hi, someone who adores your sculpting work here- i saw your sculpture of coa and i was just stunned immediately.
do you have any examples or explanations as to how your process goes? i'm very curious about how things are built up and have honestly wanted to potentially look at sculpting a little bit myself :] your stuff is stunning <3
Ah, thank you! Glad my work pleases. This is rather a lot of info, so take from it what you will -
It really depends on the size and complexity of what you're sculpting. For really little things (below a few centimeters in depth/width) you can just shape them out of the clay and let them dry like that before firing them. Once you get past that you have to hollow them (pieces like that slugcat I did- it was small enough to not need an armature for support). When that happens, I finish it as is, then cut it open and scoop out a lot of clay on the inside before closing it up again. The sculpting process can be anywhere from a few days to several months to be completed, depending on the size and complexity of the piece.
I also let larger sculptures dry out for an extended period, rather than just taking off the plastic covering all at once- that can make them crack, even if they're already "leather-hard". Once I feel like it's done (I say this as if it's easy- I always have to force myself to walk away from a piece), I'll start covering it loosely and allow myself to do a few more refinements here and there as it dries out fully.
For larger pieces, like this Coa and the bust I did before, I start with a simple armature- in this case, a bit of plywood with a rod stuck through it vertically with some support- and wrap that tightly with a bit of newspaper bound with scotch tape or twine. That'll fill out a lot of the space inside, and make hollowing much easier later. From there I just build up the clay around the outside of that. Once the sculpture's done, I do any hollowing I have to- for this one, it was just a bit inside the head/behind the hair- then just lift it off the armature and let it dry. Once you fire it in a kiln, the newspaper will just burn away harmlessly.
(Some people like to build stuff up with coils of clay, like with pottery, but I don't like that much- it's just not as stable and you get far less control in my experience. I prefer to just hollow it afterwards if I have to.)
So, that's my general process. This is only for water-based clay, of course, which is 95% of what I use- sometimes I'll add on details and stuff later using Apoxie (a two-part epoxy sculpting blend good for when you want to make a small detail that won't work well in water-based clay), and different clay bodies like that behave quite differently. But that's another topic.
Regardless- delighted to hear that you're interested in sculpting. Give it a go! That's all it took to get me started.
