Haven’t done (IT) in a while.

My bookshelf of curiosity.

The IT in question is sculpting stuff by hand. Several months ago I began a Ninja Turtle bust on a walnut base plate, but it has sat untouched since there was snow on the ground, and I have gone to Florida twice since that point. I was taking some time to teach my oldest daughter a few things about making an appropriate armature, and building up the rough forms before you get too far into your sculpt. And by too far into the sculpt I mean working in details when the bulk of the forms (read muscle groups, fatty tissue deposits, bones, and general thickness) hadn’t been placed upon the armature yet. It can be pretty seductive, those fun details. But best to get the whole thing in order before you put hours into skin texture, clothes, or artful extras. But I digress.

I have five full blocks of clay left untouched. As a general rule, mainly because I am cheap/not rich, I limit myself to only one block of clay per sculpture. That way I can do more! I don’t always adhere to that rule, and I have been known to try to knock out two smaller items off of one 2lbs block of clay. Living on the edge here people! Watch out.

I also have a stock pile of Super Sculpey which I intend to use on a new fair entry. Not all at once. But I have enough I could do four 6-8″ tall busts along the lines of what I usually do. Ogres and beastmen of all types, goblins and gnomes, evil elves, and sailors alike. I have a minotaur that I sight copied from a fantastic sculptor from Greece. Whose name now escapes me. Fantastic sculptor though.

I could try a faircrow bust, of our event mascot, for this fall’s fair. That might garner some attention. Feels like pandering if you ask me. But whatever, at this point. Sculpting, much like any art form outside of the use of AI, is a use it or lose it scenario. Because I tend to go on a hot streak, and then move on for months st a time, I constantly have to relearn how things feel in my hands, and how the Clay’s react go my touch. If you don’t do it 24/7/365 you lose your sensitivity to it. I’m not paid to do it, so that’s ok with me. I can take a few days or a week or two to get back into the groove.

I do the same thing with wood working, playing guitar, writing short stories, and model building/painting with an air brush. My focus pulls from one to the other, on and on, all year through. I’m ok at a bunch of stuff, but not exactly a killer at any one thing. Duh!

On another note, I encountered a smell/sensation that reminded me of when I was really sick in 2015, and it has me a little spooked today. That was when I had EBV. Really unpleasant 6-8 weeks. Plus a nasty lung infection/pneumonia to go along with it. So… yeah. That’s not cool.

Latest on the bench, been left untouched for months now.

The plan, the plan. What!?! Is the plan…

I think I’m going to aim for 400 days of blogging, creative writing, and a general sense of nonsense and then reassess. I didn’t really have a plan beyond wanting to do a little writing every day for a year, and well…. now I am beyond that by a slight margin. I don’t have any goals for writing beyond the mere act of doing it. I try to get more concise. To limit run on sentences. To be more coherent in general. I’d actually need to reread a portion of last years posts to see if I managed to achieve any of those things. So, I’ll go out on a limb and I will say, sorta, kinda, maybe?

I do use this medium to moan, and lament about daily struggles and annoyances. But believe you me, I don’t have it too bad. I’m doing just fine. I could do with slightly better gut health, but otherwise, we’re all good. I just love to narrate a good gripe, every now and again. For those at home keeping score, I have Domestic Duties Monday’s, which sometimes gets bumped to Tuesday. I occasionally do movie reviews. Mostly if they are awful, or evoke some type of emotional response from me. Rage being a perfectly reasonable response to write about.

Rarely, I will cover retro gaming with my kids. As I have access to a Sega Master System, PS1, Nintendo 64, Super NES, Atari game system, Xbox , and an Xbox 360. So for older games we got you covered! I had kids so the PS4 & PS5 sailed right by me without waving. So nothing more recent than late stage 360 games get reviewed here.

I sometimes cover wood working projects, home DIY items, and my own spin on sculpting monster/creature busts and figures. I don’t recall ever discussing my music tastes, or instruments, but I can if I felt like it. I have taken to assembling an instrument stock pile, so that my kids have access should the mood take them. Key board, guitars, possibly drums, a violin, and a clarinet. Maybe we’ll form a family band just for kicks to keep ourselves occupied in the future. Who knows.

I just feel like I want to quit dreaming about things, and just go do them, regardless of being an awful noob and all. I don’t need to be any good, I just want to do the things, and experience them first hand, instead of watching others do the thing on YouTube. Perhaps building a new skill, or just preparing the way for my kids to learn, and do new things too. No point being miserable doing only what others expect of you. That way lies madness, depression and misery.

So in short, I don’t know how much longer I plan to keep going on a daily basis, but whatever I do, it’ll be more of the same. With the caveat that I might stumble upon a good short story theme or character, and then light up this phone with new installments. Fingers crossed. Ciao Bella!

Was it something I wrote?

Not gonna lie, big shock to see the amount of traffic that came by here yesterday. Nice to see, but just goes to show I have no idea what anybody likes, or enjoys about my blog posts. Though: I will say this, anything to do with wood working will get at least a handful of views. Maybe not the day of, but eventually it will. That much I know. So, there is that.

