Sculpting the mighty Zombaby...

[Akitsu]

Well, first off let me say that sculpture is the one area of art I never really got into much. I've always been more of a pen and paper, or later computer and mouse kind of guy.

This is, by a long shot, the most ambitious sculpture I've ever attempted. Sure I've sculpted other things about this size... but never something from scratch. Never something that came completely out of my head.

I've decided to make my first post over here on Concept Art my own personal sculpting journey. A step by step log of translating a 2D picture into a clay sculpture.

So, first off... what's the picture? Well, this little guy was drawn a number of years ago and shoved in a folder. About 2 years back I scanned him and a bunch of other sketches in and completely forgot about them. A few months ago, I found said sketches and started to turn them into T-shirts.

Behold... the mighty Zombaby!

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Now I wanted to make this sculpture around the scale of a Munny, so I gathered my supplies and set to making the armature.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/Tools1.jpg

Here we have our basic water based clay (Marblex) which I'm going to basically use as a way to save on Sculpey. IMHO, there's nothing particularly wrong with Marblex... if you understand it's limitations. Yes, it will shrink. Yes, it will crack. Just make sure it's 100% dried out before you move on to the Sculpey stage, and it makes a great filler.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/Tools2.jpg

Here we have our armature wire. Thankfully the local craft store carries it for fairly cheap. The thicker one is store bought... the spooled one is actually from my garage, but they do also carry this type in the same section. The wood box base is just to make sculpting easier and isn't a part of the final design, it has a single hole drilled in the center, just big enough to fit the thicker wire.

You'll notice there's already two loops of the thicker wire laid out in this picture. These are the base and head of the sculpture, and will form the main structure. You'll also note that they are secured with the small wire, which is perfect for attaching things, as well as defining structures.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/arm1.jpg

You'll notice that this wire in particular was chosen because it's both flexible enough to wind around things, and yet has no problem supporting things as long as they aren't too heavy.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/arm2.jpg

To make the head, I wanted to make sure that the width would look right, so I took a plastic bag, wadded it up, and placed it inside to see exactly how large I wanted his noggin to be. The beauty of this technique is that you can use the plastic's ability to expand and contract with little effort to play around with it until you decide what works.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/arm3.jpg

Here we have the two built up forms, which are defined enough to give a good base... but not overly so.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/arm4.jpg

From the side view you can see that not only do we have the body, but Zombaby's stubby little arms built up. As low tech as this sounds, I simply wrapped the small wire around the body's base, stuck my thumb in the appropriate place, and wrapped the wire around it. I then added the small loop to help define it's thickness, and made an identical duplicate for the other side.


http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/arm5.jpg

Here I've crammed wadded pieces of paper into the wire in order to help flesh it out a bit more before adding the clay. This doesn't mean it's the only way to do things. I could have stuck with the plastic bags, which are easier to place, or even gone so far as to spray expandable foam inside and cut the excess off. For this one however, paper will help to dry out the water based clay.

You'll also note that I've left the wire for the front of the Zombaby's head off to one side, which is of course so that I can sculpt his screaming little mouth and teeth. I could have placed it in the middle and cut the wire, or done a lot of crimping to get it just right, but it's just a lot of extra work at this phase that may or may not make things easier down the line.

More to come tomorrow....

[Akitsu]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/wclay1.jpg

Here we have the armature covered in a thin coat of wet clay. The main problem with this is the foreknowledge that it's going to crack along every single wire, and basicly self destruct if left to it's own devices long enough. Thus is the nature of Marblex... very fragile in thin sheets. Thankfully it won't matter...

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/wclay2.jpg

Holding it in place you get the general idea of the dimensions of the piece. Despite the armature and paper, the head is still very heavy... so I'm glad I decided to sculpt it as a separate piece. Note that this isn't the way the mouth is going to look, simply the gaping hole so I can sculpt it properly with sculpey.

