SCULPTURE - "Santa vs. The Yeti" pt. 3

Now that Christmas is behind us, I'm picking up some momentum on sculpting the YETI. The image above is still pretty rough, but it's getting there bit by bit. Let's look at the development of some of those "bits".

Usually, after I rough in a general layout of a piece, I start taking it apart and refining specific elements. I cut off the hand, and made a new armature of wire. After adding a bit of Sculpy for the fingers, I made some claws separately and baked them by themselves. I then added the claws back into the softer clay. You'll notice the gray color of the Sculpy...it's a mixture of "super" sculpy and "super...firm" (which is gray). I didn't like the crumbly texture of the firm, so blending the two gives it enough firmness for detailing. (Thanks, Jake A., for that tip!)

Before I baked the hand, I glazed it with some oder-less solvent (like you use with oil paints). This softens some of the details a bit. After baking, I used super sculpy to add some fur texture...then baked it again.

I attached the wire "stem" from the armature of the hand back onto the forearm of the Yeti. I used wire to wrap the stem around the arm's inner foil/wire, then used Plumbers Epoxy to make a good solid joint at the wrist. I added the sculpy back on top and it's ready for more detailing later.

Okay...now let's switch over the YETI's HEAD! This is one of the most important parts, and was fun to see where I'd end up. I was strongly influenced by Silverback Gorillas, but tried to keep some human-like expressions, too. I used the rough sculpt to give me some size relationships, but the face got a bit larger...which was fine with me. I began with a nice set of "choppers"...fangs made separately and baked, then blended in to the jaws.

Once the teeth were baked, I just started adding bits of clay to create the head. I didn't linger on the fur details, as I would be adding that later. The eyeballs are copper colored "BB's".

You've heard of "defacing art"? Sorry if this looks a bit gruesome...he felt no pain.

Here's the new face, with a little bit of quick texture to give me an idea of how it will look, once I start refining the rest of his fur.

You'll notice that Santa is not on his back...think I'll work on him next. Stay tuned!