Jean Luc Picard, aka Patrick Stewart Index
To Boldly Go...
Sometimes when I'm sculpting a new face in Demo I fall across a
recognizable face emerging. That's why I like to do face sculpting
without a particular plan in mind. All figures look like Jean Luc
Picard of StarTrek before they get their hair and in yesterday's demo
Patrick Stewart started to emerge.
Now a really large part of our brain is devoted to sight. In that
large part a big portion is devoted to storing the data base for our
recognizing faces. Denise is our Video Lending Librarian and we have a
two volume video set of a mini series dealing with faces. If you've
been active on the list for three months, donated to the list, been
active in Demo or come to visit me in person, you can borrow the books
and videos we have available for the list members.
With that being said... faces. A big part of our visual center in the
brain is reserved for recognizing faces. When you're experimenting
with sculpting faces if it starts to look recognizable then follow
what your brain is picking up. If it starts to look like your Aunt
Mabel, and you know what your Aunt looks like and what she doesn't
look like, you can sculpt from memory. We know the faces of
celebrities, sports stars, famous people and we know when their chin
is right or not because we have their faces stored in our brain. Just
keep poking about the raw clay and help that face emerge that was
starting to look like someone you know.
What I did was put in a StarTrek movie and look up every time Pactrick
Stewart had a line, I was able to get better definition to the rough
draft and in the fifth picture on this page you can see the before and
after curing and filing. The first face was close, after curing and
filing it's getting closer, before this figure is done it will look
even closer still.
I show you these steps, the before and after pictures to remind you
that sculpting isn't a one shot deal. It's not just sculpt a face and
cure and you're done. It's a process. Get the rough draft face done
first, then file, then add more raw clay if you need to, cure some
more, file some more, sand when you're as close as you can get and
then add some blush, eyeballs and eyebrows with TLS and clay color. If
you take the time, go zen with the sculpting, you'll surprise yourself
how realistic your face sculpting will get. Don't hurry yourself. It's
not a sprint, it's a marathon.
So there it is, Jean Luc who was lying down on his newly cut coat when
I had my dizzy spell and I had to cut that coat short because it got
stuck on his butt. Long story, but I digress...
xoxo
NJ