I did this step the night before, and it dried out all day yesterday. The end result was a horrific ammount of cracking... which while expected was still a lot worse than I imagined.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpey2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpey3.jpg

I started off coating the body with a thin layer of sculpey. Specificly a mix of the standard pink, which I find is a bit brittle after drying, and small bars of both white and black. This leaves me a nice grey colored sculpey (great for seeing detail you won't notice with pink alone) that is fairly resilient. I've started to define a bit of the structure, but it's still fairly vague.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpey1.jpg

Lastly I started on sculpting the head... but unfortunately underestimate the ammount I'd need for the body. Thus I had to stop before I got the entire face worked in, but I did manage to sculpt out the mouth a bit and one of his bloated eyes.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpey4.jpg

Here we have the pieces side by side... where you can start to see how the two go together. Wait... what's that? You can't see it? Okay... a bit of Photoshoppery... since I really didn't want to hold the two together and take a picture again.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpeycomp.jpg

More to come hopefully tomorrow. Comments, crits, and suggestions welcome.

[Artastic]

I like how this is coming along. Can't wait to see the end product. One thing I would suggest, after comparing it with the drawing of your avatar is that the mouth does not seem right, or baby enough, and the arms seem to be missing that bulging baby fat under them.

[Akitsu]

Yeah, I've noticed that too... heh.

This still needs a lot of build up before it's going to look the way I want it... but yeah, the arms are going to get worked on tonight. The mouth works in the context of making it look a bit more realistic... as does there being a larger nose.. but you're right in the fact I don't think it's quite right yet.

The way I see it, the finished piece is going to be a bit different from the original art... but that's the interesting thing about translating works from one form to another to me. The subtle differences. In the art, having a barely visible nose works... on the sculpture, it just looked... weird. ^_^

I'll mess around with it and see what I can do to tweak it...

For his trademark blood splatter I'm planning on masking it off when I texture the skin... in the hopes it'll leave the bloody areas looking slick and wet by comparison to the mottled skin.

[Aseyngel]

Nice sculpt - weird concept ;-)
Show us more - I cant wait to see the finished baby!

[Akitsu]

Gah... unfortunately I played hookey last night and went over to play drunken Rock Band 2 at a friend's. When I got home there was absolutely no chance of me working on the sculpt, as I would have completely ruined it in that state.

Thanks for the comments btw. I appreciate the encouragement.

As for the weird concept... all my concepts are weird. ^_^ Just wait until I move on to more ambitious stuff. This one is just to get my feet wet so to say.

edit: Just so I don't feel like I've done nothing on the project, here's a 5 minute photoshop coloring job on the sculpt as it is now... which actually helps you see the detail a bit better.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/sculpeycomp2.jpg

[Tyzoone]

so uh that paper in his armature isn't going to cause a problem when you cook it right? like catch fire or something?

[Akitsu]

I have a heat gun... much safer than popping any polymer clay in an oven. ^_^

A great investment... $20 for a decent one at your local hobby store. (Specifically one that carries RC airplane stuff) Better yet, you can take it outside so you don't have to smell toxic fumes.

Paper burns at 451 f.... so as long as your heat gun doesn't spit molten lava it's fairly safe.

[Artastic]

I use a heat gun for my sculptures too, It works awesome. Paid $10 for it at East Harbor Freight. And the NICE thing about it, you get to watch your sculpture as you bake is, making it near impossible to burn it. :D

By the way, as I was typing this, I notice this smiley....--->:asslick:
Possibly the most disturbing smiley I've ever seen. Random, I know, but I had no one else to tell.

