Smellybugs Maquette Tutorial completed!

Heya folks, Petey here, aka Smellybug.

It has been brought to my attention that the 3d/sculpture section could use a tutorial. Well I'm happy to be at your service. I've been in the movie racket for a number of years and have made a lot of creature maquettes. Along the way I've learned a few tips, tricks and techniques and would be helpful to those just starting out, or even a few bits of info that even advanced artists might find helpful.

I plan to do a supersculpey sculpture in the typical way that I do these things, posting progress and descriptions along the way. You can follow along an make your own or whatever, it's up to you. I probably won't post ever single day, but every few days. Ask questions and I'll try to respond coherently.

Here's the design I will be doing. Keeping it rather simple in terms of number of parts, complexity etc.

[Deth Jester]

YAY!!!

-mikey

[juicy_fruit]

crazy man.. your work is fuckin WICKED i love it and i was wonderin where ya went to skoo.. i was concidering ringling.. but now that ive seen ur work its NUTS
p.s. adding digital effects with digital media.. or concept art or fine art makes it SOO much more crazier then i could ever imagine!

[Skello]

cool looking creature...curious to see how the head looks in 3d :chug:

[Hesse]

......must ...subsribe....now
really nice litlle monster
cant wait to see it sculped thanks for willing to do a tutorial about it

[Miau]

thx man - your work is so wicked! :jump1:

[I.was.ink]

Fantastic!

I'll be waiting...

[battlemonkey]

damn... i'd love to see this tutorial... you have the job of my dreams!
eagerly waiting

Here are the sculpting tools I use when making a sculpt of this general size. I figure the model will be between 10 and 12 inches long.

I've accumilated these tools over the years and they are a mix of store-bought and homemade. Having the same set isn't necessary, it's just about finding out which tools work best for you on a given project. More on how to make your own later. Take a look:



Btw; Don't forget to pick up one of these calipers. Very essential. I use them all the time when I'm working.

This tool isn't exactly necessary, but it saves me a lot of time and sore hands. It's a pasta maker, I use it to mix sculpey colors together. This can take a long time if you're doing a lot with just your hands.



BTW, here's a shot of part of my filthy studio....haha I really need a maid!

[Skello]

CROM!..thats a whole bunch of tools!....which ones do you use most?

(-Sorry i yanked the image...just wanna save space.-pk)

I'll probably use most of them, though a few of them will get the most attention. You'll see. I'll be pretty detailed about what I'm doing once i get going.

[Skello]

Sweeet!

[Smeagol71]

Petey...this is fantastic!!! Thanks so much for taking the time to go through this with us. I'm chomping at the bit to see you get started. This is something I've dabbled with but wanted to get into more seriously for awhile now and this might be my chance!!

By the way, great work Mr.Blue on the Massive Black site!! Those maquettes are works of genius. Do you use an airbrush when painting them? Is there hope for those of us who don't have an airbrush, or is it pretty much necessary when painting maquettes?

Lol...you are chomping at the bit...already talking about painting! I do use an airbrush, but not exclusively. You'll see, I'll probably use everything but the kitchen sink.

[Deth Jester]

This is so fantastic! This is why I love this forum... I am as giddy as a school boy! thanks a ton for doing this Smelly!

peace
-mike

Next I took the photoshop file, cut out the critter and blew the printout up to the size i want to sculpt it on a regular xerox machine. I don't have it here, but it's of course best to have all three orthographic views of what you're doing. But in this case, I'll be leaving a bit of it up to experimentation, and I have a pretty good idea in my mind what the rest of the guy should look like. This image will also be used for building the armature and a reference when I'm actually sculpting.

So now i know how big my base needs to be, and I have more of a sense as to how heavy the final sculpture will be. The base is made just big enough to keep the thing from toppling over, but not so big that I can't get close enough to do my work. I'm using a 3/8 inch threaded rod as the main support and have fastened it down with a nut on top, a wingnut on the bottom and a couple of washers. The main thing is you don't want a flimsy support because it's annoying. At a certain point down the road, I will also take the rod with the sculpture off of the wooden base in order to get at the bottom of it. More on that later.

[Scotty]

This is great! I'm always down for learning new tips and methods for sculpting. I can't wait to see how YOU go about it. You clearly do great work. Thank you for not being selfish with your knowledge. :thumbsup:

[Zaphod]

This is great!

I can't wait for the next update. I'm in the progress of making a miniature in milliput epoxy. I'm still on the starting blocks so this will be great to look at when I take my first shaky steps.

