Sculpt Along #5- New Year, New Sculpting!

[Chrispy]

Previous months can be found here:

#1) September 2013 (Vampire Hunter):
#2) October 2013 (Halloween):
#3) November 2013 (Animated Characters)
#4)Festive Sculpt-Along

Rules:

• The owner of the current months thread will choose the owner of the next months thread from the list of participating members. This will be revealed in the topic intro;
• Anyone can participate and at any point of the month. On the last day of the month we have to post a photo of our efforts, finished or otherwise!
• If you are unable to participate in any particular month, by all means post a link to anything you have been sculpting. We are after all here to learn from each other!
• Any suggestions for a future months topic can be posted in red text, like this: "My Little Pwny";
• Normal forum rules apply, so play nice children!

And now, the New Year's Sculpt-Along:

[size=+3]Maniacal Menagerie!!​

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Picture this scenario- a mad scientist and/or wizard is conducting his experiments in creating new life, and all he has to work with are animals. He mixes and matches parts to create being out of legend and time.. What strange wonders can come of this?
dun[size=+1]dunn[/size][size=+2]DUNNNN!!![/size]

Okay, now the nitty gritty guidelines- READ CAREFULLY!

• Sculpt parts should be based on real-life animals that exist or have existed at one time.
• No human or anthropomorphic elements- so no Were-animals, centaurs, etc. Apes and Monkeys are perfectly acceptable replacements, though.
• It can be any scale, style or medium
• The amount of mix-up can be extreme (Chimera) or non-existent (Cat)

I'll level with ya- this one can be difficult. But, I always feel the need to push myself and learn from the experience. Plus, you get the chance to make your own monster/ familiar/ weird bobble-head/ whatever. If you're still kinda stumped for inspiration- look at any culture's mythology. It seems universal that monsters are made from an amalgamation of other known beasts throughout the world. Everything from Ahuizotl to Zoog can be found in D&D/ Pathfinder monster indexes under "Magical Animal" to boot!

In other news, no idea who is taking over for February. I nominate: not myself..

 

[Goblinho]

Like it man ^^ might very well try a cheeky wee pegasus. will need to have a good think, also HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!

 

[TrystanGST]

I'm in. It'll give me another chance to try some sculpey sculpting. I may try sculpting and curing in pieces. I don't think trying to do a whole monster in one go is a great idea.

 

[TrystanGST]

And here's the start - Dain is included for scale. He's not part of the plan.

 

[TrystanGST]

I think I'm warming to this whole Sculpey thing. I don't know how well it will work for fine details, but for larger stuff and smooth surfaces, it's really impressing me. The basically unlimited working time allows for endless tweaking.

 

[Chrispy]

My Number 1 problem with Sculpey is getting it to stick to the wire frame. Maybe it's just the Firm Super stuff because it seems less sticky than the regular flesh Super Sculpey seems nice and sticky. Well, I went and did a whole sculpt in a day, and a basic paint job too:

This is Tibbles, Princess Luna's pet possum from the comic book. I sculpted him to Pony size, so not sure of the scale. It was weird not having any armature or solid piece underneath, but it worked out. With some experiments in Sculpey, I've found out some interesting things- a 60 watt bulb is enough to start the baking process, you can boil it and it seems to set up faster than baking (also good if you don't want your pony to melt.) and hot water can be poured onto one side to firm it up while you smooth out the other. I've also learned not to get things too thin, as I've already had some pieces break off while I was trying to sand them down.

 

[moonmin82]

January is going to be a pretty hectic month of sculpting for me, what with finishing a commission sculpt along with 10 personal sculpts for casting in advance of Salute in April... I would provisionally say that I won't have any time to spare. Having said that one weird and wonderful idea did come to mind... It may not meet all of the rules for this month but will be better than nothing! Ooh, actually I now have another idea, which may even (just about) meet the rules... Thank you!

 

[TrystanGST]

More work on the beast. The right side has seen more finessing than the left, and is closer to how it will look. Of course, since it's Sculpey, everything is subject to (and likely will be) changed. Being able to come back, even a day or two later, and still be able to move and shape things is awesome. I'll be keen to see what I can do with Sculpey at the smaller scales when this is done - if fine detail can be attained without constantly having to worry about smooshing or smashing it.

 

[Konkoktor]

Sounds like a fun challange. A question about rules. Can animals be resized? Putting a huge parrot head (the size of a horse head) on a horse for example. Or giant spiderlegs on something. Or maybe a tiny elephant head on an ant. You get my point I think.

 

[Chrispy]

Sounds like a fun challange. A question about rules. Can animals be resized? Putting a huge parrot head (the size of a horse head) on a horse for example. Or giant spiderlegs on something. Or maybe a tiny elephant head on an ant. You get my point I think.

Yes this is fine, and encouraged!

 

[Konkoktor]

Awesome. That leaves room for even more crazyness. Like an army of eleph-ants. (Feel free to steal the concept. I will try to concoct something even better.)

 

[TrystanGST]

Some work. I did note that fresh sculpey doesn't like to stick to baked sculpey. So there's that.

 

[Konkoktor]

I finally decided on a concept to bring to life. Why did it take so long to decide? Well, there are just to many awesome animalparts. Maybe i need to loose some sanity and just throw them together.