Challenge! Pirates! Arrrrrrrrrg!

[KonstantinZ]

Gary, it's awe inspiring. I love the top part and the boots. The only place I hope you work a bit more on is the skirt. It just looks a bit too heavy I thinnk compared to the rest. Other than the skirt it's great.

Borax, thank you

Ahoy!

K

[OMB]

Garyo you must have one hell of a steady hand to work on such a small sculpt.
Konstant i like the pose he looks proper smashed!
Hopefully finishing off tonight and have finished photos tomorrow.

Ollie

[WanderingProphet]

Hey Garyo, thanks for telling me about the challenge, I did this with no idea, so thanks for pointing me in the right direction.

She's 10 inches, super sculpey

[OMB]

I think we have a winner! Fantastic work prophet.

Ollie

[KonstantinZ]

Great entry Prophet! Great to have you here and a helpful kick in the butt that you performed with this great sculpt is apreciated Love the folds and clothing. What's her legend?

Thank you again.

Cheers

[Garyo]

Prophet, glad to see you come on board and hope you get to more fully participate in the next challenge. You show great promise.

The rest of the gang you have till Sunday to wrap up and post your finals, I'm looking forward to seeing them all.

As for me, I'm finished early, which shocks the hell out of me. I did work on the skirt a bit more. The thickness you see is mostly for strength if I go ahead and cast her up. I also made it a bit thick at the top on the cannon ball leg because I had somehow gotten a bit off in the leg proportions. The shin was too short and I made it longer, it's still a bit off, but not as bad as it was before.

So remember Sunday I'm making the Poll so get to work


Garyo

[OMB]

Well these are my final pics was going to include a little plover bird( the ones that clean crocs teeth, so i found out!) on his shoulder but ran out of time.
I know that he needs a tidy up , but learned a few things with sculpt ( only second ever).
Everyones enteries look so good abit embarrassed about mine.
Had great fun with this one look forward to the next.

Ollie

[Garyo]

I love him OMB, I hope you continue and add his fine feathered friend. Most importantly don't feel embarrassed. All the elements are there and its clear what he is, both animal and pirate bits. The biggest thing you could refine him would be to smooth him and he would stand above lots of stuff I've seen posted in the sculpting forum. Everybody has to start somewhere and that's what I'd like to think these challenges are all about. Growth and improvement are first and the voting is second in the end result here. That's why we post work in progress shots and hopefully give each other constructive criticism.

Garyo

[KonstantinZ]

Gary, great job on it. I'd love to learn to sculpt so small someday. I'm practicing in steading my hand hehe. The piece is well designed and positioned. I'm looking forward to seeing what you do with it once it's cast in wax.

Ollie, you shouldn't be ahamed. This is a great piece! It has a pirate spirit and enough in detail to make it an outstanding piece. I remember Gary posting one of his pieces in the forum thread to show that art can be done from basic media. It also showed that art can be done with different degree of finish. I'm sure that your next piece is going to kick ass!
I'd recomend changing the stick into a musket though. It would work well with his posture.

K

[WanderingProphet]

hey Konstantin, I have problems with steadying too, it's not really something you get rid of, you just control. Do what I do, it's called a Murtaugh Draw. Ball up your fist as tight as you can, put all your frustrations in the front of your mind, crack your neck, and throw the stress away, snap your fist open, and allow your stress to follow. And your homefree, at least for a few minutes. I do this before I do any detailing work. It sounds like psycho babble kinda stuff, but it works. You just gotta believe that your throwing your stress away, not just flexing your hand

[Borax]

everyones pirates so far look great !! love the croc pirate OMG ! and garyo as always amazing detail in something so small very cool.
And wondering prophet.... I hate you !! you and your seriously awesome eye popping sculpt pld: The detailed clothing is quite bitchin !

Still working on mine but will be done sunday for sure, looking forward to getting my ass kicked in the poll !!

I will post a wip latertonight for you guys

[KonstantinZ]

Thank you WP! I'll try it and see if I can get it to work. It is all in the head anyway so I'm sure there is a way to trick the brain into doing what I want, hehe.

Couldn't fire mine yet since it just wouldn't dry fast enough. So I'll have to fire it next weekend when I get back home from my vacation. Couldn't find time to finish mine, and it just doesn't look good enough to me atm. So I am withdrawing it from the challange not to clutter the vote. We have enough great entries and I'm sure it's better to consolidate the vote.

things I've learned in this challage:
1) Too much paper in paper clay results in lackluster medium. I'll make the mix different for the next challange. I did like the ease of repair and "safe" drying compared to regular clay.

