Hi there! Welcome back to my blog. It has been quite a while since I have posted and that's because I have been busy sculpting the rhino prosthetics, which you will find out about in this blog.
A YouTube video (Figure 1) uploaded by Stuart Bray (2011) was followed in the beginning stages of this sculpt: he says to pencil in where the sculpt is going to finish (seen in Figure 2). If the wrinkles are needing to be preserved, then to draw in the wrinkles at this stage. For the rhino prosthetic, it is going to be full of wrinkles so the wrinkles were then drawn on to the face cast.
Figure 1: Prosthetic Sculpting Tutorial (Bray, 2011)
Figures 2 & 3: Beginning of Sculpt (O'Connor, 2021).
Bray (2011) also goes on to add little sausage shaped clay to build up around where the wrinkles were going to be. A bit of clay was placed on one side of the pencil line, and another was placed on the other side, so the part where the two bits of clay met together was going to be where the wrinkle was going to be.This had to be done carefully and made quite thin so the wrinkles looked realistic and apart of the face, rather than looking like they had just been stuck on (see Figure 2). These wrinkles were then blended using together using the pressure of a thumb, and then using a thin metal tool, the wrinkle lines were carved out. The harsh edges were then shaved away on either side using the same metal tool, which created a nice blend rather than harsh edges.
TOP TIP: Bray (2011) says to do one side and then do the other side, he says not to let the other side get too far behind! This will keep work even and symmetrical.
Once the wrinkles had been shaped and carved out, white spirit was used to smooth out the edges and smooth out any unwanted lumps and bumps in the sculpt. White spirit is very effective because it essentially dissolves the clay. Just be careful not to go too heavy handed with this though, as it is a strong material and can take more product away than intended. The white spirit did a very good job and smoothing everything out, and to make the sculpt more realistic the wrinkles were squished together to make them look more like they were folding on each other. Figure 3 shows the before and after of shaping and blending the wrinkles.
Figures 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11 & 12: The Sculpting Process (O'Connor, 2021).
Both eye areas were completed, so the next step was to create the rhino nose and forehead horns. Typically rhinos have 2 horns, and the bigger horn is usually the one on the end of their noses. The horns were very simple to create and did not take much time to construct. The shape of the nose, however, took a couple of tries to get right. Originally the nose was quite flat and round (Figures 4, 5 & 6 show this). When looking back at images of rhinos it became clear that their noses are quite square and most definitely not round. The nose was then revisited and squared off making it more upright and pointed out and overall making it look more like a rhino nose.
Once the nose had been created, the face looked quite bare compared to the eyes. It did not look like a finished piece of work, so the decision to add more wrinkles down on to the cheeks and more on the forehead was made. In doing so, the whole piece came together and looked more visually pleasing. Again, once these wrinkles had been blended and smoothed, the chin looked very empty. There was a worry that if wrinkles were added to the chin then the sculpt would look like a mask and not part of the face. The chin piece was trialled but actually worked well and made the look cohesive. The same method for creating all of the wrinkles was used all over the face.
No textures or big details were added to the sculpt just yet, so the sculpt was completed to about 90%. This is because the textures get added once the sculpt has been floated off. Because the sculpt was a full face sculpt, it needed to be cut to identify what bit is going to be which piece. The sculpt was cut, which will create 5 prosthetic pieces - the nose, the forehead, the chin and 2 cheek pieces (Figure 13).
Floating Off
Figure 14 shows the sculpt being left underwater for the floating off stage.
The sculpt was now ready to be floated off. Because a layer of separator was applied before the sculpt was made, the sculpt should come loose quite easily because the separator dissolves (Neill's Materials, 2021).
The sculpt had been left in water for 1 week, but this was just due to lesson times being 1 week apart. Normally, a sculpt should be under water for at least 24 hours to give the separator plenty of time to dissolve.
Once the sculpt had been floated off, a metal tool was used to try and pick up the edges of the sculpt to get it away from the core.
Lots of patience and care was needed during this stage because the sculpt was so thin and fragile that any wrong move could have torn or ripped it completely.
All of the pieces came off well. The edges were quite rough, but this was expected as the sculpt had just been scraped. There were some areas of the sculpt that had little bits of clay missing from the centre, but this could get fixed in the next stages where the sculpt gets finished completely. Figure 15 shows the full sculpt off of the core.
Thank you for reading this week's blog!
Next week we will be making the positive core, ready for finishing off the sculpts!
See you then,
Alysha:)
Reference List:
Neill's Materials. (2021) Separator [Online]. Available at https://www.neillsmaterials.co.uk/product/separator/(Accessed 10 November 2021).
O'Connor, A. (2021) Beginning of Sculpt [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2021) The Sculpting Process [Images]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Cutting the Sculpt [Image]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Sculpt Floating Off [Image]. York.
O'Connor, A. (2022) Sculpt Off of the Core [Image]. York.
Prosthetic Sculpting Tutorial Video Part 1: blocking out (2011) YouTube video, added by Stuart Bray [Online]. Available at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=66V7egZo308 (Accessed 18 November 2021).
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