I'm making my armature today with a support that will be able to rotate on the x and y axis and I got a load of dentist tools (46pcs) from an aquintance (Anyone in the area of Gothenburg, if you want some tools for sculpting give me a mail). So I'm all but ready to go!

I need to work some more on my concepts and then I'm gonna start sculpting.

Oh well, I'm just ranting. I'm just exited to see a tutorial right now since I'm gonna do the same thing! I hope I will be able to pick up a few tips.

Keep up the good work! I'm looking forward to see the tutorial as it progresses.

I've taken the xerox and roughly drawn where I think the spine and main skeleton of the model should be. The clay will ultimately be supported by an internal wire skeleton. I didn't mark it exactly where it would be in nature, but deeper into the mass of the body, just to give me room. Nothing is more irritating than hitting a wire as you're sculpting away, so give your self a bit of space. The backbone wire (aluminum wire available at art stores or ceramics stores) here will be attached to the threaded rod and will support the bulk of the weight, therefore make sure it is strong enough for the job. Here I'm using 1/4 inch, which should be strong enough.
I then indicated where the wire will be for the arms and legs. The white dots are there to remind me where the pivot points would be. I'll use them to compare both sides of the model, keeping the arms and legs symetrical. Keep in mind though that the drawing was done in perspective. If you make the arm wires and legs wires as long as the black line I drew, they'd be too short. A front and top view will help with that. I'll add those images soon.

This creature will be fabricated out of Super Sculpey and Sculpey III. I'll use the Sculpey III to tint the largers blocks of regular Super Sculpey.
**special tip When you buy your sculpey, check for "freshness". Open the box and check that the material is soft and you can press your finger into it. Sculpey isn't cheap, so don't buy old dried up stuff that's been sitting on the store shelf for six months. And when you get it home, put in a zip lock bag or tupperware if you're not going to use it immediately. Takes a long time to dry out, but it will.

Here I'm premixing my sculpey to achieve an opaque grey color. In this case, I want the material to photograph for the tuturial, so eliminating the translucency of the original color will do that. In addition, it's helpful to tint the material a color that is fairly close to the base color of the final product. Not only does it help visualize as you are working, but it helps the painting process as well.
The ratio I used here was:

1 box Sculpey
1 block white Sculpey III
1/2 block black Sculpey III

Keeping the ratios simple like this allows me to make more anytime I need it and the colors will match.

Just run it through the press over and over, flattening, folding and shredding and repeating until the color is solid. Same thing if you're doing it by hand. Takes a while, but it's worth it.

[Deth Jester]

this is what Im talking about, a tutorial start to finish... telling how to make everything.. thanks Smelly! hey does it say Sculpey 3 on the packages? Cause I was at the art store and I saw packages that Say Sculpey and they are colored but I didnt see any 3 on the label.

thanks
-mike

checked mine, one said III the other didn't. If it's colored and sculpey, it's ok.

[Deth Jester]

bueno! I am working along wiht you, but Im not gonna post pics.. and I dont have a sphaghetti machine..

-mike

[Smeagol71]

Man oh man...I know I've posted before in this thread saying thank you Petey, but I have to say it again. This thread is fantastic and you haven't even started sculpting yet!!! Thanks so much for the time you're putting in on this thread!!!!

[Scotty]

1 box Sculpey
1 block white Sculpey III
1/2 block black Sculpey III

I've always used the plain Super Sculpey...so this is valuable info for me. I hear that you can see the flaws much better when the clay is grey. Thanks! :chug:

[Tedsuo]

Sweet baby jesus, this is a cool thread.

So here is the armature in it's basic form. I normally leave things like fingers, claws or spikes for later. Right now I want to concentrate on the main limbs and their relationships to the torso. THis is where I use the calipers to compare to the drawing. At this point, the armature is not posed, but I'm still hoping to get a sense of the final product even at this early stage. Personally, I already see a resemblance.


Notice how I'm wrapping the seperate wires for the arms to the main body wire and the bends I'm putting in the leg and arm wires. This will soon be locked in epoxy putty, the bends in the wire will keep the wires from coming loose and turning.

I'm tacking the wires in place with a little Devcon 5min epoxy...

Once the epoxy is dry I am then ready to secure the wire to the base rod. I use Propoxy plummers putty for this. There are many kinds of plummers putty, but I like this one because it's particularly strong.

Cut it and mix it by hand. I'd recommend you use rubber gloves