2) I must learn anatomy of human arms. The arms on the pirate look horrible because I have no idea how the arms work. Hopefully I can do better in the next challange.

3) Radiation of folds on fabric from and into points of stress(knees,pubic area, etc) That was really cool to just study the way folds work. Hopefully I can use it for the next challange.


Thanks for this opportunity to sculpt and all the inspiration.
Good Luck in the Vote!

Cheers.

[Borax]

Late as usual, but i finally finished Mr. fourarms. Well finished as much as I can to be presentable for the poll. I still want to add the weapon in his other hand and I am going to build him a hat as I do not like what I have done with his head. Just not very creative, and just to clerify, those tubes coming out of his head are tentacle type appendages not hair.

There are a lot of things I do not like about this fella, but for my second sculpture I think It may just pass for 'ok' . Hope you all enjoy. And please beat him up and scrutinize him so that I learn.

I Need Better Lighting ! sorry.

[Garyo]

Excellent, it looks like everyone is in now! I'll set up the poll tonight

As for Crits Borax... I love the character of his face and the dreads. A hat or bandana still might be fun. The anatomy for his arms is fantastic, but I feel a bit let down by his torso and especially the legs. Compared to his arms the pecks and abdominals come off a little too exaggerated on the actionfigurey side, but do fit in with the muscular nature of the figure. The legs and this one is not just for you but KonstantinZ and OMB too, even if you plan on putting baggy clothes over a part of a body, its well worth the extra time spent on doing the underlying anatomy first to provide a great structure to hang the clothing or anything else on Looking at the earlier WIPs of all three figures there is no structure, it's just straight to the surface. If I've learned one thing the hard way in sculpting the figure is all about structure! Even the teacher I had that was all about abstract sculpture pounded that. Well I hope you don't feel too beat up at this point, because as you said this is your second sculpt and you do really have some great character put into him that makes me want to know more about him. I can really see him in a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle episode for some reason.

KonstantinZ, your turn... Sorry you ran out of time, I can tell you have beat yourself up a bit already. I'm going to say one thing that I've already mentioned in Borax's critique don't rush to the surface. From what we did in the Skull challenge I know you do structure And sturcture is our friend in sculpting. For clothing folds, I'd recomend the Burne Hogarth book Dynamic Wrinkles and Drapery. All the books he's done art (pun intended) great and the Dynamic Anatomy book is worth having too. I think the pose is great for a drunken pirate, and if you come back from vacation and put the work into his anatomy you'll nail him.

I hope everyone has really enjoyed this challenge like I have. I feel we've some really impressive figures and growth in skills as well. Start thinking about what you want to try our hands at next. I'll see if Oblio want's to pick the reins back up

Garyo

[Cat]

I'm not gonna be able to make it guys... too bad i love pirates!
Just too much to do

Fun entries so far though!

[KonstantinZ]

Thank you for the critique and the tips Gary! I am going to do a lot of plain anatomy studies this year just to get to the next level, because without the ability to see those muscles and planes I'm just wasting my time.
I'll look into getting these books ones I am back home.

Borax, he reminds me of the vampires from the second Matrix movie.
Really cool design and execution. The only critique I will give is the nose.
Try to define the planes a bit more. There are more planes in a male nose than what you have, and I think it's distracting from the otherwise very good face.

Cat, sorry to hear this, but I hope you can enter in the next one and kick some butt The more talanted artists there are in the challange the more inspiration for everyone

K

[Garyo]

Ok polls are up, great work again guys and sorry you couldn't play Cat.

[ciumirex]

i have one too )

[clifcarver]

Hi KonstantinZ ....

Carving the bisque fired clay can be done with diamond bits on a rotary carving tool.
Make a thin slurry of the paper clay to attach raw clay to the work.
This is doing it the hard way though.

Normally you would just let the paperclay dry and use that as a framework to support the next step.
A glue of thinned paper clay helps bond the new clay to the dry clay.
Paper clay can be dried more quickly than regular clay so a hot box or other method may be used without much fear of cracking.

A good ratio of paper fiber to clay is about thirty percent wet pulp by volume of clay.
More doesn't hurt but too much can make it hard to sculpt.

Glazes will absorb into the fired clay a little more.
This can be used to advantage or can lead to disappointment, need to try things.
I like using under glazes on the dry raw clay. Thinned out glaze soaks into the clay and allows colour without losing detail. Extra coats give darker colour.

best of luck with your experiment