Welcome to part 2 of a new series I've started...Monster Heads! Let's jump right in. As before I begin with a basic armature of a nail in a wood base, add some wire, then aluminum foil to fill out the shape. This time, I was strongly influenced by an image on Discovery Channel of a cottonmouth water moccasin snake that was striking at the camera. I didn't have a real game plan (which is part of the fun of these sculpts). In my mind's eye, I also thought about giant cat fish, moray eels, deep sea viper fish and just made things up as I went along.
Below shows of some of the changes I made as I went. This is at the base of the neck area. At first I thought of keeping it smooth like a catfish's skin. Then I thought about making some gills. I didn't like where that was going, so I just carved out the bulk of the shapes. I liked how that looked (a purely random thing occurring here). So I built up some "ribs", then dug out some smaller shapes. I'm not sure WHAT they are now...could be gills...could be land-lungs...could be something that flares out when the monster is mad!
I made the teeth from "firm" Sculpy (lower part of the photo), and also the giant "barbs" for the spine. I have wire inside the longer spike bits for extra support.
Below are images of the teeth and spikes added, replacing the rougher version of those parts. The shiny gloss to the sculpture is from oder-less paint thinner which helps "melt" the surfaces a bit, and blends the forms to a smoother finish. I used ball bearings for the eyes.
Here is part of the painting process. I gave everything a coat of green acrylic first...then gave it a wash of thinned down black (so it would sink into the crevices of the detail). Then I started glazing and dry-brushing with the colors I wanted. I did another wash of blue on top...and repeated these steps multiple times. The shot on the lower right is where I ended up. I painted it all with a "high gloss" acrylic varnish, since this needed to look "wet" from the ocean.
Here are some views of the final Sea Monster!
That's it for this post. I'll be making more of these from time to time, for sure!
Wow! That's great Warren. I'm in awe of your sculpting ability. I am a 2-D kinda girl...my projects start to fall apart if I go 3-D. Your monster is great :)
ReplyDeleteThanks for the kind words! It's interesting to me...I have a lot of artist friends who say they have troubles with 3D, and yet do remarkable things in 2D that LOOK 3D. But you SEW...that's in 3D!
ReplyDeleteGlad you like giant monsters, too...coming to a drive-in near you!! :)
What colorful creatures. They could have been like that, but most folks wouldn't think so. Still wouldn't want to meet one on the way to the grocery store! Mom
ReplyDeleteI think humans would be like the grocery store for THESE guys. I figured they could be brighter colors like many animals are. If they're so gigantic, it's not like trying to hide would do them much good!
ReplyDeleteI saw the Pacific Rim a couple of days ago and now I can understand how fascinating those gargantuan creatures can be. BTW nice sea Kaiju! Can we expect Jaeger Mech too? Not sculpting one would be unfair... lol
ReplyDeleteDice...I would probably not hold your breathe waiting for me to sculpt a Jaeger Mech...too many machine parts that are much more difficult to sculpt with precision! Monster bumps, wrinkles and teeth are more "fun"! Thanks for following the blog!
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