spaceboy

[foster]

getting closer to being done. mephisto, lets plan on sculpting! sorry about he last few weeks i have been procrastinating work and then when it comes time to have fun sculpting i feel guilty.

jon

[davi]

oh damn lol

well i haven't gotten too serious with my clay and i don't have a digital camera to take pictures of my progress :(

so i just have to guess if i'm good or not

these are really neat, i really like the emotion on head with the neck to the bottom right..... mmmm inspired!

[mephisto]

Youve obvioulsy been workin outside of sculpt club. hehe. me too. My head is turning into a samurai bust. Your gonna have to teach me that casting stuff eventually. ARE WE SCULPTING THIS WEEKEND?! :)

[foster]

getting closer to being done. mephisto, lets plan on sculpting! sorry about he last few weeks i have been procrastinating work and then when it comes time to have fun sculpting i feel guilty.

jon

[mephisto]

good god thats lookin awesome john

[Smeagol71]

Wow, that's fantastic Jon. Really great. I've been trying my hand at sculpting for the first time too, but nothing like this. I'm just getting my feet wet. What type of clay are you using?

[nick reynolds]

This is great it looks just like the kid in the painting, I like his ears. :)

[mos667]

Double post? :)

Can you post something showing the tools and clay you use, I've always wanted to get into something like this.

[MindCandyMan]

What the heck jon this is awesome!!!! Sheesh...quite a sculptor I see...hey leave something for other people to be good at alright! SPPPRRRINKLLLESSSS

[jrr]

neato jon,
it's so you! your style carries over well in sculpture.

[uno]

of course that has been said a billion times. Now for an important question....how do you go about doing the texture work? Can you give an explanation as to what the process is for texturing and tools and reference source and so forth?
I really need to tap into your texturing knowledge!! Can i just stick a straw in your brain and suck the knowledge out???

[tiktok]

this is awesome. Good to see some sculpture from you. Liek JRrr said...its nice to see your style reflected in 3dimensions. Inspiring me to work harder....
and actually finish something...

-bay

[Smeagol71]

Hey Jon, are you sculpting the helmet he'll be holding (I'm assuming), or do you have other materials planned for that?

[mephisto]

lets see this space boy illustration. i can not find it, nor have i seen it. :)

[foster]

hey, glad you guys have checked this out. this is my new hobby/obsession!

i sculpted him with a wax called castilene go to http://www.sculpt.com/ for all kinds of great sculpting materials. i used the hard grade as that is what the professional choose to use. they will even mix another harder wax in with the castilene hard grad to firm it up even more. in any case it comes in a brick that makes you think "how am i going to sculpt anything out off this", but once you warm it a little under a lamp or in the microwave (CAUTION HEATING IN MICROWAVE CAUSES IT TO MELT IN THE MIDDLE FIRST, SO THE OUT SIDE IS FIRM BUT ONCE YOU SQUEEZE IT, IT BLOBS OUT ONTO YOUR HAND AND CAN BURN) it becomes kneadable then you can start to make your shapes with it right away. when it is away from your warm light it will harden up quickly but is still movable and easily carvable. that is the thing i find with this stuff, it is more of a subtractive method, carving away. but it holds impressions very well and you do not need an armature underneath as it is strong and light. you can hold the part you are carving or adding wax to etc. in your hand with out messing it up. try that with sculpy. if the figure is not quite in the pose you want you can warm it up just enough to move it. lets see, you can also press texture into it quite easily by warming the surface with your alcohol lamp (oh yea, you need this to heat your tools for easier manipulation of the wax, although i found i did not use it much myself) then pressing a texture pad or what ever into the surface. this stuff will hold finger prints with great detail.

that's enough from me know.

mephisto, i can't remember if it is mitch are chris with this call name. chris if it is you pipe in and tell people what you have done with this material and who you have worked for.

jon

[mephisto]

haha no its mitch. but i can pretend im chris: "i used to work for mcfarlane toys and did some sick sculptures of leather face, that fat nasty tortured soul, spawn and some sport figure stuff. All we used there was Casteline. I do a rough in soft or medium pink casteline, then cast it into harder stuff using a silicon or whatever mold inside a diet coke bottle. You can cast it from soft to med to hard at the different levels of finish. Im the greatest. You can go to the hardware store, get the finest saw blades they have, mitch could only find a 32/inch, but smaller exists, cut with tin snips or sumpin into the size of an exacto blade and make your own tool. Its sweet cuz its almost like a brush. Im frickin awesome. Now i practically never sculpt but still put that mitch kid to shame." hehehehe.

[foster]

mitch, you made me laugh! thanks. you probably said more than chris would have.

jon

[camaral]

hey jon...is chris.....long time no talk....i hear youve been really busy......same here......we have to crunch next week so i prolly wont be able to sculpt this next weekend.....so anywho......your sculpt is lookin awesome........would you want the space boy to be an articulated toy.....i could show you what i learned from mcfarlane..........heres some tips....if you buy a rough sand paper pad...you could totally make those dreads look more realistic.....if you give me your email again ill send ya something that you couldprolly get some inspiration from....ok then.......just send me your email.........ill talk to you lata.............but its lookin great.....

