Tools!

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Here are the sculpting tools I use when making a sculpt of this general size. I figure the model will be between 10 and 12 inches long.

I've accumilated these tools over the years and they are a mix of store-bought and homemade. Having the same set isn't necessary, it's just about finding out which tools work best for you on a given project. More on how to make your own later. Take a look

Don't forget to pick up one of these calipers. Very essential. I use them all the time when I'm working.

This tool isn't exactly necessary, but it saves me a lot of time and sore hands. It's a pasta maker, I use it to mix sculpey colors together. This can take a long time if you're doing a lot with just your hands.

BTW, here's a shot of part of my filthy studio....haha I really need a maid!

Next I took the photoshop file, cut out the critter and blew the printout up to the size i want to sculpt it on a regular xerox machine. I don't have it here, but it's of course best to have all three orthographic views of what you're doing. But in this case, I'll be leaving a bit of it up to experimentation, and I have a pretty good idea in my mind what the rest of the guy should look like. This image will also be used for building the armature and a reference when I'm actually sculpting.

So now i know how big my base needs to be, and I have more of a sense as to how heavy the final sculpture will be. The base is made just big enough to keep the thing from toppling over, but not so big that I can't get close enough to do my work. I'm using a 3/8 inch threaded rod as the main support and have fastened it down with a nut on top, a wingnut on the bottom and a couple of washers. The main thing is you don't want a flimsy support because it's annoying. At a certain point down the road, I will also take the rod with the sculpture off of the wooden base in order to get at the bottom of it. More on that later.

I've taken the xerox and roughly drawn where I think the spine and main skeleton of the model should be. The clay will ultimately be supported by an internal wire skeleton. I didn't mark it exactly where it would be in nature, but deeper into the mass of the body, just to give me room. Nothing is more irritating than hitting a wire as you're sculpting away, so give your self a bit of space. The backbone wire (aluminum wire available at art stores or ceramics stores) here will be attached to the threaded rod and will support the bulk of the weight, therefore make sure it is strong enough for the job. Here I'm using 1/4 inch, which should be strong enough.
I then indicated where the wire will be for the arms and legs. The white dots are there to remind me where the pivot points would be. I'll use them to compare both sides of the model, keeping the arms and legs symetrical. Keep in mind though that the drawing was done in perspective. If you make the arm wires and legs wires as long as the black line I drew, they'd be too short. A front and top view will help with that. I'll add those images soon.

This creature will be fabricated out of Super Sculpey and Sculpey III. I'll use the Sculpey III to tint the largers blocks of regular Super Sculpey.
**special tip When you buy your sculpey, check for "freshness". Open the box and check that the material is soft and you can press your finger into it. Sculpey isn't cheap, so don't buy old dried up stuff that's been sitting on the store shelf for six months. And when you get it home, put in a zip lock bag or tupperware if you're not going to use it immediately. Takes a long time to dry out, but it will.

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Here I'm premixing my sculpey to achieve an opaque grey color. In this case, I want the material to photograph for the tuturial, so eliminating the translucency of the original color will do that. In addition, it's helpful to tint the material a color that is fairly close to the base color of the final product. Not only does it help visualize as you are working, but it helps the painting process as well.
The ratio I used here was:

1 box Sculpey
1 block white Sculpey III
1/2 block black Sculpey III

Keeping the ratios simple like this allows me to make more anytime I need it and the colors will match.

Just run it through the press over and over, flattening, folding and shredding and repeating until the color is solid. Same thing if you're doing it by hand. Takes a while, but it's worth it.

So here is the armature in it's basic form. I normally leave things like fingers, claws or spikes for later. Right now I want to concentrate on the main limbs and their relationships to the torso. THis is where I use the calipers to compare to the drawing. At this point, the armature is not posed, but I'm still hoping to get a sense of the final product even at this early stage. Personally, I already see a resemblance.

Notice how I'm wrapping the seperate wires for the arms to the main body wire and the bends I'm putting in the leg and arm wires. This will soon be locked in epoxy putty, the bends in the wire will keep the wires from coming loose and turning.

I'm tacking the wires in place with a little Devcon 5min epoxy...

Once the epoxy is dry I am then ready to secure the wire to the base rod. I use Propoxy plummers putty for this. There are many kinds of plummers putty, but I like this one because it's particularly strong.

Cut it and mix it by hand. I'd recommend you use rubber gloves

The idea is to pack the mixed material very tightly around the areas to want to bind and lock together. I like to wet it a tiny bit with isopropyl alcohol. This thins it a little and lets you really mush it in there good. Let this harden completely and check that things are nice and secure. You'll be torqueing on this structure soon, so it should be solid.

Bit o'trivia: A number of props from the film A Nightmare before Xmas were sculpted and carved from propoxy. Very handy stuff.

Ok, so I have my armature ready to go. I've roughly posed it how I want it (don't be afraid to repose later if need be) and I've wrapped it in 1/16 guage alluminum wire. Why you ask? This is the secret for keeping the clay on the understructure. If I would not put the little wire on there, as I sculpted and manupulated the clay, it would work itself free and fall off the large smooth wires. The small wire gives the clay something to grab on to.
*NOTE: If this was an even larger figure, I would tightly pack alluminum foil in say the torso area to build up the bulk within a half inch or so of where I eventually want to be. Then I'd do the wrapping with the small wire. It's best to avoid baking very thick pieces of sculpey because it tends to crack. (For me, thick is over 3 inches or so.) But I think I'll be ok on this one. So no foil this time.

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So I hope to start getting some clay on this thing this weekend. Now the real fun starts!

Alright lets start the good part...sculpting!

First thing I want to do in this case is make a template to aid me in getting the ball rolling. I draw over the xerox and press down hard with pen, transferring the outline of the main bodymass to the cardboard. You can also spraymount the xerox to the cardboard or foamcore then cut it out. It's up to you.

Cut the shape out with an exacto knife...watch them fingers.
If you're not pasting down the original image and cutting it out, it's a good idea to mark major landmarks like the eye or the arms, ribs.. whatever you will be needing later.

Now as you can see, there's no question if you're getting it right. Start adding clay. Be sure to really work it into the wires in the beginning so that you have a solid base.

Be sure to really work it into the wires in the beginning so that you have a solid base.

The blocking stage.

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The beginning stage is called the blocking stage. Just like blocking any performance, we are not concerned about the fine detail yet, we are just getting the basic dimemsions down. I normally start with the larger masses first. In this case the torso area. Everything hinges on getting this first part right, so I take my time and sorta creep up to the shape I think is correct, taking into account anatomy and the pose, always measuring with my calipers and comparing to the reference.

It helps to throw some temporary features on there to kinda help your eye "see" where you're going.

As you can see, the surface is a little different now. Sometimes all the little hunks of clay that I quicky lay down can look a little distracting. I want to be sure that I'm generally happy with the way the torso is looking, so I tool down the surface a little with some very crude and rough tools. I call this "equalizing the surface." I give it a quick once over in order improve the look of it a bit.

These are some tools I use very often, especially in these early stages. Notice that they all have grooves or cerations. The wooden one came that way. The one on the right is a rake tool I made from a small jewelers saw blade. The one on the left is store bought, I ground the notches in there with a dremel tool.

They all have a different effect. Generally I work from course to fine. Kinda makes sense, don't it? You just gotta experiment.