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David Marteney
•
4yr
added comment inCheap Sculpture Challenge!
Here’s my submission. I’ve never really done any kind of sculpture before, but I really enjoyed the process. Only tools I used were my fingers and some bent wire, which you can see in the pictures.
Dan Schofield
4yr
Cool man, you got the squeeze on that left oblique really nicely.
Cat M
•
4yr
Hey everyone,
I'm doing the figure sculpting class to hopefully improve my drawing with a better understanding of form. It's a lot of fun so far, even though it feels like I'll have clay under my fingernails for the rest of eternity.
I had already bought monster clay before the 5$ challenge was posted, but aside from that I only used aluminum foil and paperclips.
@aristotle
•
4yr
Here is a face that I based, especially in the early stages, on Jesse. I began with the profile, and I tried to really get Jesse's basic profile. After I had that, I tried to work without the photo reference as much, exploring the shape of the face and the features in ways that I thought was interesting. I probably would have learned more by being more faithful to the references the whole time, but I enjoyed working in something of a hybrid way. Is this a bad way to use reference materials, in this sort of hybrid way?
I didn't used an armature for this--it is solid clay. I used a cheap clay that comes in multi-colored bars, which I kneaded together. The clay was a little over $2 a pound, but I used less than half of that. (I gave some thoughts on the clay in another post in this thread for a torso I did, so I won't repeat that here.)
For tools, I used a paperclip, which I mangled a little bit so that I had loops of slightly different sizes and shapes. I also used a tooth pick. I broke it in half by accident, half way through sculpting, but then realized that the broken off end has its uses as well.
Great man! There's a part of Jesse in there for sure, although a couple more parts Henry Cavill, to my mind. Very cool. You've made me want to do a face now...
@aristotle
•
4yr
Here is an ear I did from Jesse. I really enjoy sculpting ears. They have a sort of cool, abstract quality.
I used Van Aken Plastalina clay. I really expected to like this. Both the color and the branding style made me think that this was a much better clay than the multicolor clay sticks I used for other sculptures this month. I didn't like it much, though. It was too sticky; it was just hard to work with. After I got the basic shape of the ear, I put the sculpture in the fridge to harden it up a bit. This worked, and it got rid of the stickiness--it was fine for a little detail work, but I still wasn't a huge fan. Overall, I was disappointed with this clay, but maybe I just need to learn to use it better.
The Plastalina was on sale, and the whole bar cost me a little over $2. I probably used less than a dollar's worth, though. The only tool I used, besides my hands, was this paperclip. I sculpted it on a wood flooring sample that I had laying around the garage, and which I got for free from a flooring store.
Sounds like (pun intended) you had the same challenge with this clay that I had with the Chavant. I've seen people achieve incredible tight finishes with Chavant so there must be a way. I did find it incredibly sticky though, which forces a different way of working. Still, you managed to get a nice finish here I think. A combination of cooling to aid carving and then heat for smoothing seems to be the suggested approach - I'll probably experiment with that next time..
@aristotle
•
4yr
So here is my first of three sculptures I did for this challenge, and I figured I would upload all of them, since you said multiple submissions were okay. In any case, this was my first torso sculpture I have done, although I have been practicing sculpting the human head. I found the torso a lot of fun to make. I have only done the front. (Let's pretend it is a very high relief piece that still needs to be attached to a background!)
I wanted to really dig into the minimal tools on this one, so I didn't use any at all. Just my fingers. I actually quite like the texture I got by using the back of my fingernail to do the final finishing on it.
I began my armature by making a kidney shape out of crumpled newspaper, and then covered this with aluminum foil.
For the clay, I used some very cheap and colorful modeling clay that was clearly intended for children. I never would have picked this up, but it seemed similar to what I saw Andrew talking about from the Dollar Store. Although I didn't get mine at a dollar store (I checked; they didn't carry any), it was very cheap. It was on sale for about $2.15 a pound. I liked this clay quite a bit, although there were two things I don't like about it. First, it takes a lot of time to knead all the colors together. Although I like the final color, I don't like taking 30 minutes to knead it together. I wondered if I could melt it together, but I was afraid this might make my house smell. Second, the clay sometimes tears when I push it around--it doesn't have the plasticity that I would like. Overall, though, I was impressed with the clay and would use it again. I used about a pound and a half on the torso.
Julee Davis
•
4yr
Budget:
aluminum foil, packing foam, tape and paperclip .. $0 and last but not least...clay that I have had for several years, I believe it is plastilina clay??
So my goal was just to have fun and not to overthink this piece. I’m planning to work on some more for practice. But definitely a great place to start. Side note: plastilina is super sticky, try something more hearty, but mine was free :)
Thank you Andrew for the opportunity to participate in this course.