Priming and painting

After a fair bit of sanding, I lightly sprayed the sculpt with grey primer. I could then go over this with wet glass paper to remove all the scratches and flecks in the primer coat. To paint, I have been applying thin coats of acrylic to build up a base skin and hair tone. I then painted in the white eyes and dark red lips, allowing them to dry before adding detail such as shadow and makeup. The pupils have been dotted on with the tip and body of a toothpick. A thin wash of dark pinks and leather skin tones gives definition under the jaw and around the hairline. To finish, white highlights show where the light should fall on her face. I am happy with this reference model and would recommend this scale for producing a poseable model for stop-frame animation.

Final Head sculpt

Looking at my last sculpt I could decide with Emily what needed to be changed for a more accurate sculpt. I could see that the eyes needed to be moved back, the forehead and nose needed to come out further and the overall face to head needed to be much bigger in relation to the face. This feedback has made a dramatic difference to this outcome, making her appear more human and far more feminin. Making eyeballs when massing out my basic skull structure has given a shape for the eyelids to form around, helping me to see how the eyebrows need to be positioned much higher up. The top of the cheekbones also effects the position of the eyes, which I have chararistically sloped upwards at the corners rather than referencing a real human face as I did for the rest of the features. I am much happier with this result overall and I found that milliput can be given a very smooth finish by just using water as it sets, saving me from so much sanding in the future.

Hands

Starting with an armatured hand, I decided how big her hands should be in relation to the face. Instead of then bulking this out, I practiced with Emily rolling out balls of milliput into the fingers and thumb before pinching them together at the wrist. After one hour, the milliput has stiffened enough to arrange the fingers into the required poses and can be left resting on a blob of sculpy to keep its shape.

Heads and hands

After reviewing my first sculpt with the tutors, I decided that I would like to develop my sculpting ability by re-making the character at a larger scale. Working at a larger scale will allow me to fit the miniature clothing I have made to fit a figure roughly 250mm high. This scale also helped me to see how details such as the eyebrows and lips should fit in proportion to the head. My initial sculpting technique pictured above started with a basic skull shape with indents for the eyes, I then added a brow and cheekbones, careful not to repeat my mistake from the first sculpt working mainly from the front image without considering how cheeks look from side-on. Areas to improve from this head include making the lips less pouty by flattening the top lip and including eyeballs. I will be trying a different sculpting technique whilst looking closely at peoples face shapes from life.

Finishing and priming

To smooth off any rough edges and marks in the baked sculpy, I have been using a dremmel with a sanding head attachment. I have also been using a course grain sandpaper working my way down to a much finer wet and dry. By applying water and lighter fluid I could see clearly the scuff marks that required filling and this also helped to clean away any dust.

The hands and feet have been made from milliput, with the heels to her shoes consisting of toothpick ends later covered with sculpy. To save time, I have discovered that using a hand held heat gun sets the layers of sculpy more quickly than baking it in the oven.

As a final preparation before priming, I brushed some fine surface filler over the entire sculpt. I then blew air into the crevices using a clean spray gun before applying four thin layers of grey primer.

Adjusting the overall form

Where her coat trails off at the bottom, I decided to re-enforce my sculpy sheets with wire mesh. I then pressed these together in a pasta press to construct bits to add around the bottom of the coat. To build up the volume of fur around her shoulders and wrists, I have layered sausages of sculpy and used a spear-headed tool to in print the texture of fur. As I have gone along, I have used sand paper and the drennel to smooth off baked sculpy and areas that are too built up, such as her arms. I realised today the entire left arm needed to be moved down at the shoulder so I cut the top half off and added sculpy underneath to give a new structure.

Bulking out

To give form to the overlaying coat, I first had to sculpt her basic body shape in the pose I have drawn. I have simply added and carved back the sculpy until I was satisfied before baking.

I chose to work on the head piece separately to allow me to focus on this specific area. Her hairstyle has proven easy to draw but difficult to interpret in three dimensions but eventually I managed to get the basic shape right by referencing my head turnarounds. At this stage, the face is very stylised than completely accurate so Emily suggested bringing out the nose, chin and upper lip from the prominent cheekbones.

As I started to construct the coat, I encountered problems when applying thin layers of sculpy and constantly baking them. Due to the frequent changes in temperature, fine cracks in the baked sculpy start to appear. Despite my best efforts to avoid a join line appearing across the neck by embedding the bust into the coat, a crack has appeared here nonetheless.