 |
Work |
 |
As far as inspiration goes there’s too much of it! The internet is jam packed with goodies. There are several people I know who I’m dying to sculpt. I only have to go to my local swimming pool to come away stunned by the beauty and elegance of lots of perfectly ordinary people. I think the fact that I am fairly dumpy and shapeless gives me an extra heightened appreciation of the human form when it works out well. I’ve got some illustrator’s books of photographs of nudes in different poses. Quite often I will have an idea for a position for a character, start making it then look it up in the book to see the ‘real thing’. I can never find the exact same pose. It just shows the amazing variety of positions the human body can take. I have barely scratched the surface. Really I spent so much of my twenties unfulfilled by work, searching for a medium where I could express ideas. Making things in 3D still seems like a slightly illicit pleasure. Whether my work is ever a success or not, I am so glad to have found my thing. How long does it usually take to make a figure? It can take anything from a few days to a month to make a figure. First I make a wire armature and wrap aluminium foil round parts of it. I then apply strips of Super Sculpy and build up the form. When it’s done it goes into my home oven at the lowest setting. Then I sand it down to get the surface as smooth as possible. I then make a silicone rubber mould surrounded with plaster and cast with resin or Jesmonite. Sometimes the initial sketch I have is the roughest blobby shape so the process of sculpting the figure is absolutely intrinsic to the creation of the character. The part that can get a bit tedious is mould making, especially since it is never entirely satisfactory in terms of seams, bubbles etc. There are so many things that can go wrong. One of the most fun aspects of the process is giving the figures names. Usually it comes to me as I am sculpting. Other people often come up with ideas too. |
 |
|
 |