I don’t have any immediate wood shop plans, except to make myself a smallish air brush painting cowl, that I can wrap in plastic, and run a vacuum out the back to trap any overspray. I don’t think the build will be very interesting, or complicated, so I don’t,  as of yet, plan to document it. The reason for the build is that I finally broke down and ordered specific air brush paints. So instead of painting into a cardboard box, like I used to do, I’ll make a sturdier wooden box, lined in plastic, and with a plastic hose adapter embedded in it to contain the mists. It’ll be covered by an open cell foam pad to soak up particles, that can be replaced. But I don’t forsee myself suddenly becoming a painter of many things. I have my busts to do, and a few miniatures laying around to finish up, and then it’ll sit in the closet for a long while. Actually I bought Fantasy Series Two from a kickstarter that hasn’t released yet, so when those 200 models show up, the air brush & cowl will get some serious use. I call it a cowl because it’s so small, and not quite a full booth. Semantics I suppose. Cowl sounds cooler than spray booth to my ears.

On the sculpted bust front my Hellboy is coming along. Trying to take my time with this one. I had done an interesting bust of him several years ago, which I was hoping to recreate, but the armature was incorrect, so now I’m doing just a head and neck version. It’s a work in progress, and still needs a fair amount of work. Like reshaping the planes of the face, smoothing, texturing, adding hair and a pony tail. Pores and veins, and whatever else that can make this as high quality as I can manage right now.

It still seems oddly flat in the face, so I think the planes are off. Probably needs to be drawn more front to back, from nose to mandible. I need to consult my physiology reference books to see where I went wrong. But it looks like an angry guy with horn nubs on his forehead, so I have that going for me. The red Sculpey feels more like oil clay, which while icky, feels like a return to Chavant. I dig it. Now I wish I had bought more of it. It was like $10 cheaper than any kind of Super Sculpey. And that’s something that I can really get behind.

Already have some work lined up for this week, which is always good to know. That’s it for now. Take care out there. Ciao Bella!

Spending some down time sculpting

Like I said in a previous post, I have pulled back from my writing so that I can continue to dabble in clay. I just like the visceral feel of tacky clay under my finger nails. Watching something grow from a wire armature into a fully realized piece with some detailing on top for good measure. I put nearly 44,000 words to paper in the first six weeks of 2020, and only one full sculpt. So now I’ll do that for a bit instead. Below you can see the bulk of my hard work over the last several years. Enjoy.

Book case of clay sculpts.
Last years super sculpey polymer busts.

Recent bust sculpting

As we near the end of the year I’d like to look at the last two or three sculpts that I have put together.  I managed to build 22 pieces in this calendar year, which felt really, really good. I covered some full figures, like Skeletor and some Ninja Turtles, and then transitioned into busts and portraits. I was fortunate enough to complete my first sculpting commission this year, of a Guild Wars II customized avatar. The last four pieces have really focused on the face and likeness of celebrities and family members alike. I think Yondu and Penguin captured the essence if not the complete likeness of the characters I was attempting to build. (As seen below)

Patton Oswalt “Penguin” from Badman

Marvel’s Gotg Yondu

The Guild Wars character is by far the closest I’ve come in respect to likeness. I was not as happy with the portrait sculpt of my youngest daughter Hannah, but it taught me a lot, and really helped to pin point where I still need to focus my attention. (Note to self : don’t use a glossy primer on polymer clay!)

Guild Wars II Customized Avatar (Unpainted and painted).

 

For now I am going to go back to Fantasy characters, such as those drawn by the likes of Adrian Smith. I will continue to hone my skills by doing sight copies of pieces done by sculptors I admire. It has been a real pleasure to cut out my own bases, from a tree that I cut into slabs, and round them off, sand them down, clear coat them, add cork feet, and build a sculpture on top. I think I will also try to add more wood working to the mix. I have a really great lathe sitting in pieces in my shop, so next year I’ll have to build a sturdy table, and then I can make more intricate bases. I’d like to find some exotic woods, and some nice stains, and if I manage to pull something really exciting out of my studio then perhaps a little brass plaque with finishing screws to name it and cap it off nicely. You know, like the pros do.

Not this year coming, but maybe the year after I’d like to try casting up some resin copies of my works. That’ll be a learning process in and of itself. Making a silicon mould, mixing the resin, getting the pours down properly, and then pulling them out correctly, and taking care of seam lines, and perhaps painting one up. It was actually kind of fun to bust out the paints to finish off my commission. I’m not a painter by any stretch so that was new and exciting. I think I’ll try to work more in Super Sculpey® so that I can bake and paint them if need be. Although to be honest I’m a huge fan of the Chavant NSP Hard oil based clay. I’m sure doing 30 some odd pieces in that medium might have something to do with that. I don’t think I’ll be able to do 22 items next year, but I aim to keep on getting better and better.

Until the new year, have a safe and happy holiday.

Mark

 

Getting the itch to create…

An even bigger roster of items I’ve completed this year. Definitely taken a turn for the fantasy realm as of the last three – four months. May even be taking my first commission offer within the next week or so. Could be a way to supplement my freelance graphic design revenue.

I’d love to use this skill set to design a really funky tap handle. I’ve done that on paper, and in illustrator, but never done it traditionally for a full on mould and cast job.

If any one would like to have a very custom award/ topper made to hand out to staff at conferences and the such that would be a cool project to do.

Contact me at : gwstudios@rogers.com

For OOAK (One of a kind) bust (around 8″ tall and 5″ wide depending on character) you’re looking at $600.00 + 13% HST (in either a Chavant® NSP Hard or Super Sculpey® medium). To have your item moulded and then cast in resin please contact me for a quote.

Sculptures_2017_Part Three