Continuing from the last session, in this weeks session we have continued on the models we started last week - in my case, my Master Shi Fu (Kung Fu Panda) and it has gone tremendously well to the point that I got a wonderful compliment on it from the tutor!
In this session, I was finishing with the bulking out and working on refining. The first order of business was giving him the shell! To do this I cut a section of fine mesh to the right shape and size using the picture as a reference, and cut the outline of the top contours to give me a guide. I then covered the mesh in a thin layer of sculpey and fixed it onto the main model, smoothing it down to merge it, then sculpting the contours of the top edge of the shell.
On closer inspection, he was a little too flat in the body so I bulked out the shell and front a bit more to make it more rounded, smoothing off as I went while trying to keep him even and not lumpy, moving his arm out of the way as I went to avoid damaging it.
The next step was to start work on the hands, and to get it looking like he is holding his 'staff' though only half of it is currently there being the end of the armature wire for his arm. Using some of the provided sculpting tools I prised the sculpey away from the wire on the inside of the hand and forming the base of the fingers and thumb, curling them round into the right position around the wire.
I have decided to form the claws separately, cook them and attach them on to the raw model before baking the whole thing - this is a method usually employed for facial features with eyes and teeth so that the lines remain clean, and so they will remain the right shape and not be damaged while sculpting the rest of the model.
I also had to take some sculpey from the bottom edge of the hands as I realised through sculpting them that it was too wide.
One of the important things is to keep checking the model against the picture to make sure that its all coming out the right scale and size, and that the posture is correct with nothing being knocked. After that it was time to form the top edge of the front shell, and to form the face. I found this very tricky, as having formed the eyes separately and merging them on to the head and then shaping the eyes, I found that instead of looking inquisitive he looked quite intimidating. After consulting with the tutor and checking it against the picture I realised that the eyes were not rounded enough and the jaw was too small, with the mouth being too close to the eyes. After adding these changes, it still did not look quite right but after checking the picture I noticed a bump for the nose that was almost camouflaged due to the angle of the image, and upon adding it in it was much improved.
The wrinkles on the neck are an integral part of the character - as an elderly tortoise they are a key character detail, and getting them right and realistic is very important. I found that rather then using the harder plastic tools, silicone tools were better as they created a smoother, softer crease that looked far more realistic. From there, with the bulking out done I was able to add the final larger detail of the sash. with no back view of the character to go from this was tricky and involved a large amount of, well, making it up, but on the whole I hope I have not done too bad a job!
And here it is at the end of the session with the extra wrinkles added at the neck - the product of just over 5 and a half hours work. I will be working on it at home to get the patterning on the skin done, to finish the hands and legs, and to do the staff - hopefully I will have it finished soon.
I am incredibly excited about the next session as, while I have immensely enjoyed the character modelling and hopefully have discovered I hope a small measure of talent for it, next session we start props making techniques and that is predominantly what I hope to learn.
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