[Akitsu]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/zbaby1.jpg

Here's a bit of the progress so far. Made a lot of little tweaks... added his moobs (man boobs) and plumped up one arm (his left) a bit more. All in all I like the direction he's heading in.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/zbaby3.jpg

Here you can see the other half of the head that I hadn't done on the last update. Still no ears, and there's a lot of detail I'm going to continue adding... but he's definitely working out nicely, if not 100% like the drawing.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/zbaby2.jpg

An angled view... heh. As he is now, the sculpey has been set. This of course doesn't mean I can't add more layers to build up more detail... but it does mean I can't subtract anything easily. (Sandpaper works tho... heh) I couldn't deal with the sculpey cracks I got because of the unstable armature... half the time I was working it was to repair because the layer was so very thin. As it is now, set that is, no further problems on that front.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/zomrotate.gif

Here's a rotational GIF of him to help see the whole sculpture. Sorry if it jumps around a bit... even when you think you're holding that camera steady it tends to bop a little. Apparently I was more tired than I thought I was at 3am... go figure.

And yes, I noticed that smiley too... very very very disturbing. ^_^ I can't even imagine a circumstance when one would use such a thing.

Comments... crits... suggestions... all welcome.

[Akitsu]

Okay... here's the update.

Unfortunately, despite my setting the sculpey, internal forces (ie the wet clay) continued to mess with him and he turned into a cracked up mess.

In other words, anyone who was looking into using a similar technique should just go with the tin foil. Eheh... that's what I get for trying to find a use for an old slab of Marblex.

In any event... here's the extent of the damage before I moved on to the task of fixing it.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/cracked1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/cracked2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/cracked3.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/cracked4.jpg

I fixed the major cracks with some super glue gel, simply because I didn't relish the idea of doing another layer and having the problem continue. There's still a lot of small cracks, but they're tied to larger ones so they should be stable.

The main problem here is that the layer of sculpey I used was rather thin in a lot of places. Just goes to show that cost saving measures tend to backfire... heh.

Anyway, on to the fixing. I had always planned on doing another layer anyway, but because of the problem I decided to make it fairly thick. I also decided that conformity of product would be a grand idea... so I spent more time getting the sculpey to a perfect consistency, and rolled it out to ensure there weren't any obvious imperfections in the layer.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin1.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin2.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin3.jpg

Here you can see that I've only covered the body at this point.. you could say it was a test, but to be honest that was all the ammount I mixed up would cover at the time... and I wanted to test it out before making more.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin4.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin5.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin6.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin7.jpg

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/newskin8.jpg

As you can see, I've started to work on his base textures. I wanted him to look bloated, but at the same time like the skin has a rotten feel to it.

I still have to work on the diaper and legs, but it feels good to have the upper half coated and get a start on doing the detail work.

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So, comments, crits, suggestions?

[Deadsprite]

the sculpture doesn't resemble the drawing all that much. In that, you have this well developed drawing of this stylized rounded baby, but the sculpture is lacking all the interesting details of the drawing. I would go through and build up the details that are accentuated and try not to focus on small details like skin wrinkles (unless your going for realism, which i don't think would look as fun and as interesting as your drawing) and try to get the feel of the drawing down.

[Akitsu]

I was actually going for a mix of realistic and stylized, but this one keeps leaning more towards realistic at this point.

Don't despair though, much like a good drawing you enjoy doing... Zombaby is going to get another shot at sculpture. Next time I'm breaking out the measuring tools and making it as close to art accurate as I can get him.

At this point this version is taking on a life of it's own. Sigh.

Thank you for the commentary though. It just confirms what I've been feeling about the guy for awhile now. Snarky little zombie is just going to do what he wants, and I'm just going to have to roll with it.

I've still gotta figure out exactly what to do with that nose...

[Akitsu]

Started doing some build up to break up the skin texture a bit... not much, a touch here and there, but it's definitely an improvement.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/detail1.jpg

Just a mini update with this... I'm still in the detail process, and a lot of things are going to change after the next session... so I don't think there's a need to post a lot of pictures at this phase.

[Akitsu]

Another mini update... still haven't had time to complete the sculpt... but it is coming along. Slowly.

Did a bit of photoshoppery with the current sculpt to see what it might be like painted.

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v316/Akitsu/zomreal1.jpg

[Deadsprite]

if you're going for realism, then i guess the lack of chin is a little too off, to me i suppose.