Sculpting Research

My notes from Bray's tutorial

- Vaseline all over the cast and then wipe excess with tissue.

-Mark out in pencil exactly where sculpt will finish on life cast. Also pencil in hairline and some of the wrinkles to make them easier to see.
- ( using lebautouche) flatten small 'blobs' of clay onto the surface - 2mm thick.
- Preserve the wrinkle pencil line by putting two sausages along the line and nuding them towards the line. Preserves the original position.
- use either a tool or your thumb to smooth the area
- Roughly start carving in wrinkles - when carving wrinkles, shave the edge into a more natural shape rather than a hard line.

- Stuart uses a brass tool to shave around the edges, once enough clay has been taken away he smooths down with his thumb.

Refining the surface

- cheap plastic brush cross hatched over the surface which reduces the tool marks without taking away too much of the form. retain original form.
- makes it look like a continuous shape rather than a series of blobs which is what it is.
- make them too bold and then it is easier to reduce them gradually

'sands' it down but without making it flat. can cover large surface at a time.

lighter fluid with a cotton pad and wipe over the edge - taking off the thin which is not adding anything 3D dimentially to the form.

Skin textures

- Powder with talc
- Thin plastic packaging wrap use a pointed tool to work into the wrinkles. The harder you press the deeper the fold will be - play with the pressure
- Use thicker plastic and more pressure for more severe creases
- Trying folding the plastic over a couple of times and vary the pressure - will vary the marks made
- Create pores the same way. Will always looks wrong at first, like a "blank canvas invaded by tiny dents" the more of them there are, the less wrong they will look - "Safety in numbers".
- next use clingfilm and press stripple sponge into the clay firmly. natural looking skin testure. add over the
- plastic brush - stipple in
- building up areas will give a more natural result
- be sure to extend the texture right over the edge so that it doesnt suddenly stop.

Spatola adds detail throughout the process to give a better idea of the finished structures. This is interesting as in other tutorials I have seen, they block the form out first before thinking about the detail.

I really like the way the sculpt droops over the eye and would be interested to see how this will work as a make up in terms of the actors eye.

He uses 2 coats of Kryolan Crystal Clear acrylic spray to seal the clay and make cleaning the mould easier later on - this is a BRILLIANT tip. As cleaning the moulds often take a long time - I would never have thought to seal the clay.

A secondary purpose of flashing - to correct undercuts on the stone positive that could keep the mould from opening.

This diagram shows the undercuts which can occur on the face and should be considered during the sculpting and moulding process

Fig 50.

Fig. 44.

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Fig. 48

Fig. 49