted a bust of a Minotaur a few years back and although I still like a good percentage of the design, there are a few areas that really bug me.  Most of the problems that I have with this sculpture are with the hands, Minotaur’s face, the hair along the back and the horns. I rushed completing this piece and as a result the hands and horns ended up not being my best quality of work.  I have also been working hard trying to improve my skills over the years so an older sculpt is always subject to a very critical eye. Read the rest of this entry »

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It has been too long since I’ve shown any updates on my Soul Collector redesign so I thought I would include a few pics here.  My designs have a tendency to evolve as I sculpt, so for fun I’ve included a few pictures in the gallery to show how the Soul Collector’s skirt has changed over time. I also included a picture where I’m melting the original Soul Collector statue.   In all honesty it was hard watching over 100 hours of work melt away but the experience gained will in the end benefit the new sculpture.

The sculpture will eventually be released as a cold cast bronze and additional details can be found at http://www.goreartistry.com/works-in-progress/soul-collector.htm

My images are below (click the image for a larger view).

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For the most part I live a very healthy lifestyle, I’m in the gym six to seven days a week, eat very clean (except for Saturdays) and rarely drink.  I’m not oblivious to the fact that most people will probably find me to be a pretty boring person but hey I am what I am.  However, that being said one of the vices in my life is that I like to smoke cigars.  I don’t get to smoke them often, at best only a couple times a week, but they are something I’ve come to really enjoy over the years.

I enjoy collecting different cigar accessories, for example lighters and cutters, however one of the key accessories that was missing from my collection was a cigar ashtray.  There are quite a few cigar ashtrays out there that have a good design but I have yet to find one that really grabs my attention.  One of the key advantages of being an artist is that if I’m unable to find what I’m looking for in the commercial market I can always create it myself.  I wanted an ashtray consisting of skulls and skulls so it was off to the workshop to begin my project. Read the rest of this entry »

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It should be no surprise to anyone that has dabbled in clay and wax that sculpting is a very time consuming project. There may be some artist out there that can whip out masterpieces in a flash but for us mere mortals most projects require a vast amount of hours from their inception to their completion. As with any activity that demands a huge investment of your time, it’s easy to get lost in the mistakes. I am also guilty of spending countless hours working on a section of my art only to find out later that the symmetry is off or that the design is just too stale.

Sometimes the best approach for tackling a big project is to know when you need to set aside some distance with it. I’ve found that if I spend too much time on one area of my sculpture that I sometimes get lost in it and my eyes can no longer see the mistakes. Due to my schedule, most of my sculpting can take me into the late midnight hours so I’m already at a disadvantage with tired eyes before I even begin. For this reason I’ve found, although fail to put into practice form time to time, that it is best to jump around the sculpture instead of becoming fixated with one section of it. However, no matter how much jumping around I do there are times that I need to set the sculpture aside and revisit it with what I call “fresh eyes”.
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One of the risk of letting a project sit on a shelf for too long is that as your skills develop it potentially is less likely that you will complete the project.  I’m sure there are quite a few of you out there that completely disagree with me but in my office I have a large number of unfinished sculptures that will never be completed. In all honesty most of the art that I have created is unfinished which brings up another point. Sometimes it’s really a good idea to see yourself to the end of a piece before jumping around to something else (one of my personal goals I’m trying to work on).

A couple years back (or more) I wanted to create a sculpture of what I called a soul collector.  Basically a Grim Reaper type of creature that has a variety of lost souls swimming under his skin.  I’m attracted to the concept of this project for the most part because of the complexity involved in being able to pull off the sculpt.  Sculpting the individual souls under the skin is one thing but making the entire project work to where it doesn’t look like a convoluted mess  is a different beast to conquer.  I’ve been working on and off with this project for over two years now (more off than on) and now that I’m ready to finish it I’ve come to realization that I do not like the direction that I have taken with my original sculpture. To start the sculpture has some symmetry issues and I’m not all that in love with the overall design.  I can fix all the problems but basically I’ve reached a point where starting over will probably cost me less time than trying to fix this sculpture.  It’s not that the sculpture is bad and I have received positive feedback on it but I’ve basically reached a point where my skills and design taste have changed enough where starting over is the best option.

So, to avoid getting too wordy here I’ll show of a collection of picks of my original concept along with the project I’m current working on.  Keep in mind that the latest sculpt is still in the early stages so it has a long ways to go until the details are caught up with the original piece. The first three pictures are my original design and the last two represent the newer sculpt.

You can see more on this sculpture at www.goreartistry.com

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Not a lot going on with this lesson but I thought I would give a look at the back from one more angle. The left side of the back is as far as I’m going to take it until I move forward with the right half of my back. I wouldn’t recommend sculpting a back this way because it can mess up the balance of the muscles in the piece. The best approach is the sculpt the entire form at once. The only reason why I broke it down into the shapes is because I wanted to show a contrast between the two halves. Read the rest of this entry »

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The top half of my back still needs some work but I want to move on to the lower back to try and pull all the shapes together. I’m going to need to start working on the right half of the back pretty soon to make sure that all the shapes are coming together correctly. Once I sculpt the right half I should get a good idea if any of the individual shapes need to be reworked.

For this step I’m sculpting the muscles and skin folds that make up the lower back. Again using a loop too I carve out the areas individual muscles. If I carve away too much I can always go back and add little bits of clay here and there but since the lower back already has too much clay I can carve away the shapes for the folds of skin (and muscles). Read the rest of this entry »

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Step three in this tutorial builds on the first two steps that we used to sculpt the back. I continue to build out the individual forms by adding and removing clay to mimic the shapes in my resource material.

For this sculpture I am sculpting the details on the left side of the back first and then will move to the right side. I’m only doing it this way because it is a little easier to create a tutorial using this method. If I was just sculpting this without trying to document the process I would sculpt both side of the back at the same time. Read the rest of this entry »

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