SPECIALIST PRACTICE
Balancing the Sculpture
Pete suggests that it is best to intrinsically colour your core white, grey or the same colour as your clay. You can tqake a piece of your clay to B & Q and they will be able to match the colour in paint. The advantage of this as it helps to see your core and clay as one - easier to blend. Better to avoid colours such as red or blue as these can be distracting to work on. Ensure that the base of your core is smooth and flat so that it sits neatly on your work surface. This is also important to avoid fiberglass splinters when handling the core. It is important to be showing industry level quality of work
It is important to balance the sculpture out as sculptures can look back heavy, front heavy, top heavy. Blocking out the primary forms.
Pete has bulked out the neck to balance the bigger head - important to think about how other muscles would be effected by the size of what it is supporting.
The intention for this culpt is to b able to use animatronics within the head - the back of th ehead therefore must be big enough to fit them. The wrinkles should be dictated by actors face enabling them to emote
Gustuv Hogan
This is a brilliant animatronic showreel by the talented Gustav Hoegen. Gustav's specialty is Animatronic Effects and Prosthetic Makeup Effects for TV and Film. His credits and some shots shown in this video include: Prometheus, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Clash of the Titans, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Doctor Who and more. My knowledge of animatronics is minimal but this showreel gave me some insight into what is possible with animatronics - in the past I may have wrongly assumed many of the displayed effects were in fact CGI.
DON LANNING - Prosthetics Event
One of the main artists at The Prosthetics Event in Birmingham was Don Lanning. He was an incredibly inspirational artist and speaker, he motviated all of us to want to pick up a sculpting tool and get sculpting right away. I was so inspired that I decided to sign up to his maquette sculpting course in June.
Some advice from Don Lanning:
- WED clay is his clay of choice as it is quick and easy to use
- When using WED clay after blocking our all the primary forms, Don waits for the clay to dry out a little before adding the detail, otherwise it is too soft.
- Well known for his technique 'power of the X' which is often used by sculptors to create realistic wrinkles, by carving wobbly crosses of various sizes and depths into the clay. Today Lanning suggested carving the X and then pouring IPA over it, allowing the IPA to soak in and then use a stipple sponge over the top.
-Don keeps a sculpting tool in the centre of his sculpture to help keep symmetry.
This video is a short clip of Lanning sculpting and giving some sculpting advice about smoothing his sculpture using a metal kidney.