[Kress]

jon-
I was gonna ask how you got all the details but I think the answer above has most of what Im wondering about.
uhm - the fact thqt your visual sensibility translates into 3d too makes me an even bigger fan.
I take it that to get details like wrinkles etc youre just carving out? how do you get the details so clean without futzy little specks, is it cuz its oil clay and not sculpey?
post more characters!
love,
joe

[foster]

it is late for me now, well only 9:30 but i am going to bed.

i will try and take some pictures of the clay and tools tomorrow.

kress, i used a wax for this sculpture. it is kind of neat, you can find it at the web site in my last post. thanks for checking in, do you have any sculptures to share?

jon

[Dan Milligan]

Wow Jon,

I've been contemplating trying some sculpture, so I drop in here and what do I see? Jon, simply beautiful as usual. What can I say. You've inspired me again.
And thanks for the info, this is why I drop in here in the first place.

Man I so jazzed!

Peace
Dan

[Kress]

hm interesting... wax :confused: Ill have to see it/try it out. I have a really hard time getting subtle surface details without it being messy - then again I have pretty much minimal experience doing this!
jon, thanks for reply - heres my shoddy go at it (I definitely want to do more):
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=16652
oh and I forgot to say i really like yer sculpture haha.

[Scotty]

I'm liking this in every way possible. Such originality and life in this sculpt. I really gotta get me some of that Castilene. I've been only using Super Sculpey and feel I've been missing out on what Castilene has to offer me. Great job! :chug:

[uno]

i am intrigued by this castilene myself. It seems like it has some benefits of sculpey and other oil based clays. The only thing is, i want a final piece that is hardened. Doesnt castilene have to be fired in some sort of kiln? And that whole casting process is foreign to me. Plus i dont have access to these things. Maybe i am wrong. Sculpey can be expensive so if there is another alternative then pray tell!!

[RudeCorleone]

thats a really nice sculpture

[mephisto]

My friend who worked at McFarlane toys says that casting is easy, you can just get silicon and poor it in a bottle around your sculpt and then cut the cast in half, pull out your sculpt, and then poor in the resin once you put the mold back together. If your sculpt has arms and legs you usually need to cut them off, cast each part seperately into resin, then use epoxy putty to put all the resin peices back together again. Sanding and light carving will ensue. I think Im going to just get mine cast professionally. Here in providence there are a couple of places that will cast things in resin for you, if you can get their attention, since they usually only want to do big jobs. Resin is the hard heavy plastic that the sculpts at comic shops are cast out of. I recommend epoxy to anyone who gets cracks in their sculpey after its baked, its a descent way to cover up gaps and make repairs. The guys who sculpt miniatures for warhammer use epoxy to sculpt in. you mix two pasty substance together equally and once you mix, it will harden into plastic in 20 mins or so. maybe longer or shorter i cant remember.

Perhaps camerall or foster can give us more tips on casting, considering that everything I just said came from talking with them, and not actually doing...

Here is a site with a good tutorial on setting up maquettes and preping for casting, not to mention awesome sulptures: www.goregoregore.com

Here is a site with a huge gallery of tons of sculptors in the toy industry and movies: http://www.iespana.es/sculptorscorner/

[foster]

thanks scotty, i have been equally impressed by your sculpts. your have the fever my friend and i am sure you will make things happen for yourself soon.

rudecorleone, thanks for checking in.

uno, castilene is hard at room temperature. you have to heat it to work with it. but it is wax, to have a finished piece to paint you would need to mold and cast it in some kind of resin or plaster, etc. i like it because i can hold onto the sculpture when working on it. the wax does become more malleable just by your hand warmth but you just need to be careful not to hold and press in a delicate area to long. but on the other hand where as you can push sculpy around until you bake it, wax is much less pliable in those regards, you either heat the wax to soften or heat your tools to carve and push small areas.

hope this clarifies a little, but if you have more question ask mephisto he the man!

oh yea, attached some of the tools i use to work with. i have collected a large assortment but i end up using only a few.

jon

[Kress]

ha! a lighter... nice.
:D

[R_M]

You do sculptures too!?!? how many arms do you have?!

there is no doubt you did it though, it really oozes your style. the clothing and the anatomy are yours.

pure magic.

[juicy_fruit]

hey... wondering how u get the dentist tools.. i c them everywhere.. ya debo them or somethin? haula lol

[mephisto]

Im 95% sure those are actually sculpting tools.. check sculpt.com or do a hobby/sculpt tool search on google.

[Scotty]

Foster- Thanks for the kind words about my works. (coming from you....it means a lot) Your artwork has been quite inspirational for me over the past year. So many pieces of your b&w and color work would make fantastic sculptures. :chug:

[Travis_Bourbeau]

nice trasisitiion between your 2d work and this carried over your style very well


regards
Trav

[smellybug]

Supernice Jon. I love the way you're approaching the subjet matter. The masses are great and the materiality feels dead on. You're inspiring me to try wax!

[Zaphod]

Great model!

I see that some people comment that it looks like the 2d-version. Could you post the initial concept scetch too?