I decided to start with the easiest figure first: me. I began the sculpture by bulking out the torso with a aluminum foil (bulking out a sculpture with aluminum foil helps keep it light, but also serves to reduce the amount of sculpting material required. It’s also much easier to cure thin layers of polymer clay than a thick solid mass).
Clamping the armature for stability, I began to shape the legs. I didn’t spend too much time on the upper legs since they would be covered with clothing. The lower legs were built in phases, starting with a basic bone structure and layering on individual pices of clay that would represent underlying muscles — nothing too intricate. Smaller strips of clay were used to fill in the gaps and smooth everything together. After adding a flattened piece of round clay for the kneecaps, more clay was used to smooth out the engire leg.
After the lower legs were complete, I used a small pasta machine to roll out flat sheets of clay to be used for the clothing. As it turns out, it’s much easier for me to create clothing by approximating the way the real garment would be made with cloth. For shorts, I cut out a two squares of clay sheet for each leg, joining the sheets together where the natural cloth seem would be, then blending them together. Smaller, thinner squares of clay sheets were used to make the front and back pockets and pocket flaps, and belt loops (I only made a few belt loops after realizing that the top of the shorts would be covered by a shirt, anyway). Using small pieces of clay to blend the individual sheets together, I arrived at this:
(click images to enlarge)
Before baking the sculpture, I scored the clay on the upper body with a wire brush. This puts a texture on the clay that will help unbaked clay adhere to the baked clay. The sculpture was then baked and hardened.
After a break, I finally got around to starting the basic shape of the upper body. It’s nowhere near an accurate depiction of my torso; and it doesn’t need to be accurate, since it’ll be covered by a shirt. I just needed to make the basic shape so that the shirt will have something to rest against to maintain the correct shape. The lower body is shown hardened in the images below. Note the light colored specs in the hardened clay. This is a normal effect of the hardening process, and although it looks odd, they’re below the surface of the clay and do not affect the outer texture (unlike my fingerprints).
After working on the shirt and upper body a little more, I decided to take a break from that and start on the head. In order to lessen the chances of smudging the tiny details in the face with my clumsy hands, I chose to use a new version of Sculpey called Sculpey Firm. Sculpey Firm, as the name implies, is not quite as soft as Super Sculpey, so it holds small details much better and is not quite as easy to smudge. It’s also dark grey in color, which makes it much easier to see detail in the sculpt.
After about 3 hours of work, I’ve come to realize that there’s something just slightly wrong with this first attempt. And by “slightly wrong”, I mean it looks like Dwight Eisenhower. At least I know that if I ever want to sculpt the former President, I’ll have a head start:
I’m not surprised it came out looking nothing like me; after all, it’s my very first attempt at sculpting a realistic head.
Oh well. Back to the drawing board.
I’m back from the drawing board, and after redoing the Eisenhower head, I think I’m pretty happy with the results. It’s not a perfect likeness, but it doesn’t really need to be; after all, who else could that be on top of our wedding cake?
Here’s the final head, baked and hardened:
I intentionally left the eyes as empty sockets, since it will be easier to shape the eyeballs without worrying about damaging the eyelids.
Today, I worked on the hands, which have so far been the hardest part aside from the head. The hands are so small, that getting any significant detail into them without damaging them is pretty difficult.
I started with a flattened, oval shaped piece of clay. The oval was tapered so that one end was thicker than the other (the thicker end became the palm of the hand). I then cut thin strips of clay out of the thinner end. The material left became the fingers. After a little shaping and detail work, here’s the finished result:
After some more sculpting and a little post-mishap gluing, I’ve finally finished the sculpt. Here’s Mini-Me (unpainted):
