Sculpting

I started by roughing out the bald cap. I initially found the Monster clay difficult to work with as I was used to previously working with Le beau touche which is so much softer.

I used my rake to blend the clay together. I also purchased a craft blow torch so that the clay on the sculpt would become more malleable as it hardens so much.

My original plan was cast my models ears and sculpt ears onto the moulds. I was forced to change this as my model had to cancel that day and as I was on a tight schedule it meant that there would be no time to cast the ears and clean up the cast. This meant that I had to think of a different way to sculpt my ears. I decided that I would sculpt the ears into my bad cap as this would save time. The longer I considered it, the more I realised that this was generally a better idea. I would need to create a 2 part mould as there would be a lot of undercuts in the ear.

I was really happy with how my ears and bald cap turned out. I spent a lot of time sculpting them and used a lot of reference to try and ensure that they were relatively anatomically correct. They are fantasy style ears yet I would like them to have a realistic feel to them. I decided to sculpt my characters ears with chunks missing as he lives rough and would have been in quite a few fights over the years.

Sculpting the Face

Neck - Flat piece

I am not all that sure what I was trying to achieve with the above. I was attempting to create 'darts' in my neck piece so that it could curve around the neck. I was attempting to do this using neck templates that I had taken. It was a generally bad idea and I think I was not really thinking properly. I realised that this was a rubbish idea that would not work and decided it would be better totake the time and make a plaster core and sculpt onto it so that the neck piece would definitely fit.

I applied 3 layers of Scopas parting agent on to my plaster core and left it for 24 hours. When I came to sculpt onto it, I could not get the clay to stick to the core and it kept coming off. This made sculpting really difficult as it would not stay in place. It eventually stuck down a little however I did not need to float the piece off, instead if just slipped off the core.

I took the piece off the plaster core and pressed it down onto my board as I wanted to make a flat piece from it. Trying to flatten it caused a lot of cracks in the clay and I had to patch this up. I wanted to have almost all of the detail finished as I knew that once it was flattened it would not be as easy to recognise and work on.

This was the third and final piece that I needed to sculpt. I found that I was a lot quicker at sculpting this and only took a couple of days. I think as I had spent a long time sculpting my other pieces, I had gotten quicker from the practice. I'm happy with this sculpt and excited to see if it will work as I am not entirely sure. I cannot see why it would not work as one big flat piece but I will have to see.

I started by roughing out the basic shapes of my sculpt. It took me quite a while to get into, particuarly using monster clay as I had not used it before.

I found this Kryolan pore sponge excellent for creating pore texture and found it much better than using a stipple sponge. I ended up barely using my stipple sponge. I invested in a craft blow torch which was necessary for my sculpting as the monster clay is too hard to texture without it. I really enjoyed the texturing part of sculpting the face, particuarlly creating the wrinkled textures in the brow.

I kept checking the sculpt from various angles to ensure that it was relatively symmetrical. I understand that most faces are not symmetrical but In the picture to the left, you can clearly see that the left nostril is much bigger than the nostril on the right.

I realised that the brow was a little too flat instead of fleshy like the reference I worked from (Sean Connery). I built that up more and built up some of my wrinkles to ensure that they were rounded and not flat as skin is rarely flat. IOnce I was happ that I had got all my forms how I wanted them, I started to refine my sculpt with more texture.

I was really happy with my face sculpt , as I had allowed myself plenty of time to work into it. I like the texture and I am looking forward to seeing how it will look as an appliance.

Overall, I am really glad that I gave myself plenty of time to get my sculpting done. In hindsight, I did spend too much time sculpting (3 weeks altogether) and not enough time mould making. However it did give me the chance to practice my sculpting skills.