Darf (fimo sculpt) WIP -better pictures of last update - 1st try at sculpting

[SigiLee]

Hi people,

I've been working on this guy a for a little while now, spending lots of time getting the fimo ready to work with . That's hard labour, I tell you. Taking me 3 hours of hand kneading and bruised hands . Got a pasta machine, so it goes somewhat quicker (still quite some work as the white fimo is very crumbly) and painless.

What's going to change:
The lowerlip of this guy is going to be a little more like an angry sneer (that a word?). (Girlfriend: noooo, make him smile. Me: uh no..)
Going to add horns. Thoughts on that at the bottom of this post.
The lower jaw needs some work, specially round the chin area.
He's gonna get ears (wha?) will be using fine mazed aluminum "fabric" for support on the ear membrane.
I think I might add a little more weight on his cheeks.
Cleaning up and detailing

What's not going to change:
His eye size. I made those eyes too dang small (white fimo, already fired). It doesn't match the ortho's at all, but I don't think it looks too bad. Just a tad too far apart maybe. Looks a little more evil than in the sketches anyways and that's good (Girlfriend: noooo, make him happy. Me: uh... no.)


Anyways. Here's the little guy. Ortho's and initial idea at the bottom.






sketches




I'm pondering on those horns now. Two options in my head.
1. the timple small horns from the initial sketch ( not the ones from the front ortho, those are butt ugly )
2. bigtime ram like horns

Going to sketch on that.

[pijay-brown]

It s a good beginning,
seems to be huge?Will you do a skin texture at the end?
For horns , you are the only one who knows what is the best
Yes he is nearly smiling,
we won't see his teeth?

Keep going on

Pijay-Brown

http://arfimo.blogspot.com

[SigiLee]

Thanks for the comment.

The model was photographed from up close. It's about 10 centimeters (4 inches) from chin to top, so it's not reallt huge .
Not sure about a skin texture, but I don't think I will do one. I will try to do quite a bit of realistic wrinkles.
There will be no teeth in this one. I have been dreaming about modeling stuff with teeth though Scary . Teeth in one of my following models, I promise.
After some thought I think I will keep the horns simple and small and leave big ones for a later model. Maybe in combination with teeth! How great would that be!

Told him to wipe that smile of his face, wouldn't listen, didn't even twitch!


btw. that turpenoid stuff I hear people talking about. Is it the same as special white spirit? Or could I use white spirit for the same purpose?

[pijay-brown]

personally i use white spirit but you can use turpentine too, with a brush. With that, your sculpt would be quite clean and it smoothes it like if it was softer than before modelling (i am not sure to be clear lol)

Pijay-Brown

http://arfimo.blogspot.com

[SigiLee]

Small update.

Decided to go with small horns. Got their basic shape up with a little extra skull definition around it.

[SigiLee]

Update. Dubbed the dude Darf.

Had a hard time deciding on how and where to put more detail. Not to speak of the wrinkles, still fighting those. Not totally happy with those yet.
It's all a big trail and error experience.

Added a neck in a late stage and started on the ears. Ah yeah, and I got him snarling a bit, no more danged smile on his face....

apologies for the bad quality of the pictures (lighting). Had to flash cause of the dark.

[SigiLee]

Took some better daylight pictures today.

Tore off the ears after these pictures, decided to do the separately because the ear membrane is so thin. Adding a bit of a bust now. The collar bone will just be visible above the wood.
Struggling with the wrinkles on his forehead. I either get them too deep (or sharp) or too shallow. I make the creases for the wrinkles with a needle after which I brush over it with white spirit. If anyone has got any suggestions I'd be more than willing to listen

Any other advice or criticism is very welcome as well. Like I said, it's my first try at sculpting.., save for some lost creativity lessons in the beginning of high school heh, but I am aiming to reach a very high level. I have made sure I have got lots of time to spend the next year.

Anyways, the photo's:

[recrisp]

It is really good for your first, definitely.
I kind'a see where you're going with this I think, and it's a good idea, and I'm sure that you'll end up learning
lot's of things, then show us.

I do see a few things that might need some tweaking...

The horns don't look to be the same on both sides, they need to be more symmetrical, that is, if you planned it.

The eyes are too far apart, they are generally one eye width apart, 'course, this is a demon, so you can do it
any way you want, but generally...
To fix this without having to start over, you can fake it in by creating wrinkles around the eyes, that would
suggest a longer eye width.
The inner parts where the tear ducts are can be made deeper and go further into the nose area, and the outer
parts could have longer wrinkles to also add more character too.
This will not only help the eyes look slightly closer, it will give him a lot meaner look 'cause the eyes will be
more slit-like, resulting in an evil look.

