Mistah J's Debut!

I was right! haha We got the new male model in Sculpture class today. Instead of starting right away on the new piece, I wanted desperately to finish Harley as much as possible. So I basically spent the morning class working on her and the afternoon working on the Joker.



This was how Harley looked on Sunday night. That's the Joker's armature behind her. (Yeah- THAT's how stoked I was! I went ahead and made his armature before class!) XD In my excitement, I made him waaaaaaay too tall, but that's better than being too short. I also located some references.

Today in class, I essentially "finished" Harley Quinn! I still want to draw in seams on her outfit and I need to draw in the diamonds on the costume, but she is FINISHED! The cuffs on her wrists are sealed, the boot flaps are there, even the little balls on her hat and the collar. I am SO STOKED with how she came out!!!!



(For those wondering- yeah, I hand-cut out that collar. I've never sculpted something so thin and flat in clay before. I had to bevel all the edges and rake them down gently. It felt insane to do, but it came out so GREAT!)
I cannot believe that she was once just wire frame. I am really impressed with myself. I know that isn't something you are supposed to say for fear of coming off as conceited or whatever, but I am!

I failed to take a picture of the Joker's armature wire before I threw the aluminum foil and clay on him, so this is all you get. Sorry!



I know the decision to give him a great big girl head with pink/purple hair won't be a popular one, but- WAIT A MINUTE!
Oops... Sorry. Wrong picture.



There we go. That's better. Yeah- he looks almost like an ancient Greek piece right now, but not for long! Going full graphic again! He's gotta match his lady.
However, he weighs a TON right now. We didn't have a whole lot of aluminum foil in class today, so that clay is mostly that- CLAY! And it's HEAVY! So I will be performing a surgery on him- to cut his torso open, add more foil to the armature, carve out the torso, then sealing it back together. YAY!

I keep looking at the Joker references I have, and- I must confess- I am a little scared about this one. Harley is a lot of pretty curves. Joker is a lot of straights and points! Finding a way to render that in clay is going to be... "interesting", let's say. But I am pretty freaking excited to start! Keep an eye out for more updates!

A Day Later...

I was on RA duty today in the dorms and rather than trying to figure out how to paint the backgrounds for my film and transporting it all around, I decided to work on the Harley Quinn sculpture instead. I seriously just thought it would be good to throw a few more hours at it before class on Tuesday, since I believe, we are getting the male model in for the next piece. (Hint: It will be the Joker! XD )

Okay, actually, I don't know if that is true or not... But that is what ~I~ will be turning him into. I want a companion to my Harley- and her pose only works in my head if she is trying to seduce/entice Mr. J.

So... after 7? hours- and with the exception of a few of the finer details- she is essentially DONE! @.@ The wrist things now need to be shortened (because her wrists are so much thinner now) and attached, her boots need their little flap things, the little balls on her hat need to be made and attached, and her collar and diamonds needs to be made. But really, I think that is it!

She is all smoothed out with rakes. I need to heat/ice up her foot because I cracked it while moving it into a better position, but that will take a whole of five minutes... But after I hit her with the alcohol and a fine brush, she should be perfect! I can't believe how I am seeing her now. I can already imagine what she will look like with the paint! EEEEEE!!!! SO EXCITED!

In other wild news, all four of my voice actresses have confirmed that they are in! I will record audio this week! OMG! A lot of things seem to suddenly be going well and I am TERRIFIED that it will stop prematurely. PLEASE let's ride this wave? Please gimme a break? I need this!

Sculpture Update in two parts!

PART 1:
I hate when I disappear for a month without updating! Especially for progress pictures of the Harley sculpture! She has changed SO MUCH in- what? Three weeks since my last update?

And here's the sad part, I don't have any current pictures of her! If I make it to my cube today, I will most certainly take a few then post them. I am so proud of how she is turning out! I am making sure to keep the graphic feel, but at the same time, trying to use all the principles they've been drilling into our heads here for the past four years. The one that constantly keeps coming to mind while working on her is straights vs. curves! (The other is one of the oldest principles ever in sculpture- NEGATIVE SPACE!) XD I am not really doing anything drastic on her anymore. The shoulders have been cut down, the arms thinned, the knees and ankles thinned down, the heels have been shortened, and just last class, ...

PART 2:
Well, in mid-sentence, my computer decided to have a little fit and had to be put in the corner (shut down). Picking back up.

