Update: 4/11/2007:
Finally! After many months of work, a few mishaps and some paint, it’s finally finished. There are a few things I wish I had done differently, but for a first attempt, I think it came out pretty well (you can scroll down below the picture to find the original post and links to the in-progress pages):
I’m fairly new to sculpting; I’ve always liked working with my hands, and I’ve always wanted to try sculpting. Aside from the mandatory 4th-grade-art-class-ash-tray and a few other embarrasing creations, I hadn’t really done much with clay other than play with it.
A few years ago, I started messing around with polymer clay. The nice thing about polymer clay is that, like the colorful modeling clay most people get to use as a kid, it doesn’t dry out. But unlike modeling clay, you can harden it by baking. Polymer clay is not really clay at all; it’s an oil-based compound made up of solid and liquid polymers. When heated, the liquid polymer hardens and fuses with the solid polymer, curing the clay. The nice thing about polymer clay is that you don’t need (and can’t use) a kiln to bake it — it can be cured in home-oven temperatures (275 degrees) — and it will never dry out. It’s one of the most versatile sculpting substances around, and it’s very popular with both amatuer and professional sculptors.
Shortly after we got engaged, Cary and I started brainstorming unique ideas for our wedding. I thought it would be neat to sculpt our cake topper instead of using a generic one. Cary thought it was a great idea. Having never created a real-life sculpture before, I was and still am afraid I’ll regret opening my big mouth. Nevertheless, I began planning what is ultimately going to be a pretty big project.
I’ll be attempting to document the creation of the sculpture in the following pages so that, hopefully, I’ll be able to remember and not repeat the mistakes I make.
The whole process began with reference photos of Cary and me from the front, side and rear. I then printed out these pictures in the scale that would match the final sculpt.
Next, I created wire armatures (pictures coming soon) that would be used to support the sculptures. The armatures were laid out on top of the reference picture to get the proper scale. Parts of the armatures were held together with Plummer’s Epoxy (pretty cool stuff. Plummer’s Epoxy comes in a small tube containing a white cylinder of a very sticky gum-like substance wrapped in a blue layer of equally sticky, equally gum-like blue substance. When mixed together, the to materials heat up and quickly harden, forming a hard-as-rock bond. It smells pretty toxic, but works great). Then it’s on to the fun part: