Wednesday 12 May 2010

Subway Ghost

Here are some images of the construction of a sculpey clay head I have been working on for the past month or two. I decided to finish the project recently and bake the head as I had spent a lot of time on this single project.

I learnt loads, but maybe the most important was not to be too precious, if it don't look right then it usualy isn't right and needs to be changed (trust your instincts!) and also not to go into too much detail too soon. Get the proportions right first, then work on details.

These images in no way convey the amount of time I spent trying to get the eyes right, this difficult task was not made easier by detailng them before they were the correct size and position. Eyes are also usualy recessed further back into the skull than you think.

The model is not perfect but had I continued with it I think it would have driven me insane :-)

Oh, the person I based this model on was the subway ghost from the film Ghost. The actors name was Vincent Schiavelli. I have tried to do him justice...here is the main reference image I used subwayghost reference.

3 comments:

  1. Very cool Tim, looks just like him!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Really cool showing the process Tim! How long it take and what sculptey did you use?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I think it took about a month and a half to two months. Initialy I used sculpey three for the head. I don't advise using this sculpey if you can help it as it is not very pliable being too hard when at room temperature (it's not too bad when warmer though). I bought some super sculpey and used that for the hair mixed in with some of the sculpey three to give more of a gray colour. Super sculpey is much easier to use. At room temperature it has the consistency of soft fudge, very nice to sculpt with. I may have struggled less with the face had I used super sculpey from the start. Oh, if anybody is thinking of making a head I would advise having a hollow middle as sculpey will crack more when baked if the clay is too thick. The subway ghost head only suffered from one minor crack along the hairline, I think that appeared because I left it in the oven slightly too long.

    ReplyDelete