Clay Cartoon Figurine

I've been doing a few cartoon style illustrations recently and got the idea to try making a 3D figure in the same style. As I've done enough self portraits over the years I decided to make a miniature version of my boyfriend.

I got my air dry clay out and starting moulding but quickly discovered that having a sketch of the figure would help me keep everything the right size. When I've made figures in the past out of Sculpey I've constructed a wire skeleton first, but as this model would be pretty bulky in comparison the only structural element I added was a bit of a wooden skewer through the neck and down one leg to put the head on.

Once I'd added all the details I left my model overnight to dry out. As it's been particularly hot here in England recently I thought I might have a few issues with cracking which can happen when clay dries out too quickly. When I went back to the model I found the head had detached from the neck. Lucky I put that wooden skewer in!

To fix this, I cut the skewer down so the head would touch the neck again and used watered down clay to glue it together.

To paint the figure I first covered it in a coat of white primer...

... and I painted it with acrylics.

And now I have a little craft room companion!

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Deadpool Figurine

I really enjoyed making my Groot figures so I decided to make some more characters. Since the original template for the wire armature is for a person I thought I'd do a human figure and since Deadpool is a favourite in my house I gave him a go,

This is the wire armature made using this method. I covered it in Sculpey and started modelling. It was a lot trickier to get a good shape compared with making the Groots. In fact I thought about giving up about 5 times in the first 15 minutes, but I perservered!

 It was quite fiddly with all the different straps and pouches, and one of his guns broke and had to be glued back together. But in spite of that I think the finished product looks pretty cool.

 

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Scale Model Making

As you may have gathered from previous posts, I recently completed a scale model making short course at Central Saint Martins.

It was really good; the class size was small so we got a lot of attention from the tutor (who is the author of the book I mention way back here), I learnt a lot of new techniques, and one of the guys on the course brought in cakes his wife had made for us! 

The best thing I made was this brick wall.

It's made from Kapa-line foamboard. I've tried a few different methods of making bricks before (here, here and here) but this is by far the easiest and most effective.

As it's foam you can just push into with a pencil and make marks. I also used a wire brush to texture the surface.

On the other side we made an interior wall including door and window frames.

I haven't finished wallpapering it yet, but you get the idea.

This was all made with PVC sheets, another material I'd never used before.

We also had a go at making figures and trees (both unfinished, obvs).

The figure is made of Sculpey around a wire armature.

The tree is made from wire mesh, another kind of foam, and eggshells!

And then there's these chairs that I love.

The larger one is made of the kapa-line foam and has been treated with resin to make it more durable.

I could paint it, but I quite like it the way it is.

The small chair is made of stencil card.

They're both stuck together with super glue (the cheap stuff from Poundland is just as good as the expensive stuff) and yes I almost stuck my fingers together/to my work many times.

It was a great course and I think my art work is really going to benefit from it.