What was I saying? "and just last class", uhhh... OH! I sliced off her hands and sculpted two separate hands then wove them together. (As opposed to the clump of clay I had at the end of her wrists that I intended to carve out. Additive vs. Subtractive methods of Sculpture, for the win?) I was having a really hard time carving her fingers out and making them look ROUND and not square. I saved the clump of hands, just in case I couldn't successfully make the fingers weave. Sadly (or is it Happily?), they worked out PERFECTLY! They need to be refined a bit and brushed down so they look slick, but they do indeed look like hands- so, the clump is out for good.
I will admit, I had the new LAIKA trailer for The Boxtrolls stuck in my head then entire time I was making the hands.
And OF COURSE, the second hand took like a third of the time the first did!
While the computer was in time-out, I went to the Main Building and took the progress pictures I mentioned in Part 1. A LOT of them. I also made a bunch of new rakes! EEEEE! SO EXCITED! (Why am I not trying to get hired to make sculptures all day, again?)

So here we go! More pics!




In the picture of the leg, you can see where I am adding wrinkles to her costume. The bottom-most wrinkle has been smoothed out, the others are just little worms of clay stuck on with no blending at all. If under the right conditions, they would just fall off! XD







The frilly things on her wrists aren't closed yet, I just want to keep them there to be safe. It's one of those things where I'm REALLY excited about putting that part on, so I'm rushing it a little- you know? I made one of them like three weeks ago and didn't put it on, but didn't protect it either... I put it in my tool box and it actually survived (man, Hard Chavant, you are hardcore!) but after putting it on her wrist over and over and over again to see how it looked, I cracked it. I had to melt more Chavant and put it in the extruder and make a whole new one. Blah. I mean- it's totally fun, but it wastes TIIIIIIIIIME! XD I just want to FINISH this thing so badly!

I think that's all for this update. I hope to work on her tomorrow while I am on RA duty. We shall see. Bye guys!

Harley Sculpture- update

Quick update:

I am taking John Mahoney's sculpture class again this semester (x2 actually, truth be told) and our first assignment is based on a live model. The model came in dressed as Harley Quinn from the Batman cartoon series. Having never actually seen it myself, I assumed I would just do my own thing- and, in a way, I did!

We started out with warm-up drawings on paper to get us loose. John photographed them and when we were ready to start the sculptures, the class as a whole had to choose one pose for us all to work on. As with most things artistic, one of the poses spoke to me. It was, of course, NOT the one chosen! HAHA! She hit this one really cute, playful pose, looking over the shoulder and I drew it with a Joker character type behind her. I was smitten with the feel of the drawing! Seeing as how our second sculpture will be a male character, I knew I had my pose! So, I got the photos of the second pose from John and just went right ahead and did that. Fan art, ho!

This is the original wire frame for the sculpture from the first class. Taken on my birthday!


That's about how far I got in the first class. Then it was lunch time. However, immediately after lunch John has his afternoon sculpture class. And guess who's in that class! Yup! ME!
So I continued work on the pose while the second class started their wire frames.

This is how far I got by the second week.

Seeing as how the cartoon character is very graphic in nature, I am pushing myself to really keep her shapes clean and simple. Therefore, I am really proud of that hip curve.

Now, this past week, I really wanted to move forward and faster. I feel so slow sometimes! So, I tried to do as much as I could. I really wanted to get in a little more detail stuff. So this is where I was by the afternoon.








Is that face not the creepiest thing ever?! *is totally creeped out*

However, at the very end of class, when I should have been cleaning up and getting out of there, I realized that the cartoon design has a VERY short torso and small shoulders. Even if her shoulders were up, like they are in the original pose, they wouldn't be that tall, so I took a plastic knife and hacked off her shoulders, all the way down to the epoxy.
I am a little worried that the torso will still be too long and there is really no way of fixing that at this point, except to bring her waist and everything else up. Seeing as how I am really happy with her legs at the moment, that would truly be a pain!

I have decided, however, that I am going to need to chop her head and neck off in order to keep them short and cute, like the cartoon ref. That is easily done, thankfully, in Chavant. Exacto blade, some heat and ice and she'll be just how I want her. Though I am trying to figure out if she is going to need wire in her neck since it is SO small and thin. For now, I will proceed without. I can always hack it off and put it back on again later.

Looking forward to class this week! My goal is to give her rough hands and feet. YAY!


OH! I forgot! My friend Isabela is making an awesome little sculpture. Here's a pic.





Oh... you can't really tell what size it is... Hmm.... Well, here's a picture of it next to my Asterope frame...

And a DIME.... for scale.





FREAKING TINY!