The ears look too low, and for me, the long skinny look isn't as appealing as it could be, maybe add some to
the top parts, thicker at the top about 1/3rd of the height of the ear at the skull, if that makes sense.
Also, from the side view, the ears are too close to the front, they either need to move back, or, you can add
more bulk to 'em at the back, but to look it's best, I think they really need moving back some.
(Look at references for the placement of ears, even though this is a demon, they 'should' still be similar)

I know you're going for different on the nose, but really, it is kind'a too wide, it almost starts to look on the
comical side, you can still get the effect you probably want by lessening the round part of the nose.
If you did that, then lessened the width of the nostrils too, but had the nostrils flared a lot, you'd still have a
large nose, but it'd be more believable.
Showing more of the nostrils from the front view would still give us more of an idea of evil, not that we want to
see inside of a demon's nose, but it would work... heh
If you removed about 1/3rd of the width of the nostrils, and flattened the nose a little more to get rid of the
bulbous nose, it would look more demon-like.

The lower lip is too defined at the outer edges, make a face and look in the mirror, notice how your lips don't
protrude that far out.
Removing the parts on the outer edges will still give you a snarl, but be more realistic.
The middle part is also sticking out too far, you might want to try reducing that some, again, go and make
the meanest face in front of the mirror, you'll see... heh

I like the overall effect though, and the skin texturing is working pretty good, giving it that creepy effect.

The wrinkle parts look pretty good, it's not bad at all really, but to make it more like what you asked, use
references for sure.
Since wrinkled things have different kind's of wrinkles, make deeper gouges for the furrowed parts, then
use alcohol to smooth them, if you're using "spirits", that might be too strong and wipe 'em out too quick.
Get the deeper wrinkles like you want 'em, then go back with a tool and make the lighter ones, brush them
lightly too with alcohol.
Try to hold the brush to where it rounds off the corners of each wrinkle line, don't press very hard either.
When you drag the brush, it should naturally want to smooth the edge of the wrinkle, but just brush one
edge at a time, don't try to do both edges of the wrinkle, that may be what your problem is on this.
I would imagine that your problems with the wrinkles is more due to the "spirits" than how you made them.
Really though, for a first time, this is pretty good, and the wrinkles are what I noticed that looked best.

I hope I didn't bore or confuse you too much, and this is just an opinion.

I hope that you don't mind, but I made this animated gif to show some of the stuff I mentioned, and I also
added a few things, that hopefully help some.
This is just a quickie, so squint your eyes to get the gist of it...

Randy

[SigiLee]

Thanks a lot for taking the time to post that information, recrisp!

I'm affraid the road to getting better will also teach me to have a lot more patience, the hard way

The horns are indeed different from eachother, I've known it from the start, it has bothered me from the start, but I've been sloppy about it. Will change it, thanks for the pointer.

The eyes, ah yes, the eyes . I made the eye balls too small. Actually I also didn't leave enough room for bigger balls to be placed in the armature with aluminum foil.
As you can see in the ortho I was planning to go for a more "correct" distance between the eyes, I'm going to leave the eyes as is, but I will try to implement your tips. I like the look of the eyes though, so not going to make them more evil. He's not a demon perse by the way . Somewhat less evil I think.

The ears are too low, I have to agree with you, I had been looking at those critically for a while. I will try to change that. Not sure how yet, but I will probably just make them separate from the head and attach them just before baking. I will get rid of the current frame for the ears as it is mal-aligned with the rest of the head: the right ear is further back than the left.
As for the form, I think a little more height couldn't hurt, so will play with that.

I'm not going to touch the nose too much, nope . It is a bit comical yeah, but I kinda like that.
Your touchup works and looks nice to me, but in the overal sense it's a bit more bully like than I'm aiming for, if that makes any sense.
Might tweak the nostrils a bit, but more to the extent of changing the openings than changing the shape.

Going to have a very good look at the lower lip and tweak as necessary. Thanks for the tips there.

I like the overall effect though, and the skin texturing is working pretty good, giving it that creepy effect.

I have been looking for some references, but most old people I see on pictures are way to smooth Darn oil of olaz! Will look for some better references.

Glad someone likes the wrinkles better than I do, hehe. I will

I bought some rectified turpentine now, should be somewhat softer than the white spirit I was using. Not sure what type of alcohol to get for fimo, so didn't want to spend, possibly wasted, money on that yet. I think I will check out the polymer clay info thread for that .

As for boring me, didn't happen . Thanks again for the great tips and info!
I will post an update as soon as I got some decent changes to the sculpt.

[SigiLee]

Started working down to the bust. Fleshing it all out: