FACE OFF
Prepare for the long haul.
Ok, Ladies, if you're of a mind to, not saying it's mandatory, but
I'll put up pictures of your clay journey, on a page or section of
your own. So as you FACE OFF to the challenge of sculpting realistic
faces that have expression you'll get air time, the 15 minutes of
fame. LOL Naw, really, I'm serious. That's all I'm doing when building
tutorials for sculpting. Just take pictures along the way. Other
folks, new to sculpting, will be heartened to see your struggle. arf
arf arf
Naw, stop laughing, there's a comfort to see other people's efforts,
especially the ones that are catastrophies. I can't tell you the
continual hits to the picture of my first Xev doll all chopped up in a
post mortem. It's a lot, it's continual, people slow down to view
wrecks. That Xev-1 is a wreck and I got hits and eyeball count of the
rubber neckers.
And it's fun... you work and work and it turns out wonky, you just
want to cry. Don't cry, help another clayer take heart. Show them you
got the grit to show you work, good or bad, allowing them the space to
be good or bad too. I don't like totally perfect without blemish clay
journey pictures. Just ain't real is all. So anyway...
I have Nigel Bennett and Ellen Durbin to do, I started on Nigel, who
played The Prince of Fire in Lexx and Laquois in Forever Knight.
http://us.imdb.com/Name?Bennett,+Nigel Ellen Durbin was Giggerota The Wicked; Queen; G.G. Rota (Miami Real Estate Broker); The POPE,
Genevieve the First, http://us.imdb.com/Name?Dubin,+Ellen pretty
picture of here on that International Movie Data Base page.
I figure it's this way... I got to learn how to sculpt faces as I see
them. It's easier to do that muscle memory study while focusing on
actors and actresses I like to look at. Then I just rewatch all my
favorite movies and see them in action, rewind to get that ellusive
Ellen Durbin Profile... she's sensitive about that nose. So pick your
target and make it be someone you want to look at a lot, hopefully
someone you have on video so you can see their face from different
angels. Then you can study sculpting and drool at your favorite
celebrity. It's a win/win trick, ya that's the ticket.
"Naw, honey, it ain't that I'm watching BraveHeart for the 500th time,
I'm studying sculpting, ya, that's the ticket, men's legs. Go on to
bed." as you fondle clay.
It's more technique than it is arty farty creative muse stuff, ya see?
There's grids and measures. There's movements you make with your
clayshaper (you got to have a clayshaper for this clay run, see Karen
of Clayalley to get hooked up)... anyway, there's movements you'll
make with your clayshaper that will
each and every frelling time
make the desired effect that you need.
For instance. You got an eyeball in an eye socket and you're fixing to
put an eyelid over it so it doesn't look so danged startled... before
you cover that eyeball with an eyelid, take the tip of your cone
shaped Zero sized clayshaper and POKE IT IN THE EYE right at the outer edges. Like you're picking something out of the corner of the eye,
because you are. You're going to ease into the eyeball, lean your cone
shaped clayshaper in towards the center, and you're going to gently
roll it, just a little bit. Do that on both sides of the eyeball and
the eye will be nicely shaped, then put on a half circle of clay sheet
as an eyelid, make it look like a dreamy Robert Mitchem. Loved his
eyes, that stoner.
Sculpting with polymer clay is sort of an oxymoron. Like Jumbo Shrimp.
Polymer clay is a great medium for the impatient. Don't got to paint
it, for the color's all there. Cures in a half an hour, that's faster
than you can make an egg sandwich. All the supplies are cheap and easy
to get. Man o Man, what mischief have we seen in just half an
afternoon with some determined clayers. Lots... covering full size
horse statues, that sort of mischief.
Then Sculpting is a sloooooowwww thing, for we're training our
muscles. We're studying anatomy (next page on this seires a bunch of
muscle, bone and tendon pictures). We're looking at grids of the
skull. We'll end up knowing what a zygomatic is if we didn't know that
already. We'll be going around feeling people's temples and turning
their faces to the side to look at how jaw's end is even with the
temple. Folks are going to shy away from us, thinking we're vampires
for sure.
How to start? Bamboo skewers, aluminium foil, foundation clay, got to
make one blank head to start. You'll be surprised getting that foil
ball to stay on the skewer is worth a first lesson devoted to just
getting that done.
Oh speaking of patience, get this time line... there's these dolls
made in Japan. They take sea shells and grind them up and make a
powder. That powder is mixed with something, I forget, and it's
painted on these wooden doll heads that are carved by hand. The
seashell powder is like a laquer. It's sanded and smoothed and
repainted, building up layers of laquer to make the face and head. The
face is painted, wigged, a body made, clothes sewn and the doll
dressed. One doll takes years to make, but that's not the time line
I'm referring to. First one has to age the sea shells 20 years before
you grind them up into powder.
We're going to be working on a time line a little more swift than
that. ok? ;-)
LOL