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So… I worked on this most of the day yesterday. It seems to be taking me a lot longer than my sculpeys did back in school, but that may be because I’m trying to match a reference, so I can’t just take shortcuts and make design choices in order to speed things up. And it’s not due tomorrow, so this is okay. It is mainly disappointing because I wanted to spend some time on the female figure model, but that will have to wait.

I have always had difficulty with forearms. Presumably because of the twisting nature of the muscles. And also because I have fairly girly, undeveloped forearms, although that isn’t a very good excuse. I’ve decided that the design for this creature is even cooler than I originally thought, and that the drawing has even more information (anatomical, volume, etc.) than I realized. So it is both awesome and helpful.

One thing of note, perhaps, is that I actually moved three of the supports slightly. I wanted to make the hands closer together, and brought the back right leg slightly forward to better match the reference. So, yay for flexible armatures. I watched some of the behind the scenes/making of stuff for King Kong yesterday and that influenced the decision, in addition to providing some inspiration.

Also, the tail is bent like that so I don’t stab myself in the eye; it’s not a reinterpretation. Safety first!

I ended up being busy last week and didn’t have time to further my animal hybrid sculpture, but here’s a picture of it along with my other incomplete sculpture, from the figure sculpture class. I’m going to work on them a little in the next few days.

figure and creature clay sculptures in progress

Okay, don’t get excited. I know I’ve been dragging my feet posting stuff, but I have in fact been working on things. On and off… it’s already February and I don’t have as much to show as I would like, but I have been working on some ideas and compositions that I’m pretty excited about. I will talk more about digital models another time though. What is of interest to me at this moment is that I started a new sculpey piece last night in maquette class.

The sculpture isn’t much to look at yet, but I learned a few things making the armature that I want to share. You may have already known or seen some/all of this before, or it may seem obvious. But that’s kind of the reason I’m writing about it: these simple methods seem to go a long way to speed and ease the sculpting process, and contribute to the strength of the final result.

1. Start by using fairly thin, pliable wire to make a “3d sketch” to gauge proportions and joint locations. This will make it a lot easier to rework and correct things than if you were to jump right in with more rigid wire. You can double back on your wire and make a bit of a mess at this point.
2. Figure out where you’ll have to “weld” wires together–either by tying them together with thinner wire, or by cementing them with epoxy.
   1. Plan to use one continuous wire to make the legs, hips and lumbar/thoracic spine (or perhaps a ribcage silhouette): the ends of the legs should be the ends of the wire, with the torso/spine created from bends in the middle. You’ll also want to leave at least half an inch of extra wire at the end of each leg. But don’t make it yet!
   2. To this main support structure, plan to attach arms/forelimbs, head, tail, etc. For the arms, a second continuous piece will go from fingertip to fingertip, through the collarbones or shoulder blades, with a “weld” where it crosses the spine. If you are making a quadruped, leave an extra half inch on each end of the arms as well. But don’t make it yet!
   3. If the head will be proportionally large or long (elephants, crocodilians, big cats…), you might want to plan to build it into the middle of the arms wire for more strength, in a method similar to how the torso will be built into the middle of the legs wire. If the head is proportionally small (like a realistic adult human), the head armature can be a separate, thinner wire with its ends simply twisted around the end of the torso wire. Important note: The head wire should be 2 or 3 times as long as you think would be required to reach the top of the skull from the weld point with the torso. That way, you guarantee you have enough, with room to pose the neck after the fact. And any extra wire can be rolled into a small a cranial volume for support. Get ready to make it… but don’t make it yet!
   4. I should note that the specific steps above relate to the trend I’ve seen so far for upright, firmly grounded, and bipedal or quadrupedal pieces; if your sculpt is in a more extravagant pose or has unconventional anatomy, I imagine you might make some different choices. But I cannot follow you to that sacred land.
3. Make it! Once you’ve figured out the proportions and structure, create your actual structural support. Use a relatively thick wire (such as 1/8″ for a 12″ figure) for the main legs/spine support. Make sure to leave at least half an inch of vertical wire beyond the end of each leg. The thick wire certainly provides support, but see #5 below for some other serious benefits. Continue to the thoracic limbs, head, and whatever else you’ve got, and weld the wires to the main support where necessary. Use electrical tape for loose, poseable joints, and use epoxy or wraps of thinner wire for more rigid joints. Also, use pliers to get tight bends, because you have girly hands from typing all the time.
4. Drill holes in the base that are the same diameter as your main support wires, and insert the vertical supports of the armature (the extra half-inches at the ends of the legs). For me this was the single biggest revelation. Working with the base this way allows you to take the sculpt off of the base, repose it, work on hard-to-reach areas, switch bases, all kinds of stuff.
5. If you are making a quadruped, or a piece that is wide or low to the ground, or a piece with stubby legs: hot-glue wooden posts to your working base and drill the support holes of #4 in them. This will elevate your piece while working and allow you to get under it more easily. Just think of how easy it would be to scrutinize someone’s genitals if he or she were on stilts. That’s the kind of advantage we’re talking about here. And you can of course detach the piece when you’re finished and put it on a different base for presentation. If you’re into making art for other people, you sellout.
6. Once you have the structure in place, wrap lengths of thinner wire around the thick structural wire. This isn’t for support; it’s something for the clay to grip and stick to so it doesn’t just spin around the wire as you work on it. If you add some bulk to your armature, such as a tinfoil ribcage mass, beer belly, or elephantitic foetus in foetu, you can put a layer of wire mesh on the outside to provide the clay with a better surface to which to stick. You can use more thin wire if necessary to secure this.
7. Um… start slapping some clay on there.

Note: if making a smaller or very thin figure, instead of thick wire, consider twisting together two strands of thinner wire to create the supports for the extremities. I believe you could then epoxy some 1/8″ wire at the leg ends to create the “pegs” for inserting into the base. I’m only assuming this would work; I don’t know from experience because I only make big fat things.

Wow, that was long. I know I have a tendency to use eight times as many words as is necessary to convey a message, but this just kind of underscores how much I learned last night. Hopefully you learned something too. I would put some illustrations/pictures up, but I’ve spent enough time on this already. If you are interested in illustrations, maybe circulate a petition and I’ll consider it.

So… I didn’t figure this stuff out on my own. Thanks to Richard for dropping a knowledge bomb on me.

Oh yeah and the whole “Work in Progress” thing… Here’s my armature and the first layer of clay:

The concept looks to be a hybrid between a lion, gorilla, and alligator (crocodile?), and I stole it from Carlos Huante because I am a terrible and unoriginal person.